I scowl affectionately at her. “We got lost.”

  Adena winks at me before turning her gaze to Jeran. The Shields nod at each other, an understanding born from a lifetime sworn to protecting each other blazing in their gazes. Jeran lifts his eyebrows slightly at her, and she shakes her head.

  “I’m okay,” she signs to him.

  Then Jeran meets Aramin’s gaze inside the cell. I expect to see Jeran’s fingers dance unconsciously to where the weapons are typically strapped at his belt, the gesture he makes whenever he’s thinking about Aramin. But he just stays frozen.

  For once, Aramin’s expression is not steel. He looks almost hesitant, as if he’s not sure what to say or how to act. The Firstblade to the Strikers, at a loss for words.

  Maybe it’s for the best, because there’s no time for greetings now. As they exchange a silent look, I kneel to the lock and start sliding the knobs carefully.

  As I go, I think of my early days as a soldier. The number of prisoners I’d had to keep in their cells. I remember being on the warfront of Basea the day before we invaded Sur Kama, doing a round through a row of makeshift cages where we were keeping several captured Basean soldiers. One of them had been so young, a wide-eyed boy watching me through the bars. I’d stopped to look at him before Danna Wendrove nudged me away. Don’t touch them, he’d said to me. They’re dirty.

  I’d listened to him. I’d stepped back from his cage and hurried away, my stomach roiling in shame.

  Now I focus on inputting the code. On freeing them.

  “Hurry,” Jeran signs to me.

  My fingers slip on one of the knobs as I go. It resets a few of the others. I curse under my breath as I start over again.

  Jeran glances down the hall, listening carefully for the sounds of the guards returning. Their laughs come from farther down the corridor, but they won’t stay away for long.

  “You try it,” I sign to Jeran in irritation as the knobs slip again.

  Jeran bends down to the lock and begins again, his slender fingers working as rapidly as he can. But he’s less familiar with the way Karensan locks work, and I can see the frustration on him as he puzzles out how to slide one knob after another.

  Inside the door, Adena shifts restlessly. “Can we cut this open?” she signs, glancing at me. Jeran looks up briefly from his work to read her hands. “Your wings work, don’t they?”

  But I shake my head. “Too loud,” I sign back. My blades hitting this kind of steel on the bars would send echoes screaming down the corridor.

  “We can fight the soldiers off,” she signs.

  “Word will get back to Constantine that we were inputting a code,” Jeran signs before looking back down at the lock. “He’ll guess that Talin helped us.”

  At that, Adena’s eyes widen slightly. “Talin helped you get the code?”

  I nod.

  Adena’s hands tighten on the bars. Beside her, Aramin turns to look down the hallway. “The direction of their chatter’s changed,” he signs.

  Aramin’s right; I can hear the shift of their boots on the floor in the distance, know that they’re starting to make their way back here.

  Jeran stands up. “Help me with the last one,” he signs.

  I stoop to look. Damn these confounded designs. I watch as the last knob slips again, resetting the few before it. Jeran grits his teeth.

  I try again. We’re so close. Talin delivered this to us on pain of death, risking her mother for us. We have to get it open.

  And then, at last, the final knob slides into place. There’s a tiny, satisfying click before the lock falls open into my hand. I look up to give Jeran a triumphant grin.

  And that’s when I hear a voice behind us.

  “Red? Is that you?”

  I whirl around to see the wide eyes of a young Karensan guard, his gun in his hand, pointed straight at me. He blinks as he meets my gaze.

  “I—I thought I saw you walking by,” he stammers out.

  Danna. I know him immediately. The boy I’d been on the same patrols with, had been friends with, had served together in Basea right up until the night I’d failed to shoot Talin. The boy who stayed silent when I needed him to speak up for me.

  All this time, I’d been looking out for soldiers who might recognize me, who had served with me—how could I have missed Danna?

  He opens his mouth, sucking in a breath in order to raise the alarm. That’s when I bolt toward him and before he can yell, I clamp a hand hard against his mouth and shove him against the bars of the holding room. He lets out a grunt, his entire body contorting in agony.

