He looks down at me. “I know he’s not your brother, Annah.”

I jump to my feet and start walking toward the darkness swallowing the tunnel at the end of the subway platform. No one’s supposed to know Elias isn’t my brother. No one could know that unless they were from our village or one of us told them. And we vowed to never tell. It’s just easier to let people believe what they want and it makes his protection of me more secure.

I clear my throat but the words feel trapped. How does he know he’s not my brother? What has Elias told him about me? What else does he know? What was he doing with my sister? Where’s Elias and why hasn’t he come back? I feel like Catcher’s playing some sort of game with me and I have no idea what the rules are.

Frustration makes my shoulders tense and my head throb. I stop at the edge of the platform, staring out into the dark that eats the light from the fire behind me. It’s colder away from the flames, the last trace of warmth leaching quickly from my clothes as the chill attacks my skin through seams and holes. I pull my coat tighter around me. It’s easier to talk when I don’t have to see Catcher’s face. When I don’t have to keep him from seeing the uncertainty in mine.

I don’t like others knowing my business, especially strangers—I like to be the one who controls what people get to know about me and when.

My stomach growls. “We should go,” I tell him. “Start figuring out a way to find my sister.” It’s well known the underground tunnels aren’t safe. When the Unconsecrated don’t sense a living human nearby they collapse, almost like an insect going dormant, waiting for food and the ability to infect. Everyone knows there are pockets of plague rats down here waiting for someone to stumble upon them.

For as long as I’ve lived in the City I’ve heard the rumors of tunnels so deep that the dead lie asleep, waiting for the barest scent of living flesh to wake them and cause a surge to the surface.

Every few years there’s a fresh outbreak in the Dark City, half the time rumored to have started in the Neverlands and the other half begun underground. I’m not one to test the theories. It might not be too safe up on the streets but at least there’s light and air—not walls curling around you like a coffin.

“These the same stairs we came down?” I ask, moving toward them. Catcher nods but doesn’t follow. I turn; he can only see my profile of clean smooth skin. I think about him on the bridge with Abigail—the way she saved his life.

“Do I look like her?” I ask, the words slipping out before I can stop them. My fingers clench around the ragged hem of my coat. I can’t resist knowing. “Like my sister,” I add, as if he didn’t understand.