Quinn eyes the Praetorians warily and rises to follow. I have one bargaining chip.
What did the Sovereign mean by that? Was she reminding me that I could only spend it once? Only kill Lysander if my back was to the wall? Then I see why as Aja looks at Quinn rising from the ground as a cat looks at a mouse.
“Aja, no!” Lysander yells.
“Quinn!” I shout.
In a flash, Aja lunges forward, quicker than any cat ever born. She grabs Quinn’s hair. Frantically, Quinn brings her razor around to fend the giant woman off. But she’s too slow. Aja slams her head into the ground with her left hand. Punches her temple. Armored fist on bone. Four times before I can even blink. Quinn’s legs kick and twitch and she curls inward like a dying spider, contorting from seizures. Aja backs away, watching me with a smile.
19
Stork
They know I am rash. This is bait. She is the hook. They’ll take Lysander if I bite and attack Aja. They’ll use the split second my razor is away from him to stun or kill me. I hear the weapons primed behind me, so I keep the razor to the little boy’s throat. Tears distort my vision as I float there impotently. I shake my head as the agony wells. I can’t leave her. Reversing my boots, I return to pick her from the ground. But before I can reach her, another Gold flashes past me, descending from above, this one without armor, to scoop her from the ground and bear her aloft.
The Jackal.
I shoot up and away, through the rain into the bay doors and land inside the stork. My boots clank on the metal deck and I kneel, shoving Lysander forward into the bay toward Sevro. The boy sprawls to his knees. Several dozen dripping Augustan stand gawping at me. They turn their eyes to the boy. The Jackal follows, clutching Quinn awkwardly with one arm.
Our ship rises and the doors hiss closed behind us, sealing away the cacophony of wind and engine roar. Roque pushes through the others and stares at me, then his eyes go to the Jackal and Quinn, strength slipping from him with each second. The Jackal sets Quinn gently on the ground and kicks off the ill-fitting gravBoots he borrowed from one of the Howlers.
Roque’s mouth works. No sound comes out. “Is she …,” he murmurs finally.
“Are there any Yellows on board?” the Jackal asks me. I look to Harpy.
I point Harpy toward the main cabins. “Find Mustang. Ask her.”
She sprints off.
“The medkit,” the Jackal snaps, feeling Quinn’s pulse. He checks her pupils. No one moves. “Now!” Roque stumbles up to find it. Pebble rips it off the wall and tosses him the kit. He brings it back to the Jackal. Mind turned to static, I stare down at Quinn as another seizure racks her body and an inhuman sound rattles from her nose and mouth. Roque’s face is bloodless beside me. His hands reach helplessly for the girl he loves, as though his will alone can mend what was broken; but inside he knows he is powerless. He sinks to his knees.
The Jackal opens the medkit and rifles through its contents.
His single hand moves confidently over the devices inside till they find a silver bar no larger than my index finger. He snatches it and activates the device. It hums softly, emitting a faint blue light.
“I need someone’s datapad. Mine was fried in the EMP.” No one moves. “The girl will die. A gorydamn datapad. Now.”
I hand him mine. He doesn’t look up at me, though he pauses a second when he sees my distinctive hands.
“Thank you for the rescue, Reaper,” he says hastily.
“Thank your sister.”
Lysander rises and comes to my side. He watches quietly, no tears in his eyes. Pebble and Clown sit on their heels. No one touches Roque, though they glance at him, hands clutched on knees or razors, whispering whatever prayers to luck Golds whisper.
The Jackal moves the silver magnetic resonance imager over Quinn’s head, watching the hologram on my datapad. He curses.
“What is it?” Roque asks.
The Jackal hesitates. “Her brain is swelling. If we can’t control the pressure, we have a problem.” He fumbles with the medical equipment and unwinds a machine with a transparent cord. “That pressure will deprive the brain of proper blood flow. It will starve itself as the vessels tighten under the swelling.”
“Is she going to die?” I ask.
“Not from swelling,” the Jackal says. “Not if I can drain the fluid and release the pressure as it builds. But we’ll need to get her head tilted so the blood can flow through the neck veins. Keep blood pressure steady. Get her a supply of O2.” He looks up, so thin and wet I’d think him a Red instead of a Gold were it not for the dusty hair. “Pebble, isn’t it? Find her oxygen. A breathing mask will do so long as it doesn’t cover her face past her forehead.”
