“Explain what? That you were tracking me? That you plan to drag me back to the General?”

“No!” he insists. Then, hurriedly, he adds, “He paused the executions.”

“I already knew that.”

He swallows, fear in his eyes. He thought this would buy him time or sympathies.

“We should just kill him now,” Asher says. “You can’t trust a Loyalist, especially not one of the Four.”

“Not yet.” I give Reed a pointed glare. “Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Does the General know you’ve been following me?”

“Yes. I sent word that I’d stay behind. But it’s not what you think. It’s—Don’t!” Pure terror flickers in his eyes as I press down on the blade. The bird thrashes beneath me. I can feel her body swell and deflate beneath my boot, breathing uneasily, desperate to flee.

“Check his pockets, his belt,” I say to Harlie and Asher. “He’ll have a leather pouch.”

“He’s got three,” Harlie says, holding them up. “Only one’s full.”

“Empty it. What’s inside?”

Harlie turns the pouch over, and a bunch of wooden tiles fall out. They’re small, about the size of my thumbnail, and marks are burned into their faces. Dashes and arrows, mostly. And a few other symbols I don’t understand.

“What do these mean?” I ask Reed.

“It’s how we communicate. If I planned on returning to Bedrock in three days, I’d send the tile with the symbol for homecoming and the tile with three dashes. If I needed aid, I could send the tile with the symbol for aid and then my location.”

“Location how?” I ask.

“Show us,” Asher nudges him with his foot.

Wrists still bound, Reed extends his hands and selects a few tiles. On one, I can make out the symbol that graces Powder Town’s flags. The next tile has an arrow, and four others are identical, each with five dashes on their face.

“Twenty clicks north of Powder Town,” Reed says, nodding to his selected tiles.

“But that arrow could point any direction,” I say.

“There’s a dot on all the tiles that have arrows. When you read them, the dot always goes on the bottom. That’s how you know the right heading.”

I can see it now, a small dot burned into the tile’s face. The arrow points up from the dot. On the other unused tiles I can easily discern additional directions. West. Southeast. Northwest. It’s genius, this method of communicating. Simple but effective.

And terrifying.

My heartbeat ratchets up in my chest as I realize how close Reed had been to sending a message to the General. If Asher’s aim had been off, if he hadn’t struck the bird . . .

“He was about to send a message for help,” I say, glancing between Reed and his falcon.

“No, I wasn’t. If you just let me explain.”