Taken (Erin Bowman)

questions for him—about what’s happened since he’s been here, about the letter he kept from me—but in this moment, all I can do is enjoy his reaction.
    “Hey, Blaine,” a voice calls out behind him. “Where are your manners? Aren’t you going to introduce us to your kid brother?”
    Kid brother. No one else knows we’re twins.
    Blaine snaps back to reality. “Septum, it’s not like you actually need to be introduced.”
    I crane my neck around Blaine, and there’s Septum Tate, exactly how he looked a few months ago when he was Heisted, with the exception of his now short hair.
    “Hey, Gray.” Septum grins at me through a mouthful of bread. Behind him, Craw Phoenix motions his fork at me in a friendly gesture. My mouth falls open.
    “You guys are here, too?” I gasp. Frank had told me as much, but it’s still hard to believe.
    “Everyone’s here,” Craw says. Dimples appear in his cheeks as he smiles. “Except the ones that have died in service.” Behind him, I see a few other faces I recognize, and beyond those, a dozen more.
    “Service?”
    “Frank’s got a lot on his plate,” Blaine says. “We’ve been helping the Order with smaller tasks as he fights the larger ones.”
    “Such as?”
    Septum takes a huge bite of his bread and then talks, mouth full and words garbled. “Like water distribution or scouting missions.”
    “And people die from that?”
    “Not water distribution,” Blaine clarifies. “But the scouting missions have gotten a little risky lately. There’s talk that Harvey’s gaining followers. Rebels. Here, in AmEast.”
    So they know. They know everything.
    “Vermin,” Craw mutters, and spits on his empty plate. “That man is no good.”
    “You mean varmint,” Septum says. “Wild and sly and sneaky.”
    “No, I mean vermin. Like the pest, the worm, the rodent.”
    Septum screws up his face. “Wait, maybe those words mean the same thing.”
    “Of course they don’t mean the same thing,” Craw says, rolling his eyes. “Being sly is actually a little bit of a compliment. I’m talking about pure filth. Harvey. Vermin.”
    As they continue to argue, Blaine grabs my arm and says, “Come on. We need to talk.”
    He ushers me from the table and we leave the dining hall through a side door that opens into a small, circular courtyard surrounded by the tall walls of Union Central. The morning air is still cool and damp and the place is deserted. I’m finally starting to feel the side effects of fatigue. It was late when I left Claysoot—nearly dawn—and I still have not slept.
    “That was really stupid, Gray.”
    I’m surprised to hear anger in his voice. “Stupid?”
    “Climbing.” He folds his hands across his chest and gives me a disappointed big brother look. “Do you know how lucky you are that the Order managed to find you? Save you? Why’d you do it?”
    All the anger and betrayal and hurt I’d felt when I first discovered Ma’s note comes surging back.
    “I climbed because of you, Blaine,” I snap. “I did it because you lied to me and you kept the truth from me. Maybe if you and Ma trusted me enough to be honest, I wouldn’t have gone searching for answers myself.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “The fact that we’re twins, Blaine. You and me. Born on the same, exact day.” I pull Ma’s note from my pants pocket and throw it at him. “Next time you don’t want me discovering something, you should burn your evidence.”
    He smooths out the letter and his eyes grow heavy as he recognizes it. When he speaks again, he sounds embarrassed. “And you pieced it together? This page doesn’t even admit anything.”
    “Well, Ma was right about one thing—I did go looking for answers. Carter’s records, her private ones, had an interesting note claiming that you and I are twins, born the very same day back in year twenty-nine.”
    “You weren’t supposed to know,” he says quietly.
    “What was on the second page, Blaine?”
    “I’m sorry, Gray. I didn’t think it would matter. Ma . . . I thought she was crazy. She gave me that letter and I didn’t want to disgrace her memory by betraying her trust. But I swear I thought you’d be Heisted with me. I always thought it would be the two of us.”
    The memory flashes before my eyes. How Blaine had winked at me, said we’d see each other again soon. Inside I am burning, angry and hurt, and yet I cannot raise my voice. I slowly repeat myself. “Blaine, what was on the