  I glance down the hall, momentarily at a loss. The other soldiers may be drunk and listless tonight, but they won’t stay away from their posts forever.

  “Yell,” I hiss at him, “and I will break every bone in your body. I swear it. What are you doing here alone, without the rest of your patrol?”

  He shakes his head, his eyes wide with terror. I stare at him until he looks like he’s calmed down, and then move my fingers slightly so he can choke out a whisper.

  “I just—thought I saw you,” he croaks. “My patrol’s not on rotation yet. I came down here on my own. I—I—”

  I shake my head, furious.

  I can’t set him free. He’ll simply alert everyone else.

  “You know him?” Jeran asks.

  I nod. “I do.”

  Adena slips out from the shadows as she and Aramin step through the open holding room door. She scowls at the soldier before something at his belt catches her eye. Then she stoops down and unhooks a satchel from his side.

  “What is it?” Aramin whispers to her in Maran.

  She opens the sack. “Explosives,” she whispers, nodding at the tiny sticks. “Probably to light the way in the dark. Look at the fuse triggers on them.”

  Then she nods at Jeran. “Give me that lock. If we’re going to get out of here without putting Talin in danger, make them think we did it some other way than using a code.”

  There’s no time to hesitate. Jeran hands the device to Adena, who begins working it into the lock. Farther down the hall come peals of laughter from a group of soldiers. They are slowly making their way over here.

  I look back at Danna. What am I going to do with him? He’s crying now, his sobs muffled behind my hand, tears streaming silently down his cheeks. All I see is him as a young boy, with those gangly limbs and comically large ears, asking me if I’d ever visited Basea before.

  But I’d also seen him drag a Basean boy out of his home during that invasion and shoot him dead. I’d followed after him when he told me to leave that other boy in his cage.

  The other voice in me rises.

  You know he can’t live. You have to kill him.

  Beside us, Adena finishes inserting the device and pulls the fuse trigger. A blinding light glows red and white inside the lock, and even half a dozen feet away, I feel the heat of it. Jeran backs away too. Beside us, Aramin shifts to a fighting stance.

  Then a new thought occurs to me.

  I turn back to Danna. “The east and southeast city patrols have been missing from the festivities,” I whisper to him. “Do you know where they are?”

  At that, Danna’s eyes widen and he shakes his head vigorously.

  I grit my teeth. Talin’s tortured expression comes back to me now. I remember our stolen kiss, the desperate need I have to see her again. “Tell me again,” I snap, my voice a low growl. “That you don’t know.” My hand tightens against his mouth, and I know with a terrible certainty that, if I wanted to, I could break off his entire jaw with my unnatural strength.

  Danna trembles under my grip. Finally, the shake of his head changes to a nod. I move my hand slightly for him to gasp out, “Lei works on the east patrol now. Remember Lei?” Another fellow soldier, shipped to Tanapeg instead of Basea last I heard. “She said they’ve been sent to the prison district’s water turbines. She’s been complaining about her double shifts there for the past couple of days.”

  The water turbines. My heart skips. I have a vague recollection of that area inside the prison district, where much of the city’s water power is generated.

  “Why are they there instead of guarding the festival?” I demand. Beside us, the flare burns through the insides of the lock. Jeran looks down the hall in alarm as the sound of soldiers draws nearer.

  Danna starts to cry again. “Please, Red, I didn’t mean anything back when they took you—”

  I don’t have time for this. I tighten my grip against his face again until he squirms in discomfort. “Why are they there?” I repeat.

  “A prisoner,” he gasps out through his sobs as I loosen my fingers slightly. “A prisoner—a new prisoner.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know! The Premier commanded it himself.”

  The Premier commanded it himself.

  That can only mean one person. The Premier must be moving Talin’s mother early.

  “We have to go,” Jeran hisses at me. “Now.”

  I seize Danna by the throat, then unfurl one of my wings with an agonizing scrape. The other voice rises to a fever pitch in my head.

