We had to move.

  “Kill them.” I nodded at Fyga.

  That was all the permission she needed. The men holding the Touched down scooted back by how fast she pulled her sword out and sliced off the Touched’s head.

  She walked over to the one I’d knocked unconscious and finished him off, then started walking towards Theo.

  “Please.” Mayor Brimly stepped in her path. “Don't take my son.”

  “Your son died the moment he made a deal with the Touched.” She touched the tip of her yellow blade against the mayor’s chest. “I could kill you first if you’d rather.”

  “Please…” He looked at me. Tears were running down his face. “Please spare him.” His eyes widened. “What if he told you everything you wanted to know about the Touched?”

  I looked over at the restrained man. The entitled jerk was shaking his head in agreement so hard it was making my neck hurt.

  “I don’t know how we can restrain him.” I sighed. “And before you ask, I’m not sure I can trust him to not stab me in the back if he switched sides so fast.”

  “We have shackles!” The mayor sidestepped to stay in front of Fyga.

  A low growl sounded from the other side of the gate and Zombies started pouring into the street.

  “Fine! Fyga, I need you!” I knew I’d regret it later, but my kill-happy companion was going to have to kill the mayor to kill Theo and I doubted I’d get much help out of the guards if we killed both the guard captain and the mayor.

  Fyga pointed her sword at the prone Touched. “Get him out of here.”

  The ice restraints shattered, letting the younger Brimly begin to crawl away.

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  “Thank you! Thank you!” The Mayor tried to grab Fyga’s hand, but she shrugged him off.

  “Just go make sure that kid of yours stays out of trouble.” She turned to look at the growing horde outside the gate. “What are we going to do about that?”

  I called fire into my hands. “I’m going to light them up and hope that they can’t make it through the gate.” I saw the mayor running back into camp out of the corner of my eye. “Can you cover me if the Touched decides to show up?”

  “Sure, but there’s no way that we’re going to survive that.” She pointed at the growling group on the other side of the barrier. “Even if we had the others, there’s hundreds.”

  “Then we’ll have to try another plan.” There was another idea that had been forming in the back of my head, but it was a really bad one.

  I lowered my voice. “We’ve got to get as many people as we can to the docks. Are there any other gates out of here?”

  The blue-eyed woman shrugged. “I’ve been watching you, not exploring.”

  I nodded at the guards.

  “Oh!” She smirked and hurried over to them. I could hear her whispering, but that was it. Hopefully if the Touched was watching that’s all they’d see as well.

  I knew that I was nowhere close to my full strength and the fight just a few minutes ago hadn't helped. Against twenty Zombies, I could have made a difference, but this many was much more than what the Touched needed to use in order to overwhelm us. There was something else going on. If they’d had this many Zombies, then they could have overwhelmed Val and Eveth a long time ago. That would have been the smart thing to do unless that wasn’t their goal.

  I tried to think about what the Touched could possibly want, but I didn’t have to think too hard. The one Touched had already told me, I just hadn’t thought it was credible.

  They wanted to take out the island.

  Turning most of the city into Zombies, then conscripting all the willing survivors into Touched would explain why the Zombies hadn’t attacked yet and why they hadn’t taken out Val and Eveth. The two were bringing survivors back to the garden sector, which saved them the trouble of having to round everyone up. There was also another reason for leaving my companions alive until after everyone had been gathered up.

  Proof of concept.

  Nothing would sell their case better than proving that they could kill a Bokor. Once they did that, I had a feeling that a lot more people would willingly join. I wasn’t sure how many Touched there were already in the sector with me, but given the height of the wall, it wouldn’t be hard for a Touched to make a ramp that would allow the Zombies to just walk over the six-foot high wall. We were too exposed, so I needed to try to stall while I thought of a way out.

  I snuffed out the fire in my hand and sheathed my sword. I held my palms up as I faced the gate.

  “You might as well come out!” I hoped the Touched was listening. “So we can talk terms for our surrender.”

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