Pebble slips away.
A fresh seizure contorts Quinn’s body. I look on helplessly and set my hand on Roque’s shoulder. He flinches against the touch at first.
Harpy slides back into the room. “No slagging Yellows.”
“Shit,” Clown swears. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.” He kicks the wall.
The Jackal pauses, glances at Roque, then acts. He points to Clown, Harpy, and several Housemembers. “I need someone for each of her arms and her head. She’s going to keep seizing, and for some reason, I suspect this is going to be a bumpy ride. We’re going to move her out of this damn bay and hold her down for the surgery.” He pulls her hair back into a ponytail, asks me to hold it, and pulls a small ionizer from the medkit. He squeezes it with his teeth over his hand, wincing as it destroys bacteria and dry skin follicles. “Clown, get her hair—all of it.”
The Jackal stands and tosses the ionizer to Clown, who bends and is about to scan it over Quinn’s golden hair when Roque takes it from his grasp. He hovers over Quinn, unable to move.
“What’s her name?” the Jackal asks Roque.
“Quinn.”
“Talk to her. Tell her a story.”
Trembling slightly, Roque sniffs and speaks quietly to Quinn. “Once, in the days of Old Earth, there were two pigeons who were greatly in love.…” He toggles the ionizer and moves his hand. It is intimate. Like he’s bathing her. Just the two of them in some far-off place. Long before she told stories by the campfires of the Institute. Long before the horror.
I smell hair burning as the Jackal stands and comes to me.
“What happened down there?” he asks. “Was it a pulseFist?”
I look at him in surprise. “You didn’t see? Aja used her hands.”
“Goryhell.” His jaw tightens. Dull eyes taking in the scene. “How did we come to this?”
“Octavia was set on this path all along,” I say quietly. “Before we even came to Mars, she intended to give the Bellona the ArchGovernorship. The gala was a trap.”
“When did you discover this? Before or after the duel?”
“Before,” I lie.
“Well played. Makes us seem the victim. I see Mustang failed in her task.”
“Did your father send her to infiltrate Octavia’s court?”
“No. I imagine it was her own idea. Draw close to the dragon …”
“The Julii are against us too.
He nods thoughtfully. “Makes sense. Politicos tried to take Victra from us before Karnus and Aja came.”
“You don’t seem worried.”
“Victra is her mother’s favorite daughter.” He shakes his head, remembering something. “But she took three Obsidians on for me. Three. She’s with us, body and mind.”
I watch Roque finish removing Quinn’s hair. “Will she live?” I ask quietly.
“She has bone fragments in her brain tissue. Even if we stop the swelling, she’s hemorrhaging. Badly.”
We look down at Quinn, her head bald now. Face peaceful. Only small contusions on the side of her skull. You’d never guess she was dying inside. Roque strokes her forehead so gently, whispering soft things.
“Can you save her?” I turn to the Jackal. “Is there a chance?”
“Not here. If you get us to a medBay, then yes,
there’s a prime chance.”
Roque sings a soft song to her as they lift her body to move to another room. The song is one he made around the campfire as my army ate in the highlands. Quinn was with Cassius then, as it seems all women are at one time or another. But even then, I noticed her eyes meet Roque’s. They are the messenger pigeons from his story, crossing again and again in the sky. How excited he was to be reunited with her.
I crack inside. I can still save her. I can fix this.
The Sovereign was right. I misunderstood my own bargaining power. What was I going to do? Kill her son if Aja killed Quinn? What if he killed Sevro, Mustang, Roque? I’m lucky she didn’t hurt more of them.
I turn to see Sevro.
He stands quietly in his armor watching us, watching Roque hold the girl Sevro loves but has never told, the girl he could never have. The pain is raw and etched deep into the lines of his hawkish face. Impervious Sevro, immune to hurt, to sadness, to having his eye gouged out by Lilath, the Jackal’s lieutenant; it all falls on him now. Quinn never called Sevro Goblin like the rest of us. Victra puts a hand on his shoulder, noticing the pain if not understanding why it’s there. He shoves her hand off.
“I don’t know you,” he snarls.
