Vane's five days had run out while they were west.
They learned it at the gate, before the horses were even unsaddled. Dana's face went grey as the rider from the allied homestead told it: Warden blacks at dawn, two valleys over. They hadn't burned the place. They'd lined up the food stores and taken half, and left a message nailed to the meeting hall door.
The clock ran out.
"They're collecting," Hale said quietly. "The difference. Like she promised."
Maria read the rider's report twice. The rider was young — nineteen, maybe — with dust in his hair and a bandage on his hand he kept forgetting about.
"They didn't hurt anyone," the rider said. "That was the worst part. They were — polite. Like it was business." He swallowed. "They said to tell you the next collection won't be food."
Park was on his feet before Maria could speak. "We should have — if we'd just —"
"Sit down, Park." Maria's voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. "We don't trade children. Not for food, not for peace, not for anything. That was the vote. It stands." She looked around the room. "Now we make them regret the math."
Then she called the war council.
Sam met Wren in the clinic doorway, and Ethan watched it happen from the hall.
Sam was taller, older by two years, Ellie's scarf knotted at his throat like a badge of office. Wren was small and new and still flinching at loud noises. Sam looked at her for a long moment — at the mark on her forearm, at Marlene's jacket hanging off her shoulders — and then he stepped aside and held the door open.
"The walls face outward," he told her, very seriously. "That means they keep things out. Not in."
Wren studied him. Then she walked through the door.
Ethan felt Ellie's shoulder press against his, brief. "He's going to be okay," she said quietly. "Both of them."
"Yeah," Ethan said. And for a second, with the war council waiting and the mountain out west, he let himself believe it.
The map covered Maria's whole table — Marlene's red marks, Hale's black ones, and now Ethan's, in pencil, hesitant.
"Greyreach Central," Marlene said. "Under the mountain. One main entrance — fortified, mined, watched. You don't knock on that door."
"What do we know about the inside?" Dana asked. "Beyond Ethan's pieces."
"Outer ring: barracks, motor pool, supply — that's what the diversion hits." Marlene's finger traced the map. "Inner ring: labs, cold storage, the workup wing. We've never been past the outer ring. Nobody has, except —" she glanced at Ethan, "— the ones they carried in."
"And Vane?" Joel asked. "She there?"
"She landed at Kestrel, not Central." Marlene's mouth thinned. "She runs it from a distance. Clean hands."
"Service tunnels," Hale said. "Every mountain facility has them. Ventilation, water, power."
"Two," Marlene said. "North tunnel's collapsed — we tried it in '35. South tunnel's service access, maintenance crews, supply carts." She looked at Ethan. "Your mother walked me out of a place like this with a maintenance badge."
Ethan stared at his pencil marks. Fragments, that was all he had — a child's memories, nine years old and buried deep. But they were his.
"The workup wing," he said slowly. "It smelled like cold metal. There's a corridor with a blue stripe on the floor — they painted it so the kids would follow it." His voice dropped. "I followed it. I was holding someone's hand. I don't —" He stopped, jaw working. "I can't remember whose. That's the worst part. I can't remember whose hand."
Ellie's hand found the back of his chair. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to.
"The vents are big enough to crawl," Ethan said, steadier. "I know. I did."
The room was very quiet.
"That's where 12-K will be," Marlene said. "Workup wing, isolation ward. If we're going in, that's the target."
"Two prongs," Hale said, all business. "Marlene's people hit the outer supply depot at dawn — draw the garrison out. Infiltration team goes through the south tunnel while they're looking the wrong way. In, get the kid, get anything on the parents, get out."
"Team?" Maria asked.
"Hale. Marlene. Joel." Hale paused. "And Ethan. He's the only one who's been inside."
"No." Maria's voice was flat. "We agreed. No children as soldiers."
"He's not going as a soldier," Joel said quietly. "He's going as the map." He looked at Ethan. "You don't carry a rifle in there, kid. You carry the rest of us."
Ethan met Maria's eyes. "It's my parents in there. Maybe. And it's a kid on a table in eight days." He paused. "You said Jackson doesn't trade people. I'm not asking to be traded. I'm asking to go get them."
Maria looked at him for a long moment. Then at Marlene. Then at the map, at the red marks and the black ones and the hesitant pencil.
"Overwatch," she said finally. "Ellie goes as spotter, same as always. Dana runs the tunnel mouth. Nobody goes past the workup wing. And if it goes bad —" she looked at Hale, "— you get my people out. All of them."
"All of them," Hale agreed.
Petra cleared her throat. "Hollow Creek. The other kid."
A beat. The forgotten thread, surfacing.
"Small team," Marlene said. "Fast. Petra, two riders. In and out — the relay's soft, same as the station was." She looked at Petra. "You leave tonight."
Petra nodded, already moving.
Ethan found Joel on the wall walk after, looking west. The mountain was out there somewhere, past the dark — invisible, but Ethan could feel it, the way you feel a toothache.
"Eight days," Joel said.
"Seven, now. We burned one getting home."
Joel was quiet. Then: "You sure about this? Going back in there?"
Ethan thought about the blue stripe on the floor. About following it, small, holding someone's hand — whose? He couldn't remember. That was the worst part. He couldn't remember whose hand.
"No," he said honestly. "But I'm going anyway."
Joel's hand landed on his shoulder — heavy, brief, gone. The post-ch.38 language. It said everything.
Below them, Jackson was lighting its lamps one by one. In the clinic, two kids were sleeping — one with a scarf, one with a jacket — neither of them in a cold room.
"Get some sleep, kid," Joel said. "We leave in two days."