Bex Penbrook's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Bex left the mill before dawn, the locked door still sealed behind its wardrobe. She'd made it halfway back to her buggy when the whistle came—three short chirps, then two long. Her chest went cold. That pattern wasn't random. She found the source near a cluster of rocks: a small whistle carved with bird shapes, still warm from someone's pocket. Next to it sat a stone marked with symbols she recognized from the mill lock—a sun crossed out, a moon circled. Someone knew she'd been here. Someone needed her attention badly enough to leave a trail. Bex scanned the treeline and spotted tire tracks leading north, fresh enough that dust still hung in the air. She followed the tracks for two miles before she saw the buggy pulled off the road, its cargo compartment torn open and papers scattered across the ground. A figure crouched beside it, stuffing books into a sack with shaking hands. Bex recognized the collector's handwriting on one of the loose pages. This person had been at the elm tree cache—had one of the other letters. The figure looked up and froze. Blood streaked their sleeve. Their eyes went wide when they saw Bex's mechanical brace. Bex made the choice in seconds. She couldn't open the mill cache alone, and this person was bleeding and panicked with Purifiers maybe hours behind them. She pulled a roll of bandage from her pack and tossed it. The other salvager caught it, still wary, but their shoulders dropped half an inch. Bex nodded back toward the mill. "You have the second key?" The salvager's hand went to their pocket, protective, then slowly pulled out a crescent moon key identical to hers. Bex felt the mill cache slip further from her control, but she'd traded it for something the collector had been building all along—a network that couldn't work alone. "Then we go back together, or we both lose it."