Victra backs away. “Sorry.”
“What are you waiting for, Reap?” he demands. “We’re not off this rock yet.” He jerks his head. I follow, asking Victra to bring the Sovereign’s boy.
Sevro and I climb a ladder and meet Tactus in the narrow corridor that leads to the passenger hold and the flight cabin.
“Oy, goodman,” Tactus calls, favoring his injured shoulder. Wet hair dangles over laughing eyes. His voice is loud, unmindful of Quinn’s condition. “Next time you’re planning something dramatic, tell us you’re coming so we don’t go pissing our pants.”
I push past him. “Not now, Tactus.”
“Ever the bore.” He eyes Sevro. “Looky, looky. Goblin. If possible, you’ve shrunk even further, my goodman.”
Sevro doesn’t smile.
We enter the passenger hold, where the Augustans and Howlers buckle themselves into bucket seats in preparation for breaching the atmosphere. Tactus follows at our heels.
“Hello, psychos,” Tactus calls to the Howlers. “Pleasure to see your diminutive forms yet again. Especially you, Pebble.”
“Eat shit,” Pebble says, looking up from helping buckle one of Augustus’s young nephews into his seat.
Tactus leans into me when we’re past the passenger hold. “Good friends to come and rescue you. Thought they were scattered to the Rim.”
“Were,” Sevro says.
“What brought you back?” Tactus asks. “The weather?”
Sevro says nothing.
Tactus laughs despite the numerous holes in his armor. “Just how you like ’em. Eh, Darrow? Friends who will risk life and limb to always be in your shadow?” He nudges me, a bit too playfully, leaving faint smears of his blood on me. We come to the flight cabin’s closed door. Tactus winces as he bumps a bulkhead with his shoulder. Sevro trails behind.
“How’s the shoulder?” I ask.
“Better than that girl’s head back there. Quinn, wasn’t it? The fast one from House Mars. Aja slagged her good. Pity. I’d have taken her for a—”
Sevro kicks Tactus in the balls from behind, foot going between legs hard enough to dent metal. He elbows him in the side of the head, sweeps his legs in swift kravat form. Three more strikes to the ears before Tactus hits the ground. Sevro puts one knee into Tactus’s shoulder wound, a forearm against Tactus’s throat, the other knee to Tactus’s groin, and his free hand dangles a knife over Tactus’s eyeball. “Talk about Quinn again, and I’ll cut your balls off and jam them in your eye sockets.”
“Brother always said … keep your eye … on the ball,” Tactus gags out.
The metal cabin door hisses open. Augustus fills the frame. He stares down at the scene just as Victra brings Lysander forward from the aft of the ship.
“They’re almost done, my liege,” I say. I step over Tactus and Sevro to join the ArchGovernor in the cabin. Victra does the same, except she steps on Tactus, grinding her heels.
“Prime work,” she says to Sevro.
“Slag off, cow.”
“Who is the little one?” she asks me as we slip into the cabin and close the door.
I tell her.
“The Rage Knight’s son? Nasty little man. I don’t think he likes me.”
“Don’t take it personally.”
The cockpit is larger than my room in the Citadel’s villa. An array of lights ring the pilot and co-pilot chairs. Mustang sits to the left, a Blue pilot to the right. The Blue is jacked into the ship. A blue light glows under the dermis of her left temple. Mustang flies, right hand in a holographic control prism, speaking quickly with the Blue. Out the curved viewport, Earth hovers. Augustus, Pliny, and comically stooped Kavax au Telemanus discuss our options behind Mustang.
It is quiet.
“Well done, Darrow,” Augustus says without looking back to me. “Though you could have chosen a better ship …”
Mustang interrupts. “What’s going on back there? They said someone was hurt.”
“Quinn is dying,” I say. “We have to get her to a medBay, fastlike.”
“Even when we hit orbit, we’re thirty minutes out from our fleet,” Mustang says.
“Fly faster.”
The ship trembles as Mustang and the Blue push it hard.
“It was a good plan,” Kavax says, beaming down at Mustang. “It was a good plan, Virginia, infiltrating the Sovereign’s household. Just like when you were a girl. The time you and Pax hid in the shrubbery to listen to your father’s counsel. Except Pax was bigger than the shrub!” He booms a laugh that startles the quiet Blue.