  You have to kill Danna now.

  But I stare at him and cannot bring myself to do it. Every muscle in me screams in protest, and yet all I can see before me is my former patrol mate. I see his parents, with whom I’d shared plenty of dinners. His mother, smiling at me and offering me more food. His father, praising the crisp edges of my ironed uniform while he converses with my own father. His sister, hair braided, running around the table with my own sister.

  The other voice hisses at me.

  He had known your family so well, and yet he knew that when he didn’t speak for you, he would condemn them to punishment.

  Does he remember all of that? Does it haunt him?

  My hand loosens from his mouth in pity. Freed of my grip, he hesitates there like a trapped mouse.

  Then he moves. A dagger is in his hand in an instant. I see it flash in the darkness. My hand comes up as he strikes at me, aiming for my throat.

  But I don’t have to attack him. Without warning, someone’s hands close tight around Danna’s weapon-wielding fist and twists it sharply down. I hear the snap of bone, then the dagger is shoved hard into Danna’s own chest, all the way up to the hilt.

  I look up and find myself staring into Aramin’s dark, glittering eyes as he lets Danna’s limp body slip to the floor.

  “Live a little longer, Red,” Aramin mutters at me, “and you won’t hesitate so long.” He grabs the dagger from Danna’s chest and wipes it against the dead soldier’s clothes, then tucks it securely at his own belt. “Better they find him with a stab wound than a cut from a steel wing, anyway. No one needs to know you’re in the city.”

  I nod silently, but all I can hear is the roar of my own heartbeat in my ears. All I can see is Danna’s vacant gaze, frozen in fear. All I feel is the shame that I couldn’t do it, that Aramin had to do it for me.

  No time for regrets here. No time to mourn.

  So I tear my eyes away from the lifeless face of my former comrade and hurry down the hall with the Strikers.

  28

  TALIN

  The first thing I hear the next day is that General Caitoman has ordered a complete rotation of the Premier’s personal guard. Every soldier is to be replaced.

  The second thing I hear is that they’ve identified the would-be assassin. She turned out to be Maran, a prisoner working on the mayor’s estate. Someone who lost her entire family during the Federation’s final push over our warfront. She had gotten her hands on some ill-fitting Karensan military gear and made it as far as the dance ring before firing her shots toward the Premier.

  “She was never a part of our plans,” Mayor Elland snaps as she paces the lab complex’s panic room in the early morning. Raina and I sit watching her. I am supposedly getting enhancements done here, but instead I continue to take a liquid that will chip away at my link with the Premier. The mayor folds her arms across her chest and turns back to us, her brows furrowed. “That girl’s going to force heightened security around the Premier.”

  Raina shakes her head. “We can work around it. It’s a good thing she isn’t connected officially to the rebellion. Constantine won’t tie her back to us.”

  “Won’t he?” The mayor sits down beside us with a frustrated flourish. She points a finger down on the table. “That girl worked on my estate. Because of her, I’m going to have to allow a full investigation of everyone in my employment. Constantine will expect to see some executions. She will cost several lives by the time we’re through.”

  “And what did we expect?” Raina snaps, her usual anxiety giving way to anger. “This isn’t a game. The entire city is ripe for chaos—all the work done by the official rebellion to stir up unrest among the people was bound to result in several taking things into their own hands. We can’t control everyone. This is a good sign. We’ve lit sparks in others outside of our movement.”

  The mayor tightens her lips. “Are you so careless with the lives of those in our rebellion, Raina? Do you not worry that General Caitoman’s prying eyes might ultimately land on us as they investigate?”

  Raina folds her arms. “I’m only practical. The greater good should triumph over our individual concerns. And I have no time to waste on things that will slow this down.”

  Mayor Elland leans forward. “Is that so? And would you be equally willing to sacrifice your husband and son?”

  The Chief Architect looks away at that. I think of the way she had pressed close to her husband during the dances at the Sun Dial, the image of her son and his hired maid in the crowd.

