Thorns by Kate Avery Ellison Page A

toward the Assembly Hall.
    I was rooted to the ground. My righteous anger blazed inside me like a white-hot flame. “So you’re just going to do nothing? Sit back and let them stomp all over us like this?”
    Ann’s shoulders scrunched up, and she swung back around. Her eyes were two shards of blazing color in her white face. “What can I do? What can any of us do? They are bigger and stronger, and they have guns. We are helpless against them.”
    I let my breath out in a huff. I couldn’t tell her anything about the Thorns, and the thought dug into me like Watcher claws. I wanted to scream with frustration.
    “Come on,” she said, softening. She grabbed my sleeve and tugged me down an alley between two stone shops with icicles hanging from their roofs. “You can’t let them see you like this.”
    I took a deep breath. My frustration hissed in my veins like steam, but I struggled to suppress it. She was right. I had to be calm. What was happening to me? I used to be so unemotional, so strong and hard and ruthless in my decisions. Now I felt like a pot about to boil over, my emotions and feelings in constant turmoil, barely contained. Was this what love had done to me? Had my feelings for the Farther begun an infection of my emotions?
    “I’m sorry,” I breathed. “You’re right. That was stupid of me.”
    “Very stupid,” Ann agreed, but I heard the forgiveness in her voice.
    “Ann? Lia?”
    We both turned at the softly uttered exclamation and saw a girl with wispy brown curls and big gray eyes staring at us from the end of the alley. I recognized her—one of Everiss’s younger sisters, Jullia. Her chapped, red fingers matched the skin around her eyes. A ragged scarf clung to her neck, the ends blowing in the wind, and she plucked at it nervously.
    “Jullia,” Ann said, giving me a quick glance that was clearly an order to compose myself. I swallowed hard and did my best to comply as we stepped forward, our feet crunching against the sludgy snow that lined the edges of the alley. Since when had Ann become the strong one?
    Jullia searched our faces for any signs of condemnation, and when she found none, her shoulders relaxed. A tired smile hovered at the edges of her mouth but never quite landed. “It’s good to see a familiar face,” she said with a note of exhaustion in her tone.
    We murmured answers to her questions, and I tried to act as though I hadn’t noticed we were standing in an alley whispering.
    “How’s your father?” Ann asked.
    Jullia’s face crumpled. “He is still a prisoner.” She pointed at the end of the alley. “We’re staying with the Tanners temporarily. Ma goes to see the Elders every day, hoping to find some way to have him released.”
    Tannin racks filled the small courtyard behind her. A bubbling pot sat over a fire in the middle of the yard, steam spilling from the top. The liquid inside churned thick and dark as blood. The air smelled like charcoal and wet wool. A plume of smoke smudged the sky above our heads and blocked the sun.
    “Dye?” I murmured aloud, surprised. With Edmond Dyer in prison, was his family still expected to keep the trade?
    “We still have to make our quota if we want supplies,” Jullia explained, noticing my look. “Even without Father here to help, the numbers haven’t changed...” Her voice wobbled, and she looked away. When she turned her face back, her eyes were red but her face was composed. “It’s hard,” she finished.
    My fingers knotted into fists. More injustice, this time from the Elders. They could hardly blame the Farthers for such tyranny. What was happening to our village? Had everyone gone mad?
    Ann bit her lip as she took in the sight of the makeshift dye supplies and Jullia’s exhausted expression. “Is Everiss here now?”
    Jullia shook her head, and the curls that framed her cheeks shivered at the movement. “She’s been sneaking away whenever she thinks I won’t notice. I wonder if she’s trying to see