Mustang reaches back to squeeze his forearm, hand smaller than his elbow. He preens like a hound with a pheasant in its jaws, looking around to see if we all noticed her compliment. She’s got a way with men bigger than bears.
The love on the man’s face makes Augustus’s own disinterest monstrous. And even worse, thinking about the Jackal killing this man’s son makes me sick.
Mustang spares me the slightest glance, her hair bound behind her head, the memory of a smile still creasing the corners of her lips, and it’s like I’ve been punched in the heart. There’s no smile for me. And the horse ring no longer graces her finger.
There’s silence for a long moment. Augustus turns to look at me. “I assume Octavia attempted to bring you into her fold as well?”
“She attempted.”
“Slag herself. Bet you told her to go slag herself, eh, boy?” Kavax booms. He slaps my shoulder, knocking me into Victra. “Sorry.” He’s bent like a hothouse tree grown too tall for its roof. Water drips from his red forked beard. “Sorry,” he repeats to Victra.
“Actually, Lord Telemanus, I thought her offer tempting. She manages to treat her lancers with respect. Unlike others.”
Augustus wastes no time with banter. “We’ll amend that. I owe you a debt, Darrow. Provided we make it to my fleet.”
“You owe it to Mustang and the Howlers as much as me,” I say.
“What is a Howler?” he asks.
“My friends in the black armor. Sevro’s the leader.”
“Sevro. That wretched little thing that was atop my lancer, yes?” The ArchGovernor raises an eyebrow. “Thought I recognized him. Fitchner’s boy.” His tone sits poorly with me. “The one that killed that Priam brat in the Passage.”
“He’s with us, my liege. Loyal as my own hands.”
The door hisses open and Sevro and Tactus join us. We all turn to look. Sevro recoils slightly. “What?” he challenges.
Tactus scoots off to the side, away from Sevro.
“Does your loyalty lie with me or with your father, Sevro?” Augustus asks.
“What father? I’m a bastard’s bastard.” Sevro looks the ArchGovernor up and down skeptically. “And all due respect, my
liege, I could give a cat’s frozen piss about you too. Your daughter brought me from the Rim. My allegiance is to her. But above all it’s to Reaper. That’s it.”
“Mind your manners, you little puppy,” Kavax growls.
“You must be Pax’s father. Sorry he went. He’s a man I might have died for. But I see he got his good looks from his mother.”
Kavax isn’t sure if he’s been insulted.
Augustus observes this. “Darrow, I owe you an apology. You were right. Loyalty, it seems, can extend beyond the Institute. Now … Lysander.” Augustus glances out the shuttle’s viewports. We rise steadily. He kneels to speak with the boy. “I’ve heard tell that you are an exceptional lad.”
“I am, my liege,” Lysander says as firmly as he can. “They test me regularly, and I train in all manners of studies. I rarely lose in chess. And when I do, I learn, as I ought.”
“Do you now? I had a son like you, once, Lysander. But I’m sure you knew that.”
“Adrius au Augustus,” Lysander says, knowing the lineage.
“No.” Augustus shakes his head. “No. My younger son isn’t like you at all.”
The boy frowns. “Then the elder. Claudius au Augustus?”
Mustang glances back.
“Yes.” Augustus nods. “A kind, special boy with a lion’s heart. Better than me. Kinder. A ruler.” He spares a strange, meaningful glance at me. “You would have been friends.”
Lysander tries to look dignified. “What happened to him?”
“They left that part out, eh? Well, a large young man from the House Bellona by the name of Karnus took liberties with a certain young woman my son was courting. My son took umbrage and challenged Karnus to a duel. In the end, when my boy was broken and bleeding, Karnus knelt, cupped my son’s head”—he puts one hand around Lysander’s head—“and smashed it on the cobbled stones till it broke open and all his specialness dripped out.” He pats the boy on the cheek. “Let’s hope you never have to see such a thing.”
“Is that your plan for me, my liege?” Lysander asks bravely.
“I’m only a monster when it is practical.” Augustus smiles. “I don’t think I will have to be this time. You see, we’re just trying to get home. So long as your mother lets us, as it seems like she is doing, then you will be safe.”