  “The lives that may be sacrificed are also lives that have families,” the mayor says quietly. “Mothers. Sons. Daughters. Fathers. Take care with the lives of our allies, Raina, or you may find yourself losing everything that matters to you.”

  Raina rises, refusing to meet the mayor’s eyes. “We do what we have to do,” she says, pushing her glasses up. “Nothing changes. We move forward.”

  Then she leaves us alone in the room.

  I watch as the door slides shut behind her. Her words leave me uneasy, and I find myself hanging tighter to the walls around my emotions, lest Constantine sense me.

  If Raina is so willing to sacrifice the lives of others, what’s to keep her from being willing to sacrifice my mother?

  The mayor meets my questioning gaze. “We’ve long been at odds,” she finally says in a low voice. “I admit the Chief Architect wouldn’t have survived this long without a few losses. But it’s still a game I don’t like to play.”

  I study the weary lines around the mayor’s eyes. Today, her usual bravado and cheek are muted, burdened by the weight of what must be coming. There’s grief beneath this woman’s steel, and I find myself thinking back to what Raina had once dismissively said, that the mayor has a soft spot for Constantine.

  I nod, and point a finger at her, then touch my hand to my heart.

  Mayor Elland shakes her head at me, indicating she can’t understand, and I swallow my frustration, wishing she could read my hands. I take a pen from the table and start to draw on one of the papers before us. A rough sketch of Constantine’s crown, then a woman’s figure beside it. I point at her questioningly again, then touch my hand to my heart.

  This time, she seems to understand. “You want to know my past connections with the Premier,” she says. “With his mother.”

  I nod.

  She sighs and looks away. There’s a distant memory in her eyes. Finally, she says, “I remember Constantine as a little boy. I used to walk with his mother, Darea, in the greenhouse on summer afternoons, and Constantine would sprint ahead as fast as his little legs would allow. That was before the whole scandal of Caitoman’s birth, you know. Darea was happier back then.”

  I listen carefully to the way the lilt in her voice changes at the mention of Constantine’s mother.

  “I loved her,” the mayor says quietly after a while. She looks sidelong at me. “Darea. She was a young bride that the old Premier had chosen from Carreal, then the latest conquest. Her entire family perished during that siege.” She lets out a humorless laugh. “And what did the Premier do? Decide she was beautiful enough to make her his official queen.” She shook her head. “At the time, I was just a young noblewoman waiting around for a wealthy young husband. Darea made a good companion. We’d walk the grounds of my manor, make up imaginary future lives together.” She looks down at the table and furrows her brows, and in that gesture, I sense a grief borne from a lover’s broken heart.

  Mayor Elland had loved Constantine’s mother. Had been in love. And then she had seen Queen Darea die in childbirth.

  “She loved Constantine, as any mother would,” she went on. “But there was a deep sadness in her. She knew that Constantine would become his father, take his place.” She took a deep breath. “On her deathbed, as I sat by her side, she asked me to promise her that I would find a way to take this all down. All the things that had destroyed her world. Her past. Her family. Her childhood.”

  Promise me. I can almost hear the whisper suspended in the air. I think of the flash of memory I’d seen from Constantine in the greenhouse, of him as a child, peeking into the chamber at his dying mother holding the hand of a richly dressed woman. That had been the young Mayor Elland.

  This is why the mayor spares a bit of pity for Constantine. For the boy that is no longer.

  I suppose even monsters were children once.

  “That’s why I’m here,” she says to me now. “Because I have a heart. Because action without heart is meaningless.” She leans toward me. “Protect your heart, Talin. It is good to grieve, to hurt for others, to care. If we don’t, then all is lost anyway.”

  * * *

  The third bit of news that arrives today comes shortly after I return to the palace. When a guard peeks in to escort me to the Premier, I can already sense that something has gone wrong. The guard murmurs the update to me.

  Two Strikers have escaped from the arena and a lone soldier has been found dead, curiously separated from the rest of his patrol when he shouldn’t have been. Today’s game has been canceled.