Then: up, up, up.

I scrambled to my feet fast… and maybe my movement was enough to distract Sam from seeing the two gold cannonballs shooting up from ground level. They smashed the bottom of the glass cube with a thunderous crunch, both striking on the same side edge — like grabbing one side of a fish tank and yanking up with all your strength. The cube lurched and rolled, knocked over ninety degrees onto its side. For an instant, Sam and Innocence became a jumble of flailing arms, legs, and claws; then both dropped to the new bottom of the cube, Sam falling hard, Innocence falling harder.

Call it a two-story drop: a long way when you’re too surprised to twist into a good landing position.

The impact was enough to knock the wind out of both of them. I couldn’t see if Sam had held onto her gun, but it didn’t matter: a human could recover faster from that fall than an alien who weighed as much as an elephant. Innocence would survive — queens are tough — but she’d be in no shape to stop Sam from retrieving the gun and using it at point-blank range.

So I had to get inside the cube before that happened.

The two Larries that had smashed into the cube were out of the picture; one had hit so hard it embedded itself into the cracked glass, while the other was showering down onto the ground in a hail of broken pieces. That gave me one Larry left — the one waiting on the parapet walk, ready and raring to travel.

I ran and jumped, shouting into the remote control, "Go!"

Good thing I’d given instructions to the Larry before I threw myself on top of it — the moment I leapt on board, I was whirling so fast I could barely think. Scrabbling to hold on, I dug both hands into flechette slits. Even then, I nearly spun off before we reached the upended cube; if the ride had been a single second longer, I wouldn’t have made it.

I hung on just long enough for the Larry to dump me in the middle of what was now the cube’s top surface. Too dizzy to move, I just lay on the glass while the Larry carried on with the orders I’d given: flying straight over my head and unleashing every last flechette in its magazines.

Back on the parapet, Festina shouted "Get down, get down!" But I’d told the Larry to make sure no shots got as far as the castle. Everything was aimed at the cube… with me lying in the middle, at the calm eye of the razor hurricane.

Remember how crossbow arrows hadn’t even scratched the glass surface? High-velocity steel flechettes were a whole other story.

Thank heavens it wasn’t real glass; things got nasty enough with blunt chips of plastic flying in all directions. I wrapped my arms around my head as the Larry sliced a ragged ring around me — deeper and deeper into the cube’s wall, a circumference of shredded plastic, like a buzz saw cutting out a hole in a patch of ice… till I felt something shift under me and shouted, "Stop!" into the remote control. For a heartbeat I stayed lying there, on an untouched circle of glass surrounded by a slashed area cut almost all the way through. Then my weight finished the job: with a noise halfway between a rip and a crack, my whole chunk of wall broke free and plunged, like a glass plate with me in the middle. I tucked, rolled, and kicked — the tuck and roll to save myself with a breakfall, the kick to aim the huge chunk of plummeting glass straight at Sam.

It was quiet as I got to my feet — no sound but the whistle of the Larry hovering far overhead. The glass walls around me cut off almost all noise from the outside world.

The cube was still flying, and stable as stone underfoot: just as happy to float on its side as right way up. That was a lucky break — I didn’t know how to operate this thing, and the pilot hadn’t been wearing any safety straps when the cube tipped. She’d fallen almost as heavily as Innocence, and gentles aren’t built to take damage. Her body lay crumpled at the far end of the cube, her shell split wide open all along the spine. Puffy brown skin pushed up through the break, the way meat sometimes does when you crack open a lobster. I didn’t know if she was alive or dead, but I concentrated a moment and produced the worker pheromone that’s supposed to dull pain. Maybe it would help. Sam groaned. She lay under the slab of heavy glass like a lab specimen on display. At the last second she must have seen the slab coming, because she’d thrown up her arms to protect her face.

It may have helped her face, but it sure didn’t help her arms.

I tried to heave the glass off her, but it was way too heavy to lift — several hundred kilos at least. It took all my strength just to slide it to one side; I tried not to hurt Sam again, but I could see there wasn’t much left to hurt.

Sam’s eyes flickered open. "Edward?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"I think you got me."

"You were going to kill Innocence."

"Was I?" She let her head slump, as if holding it up took too much effort. "How do you know Innocence wasn’t in cahoots with me all along? My troops will tell you she’s been giving them orders for the past few months."

"But you drugged her… and rigged her up so your words came out of her mouth."

"That’s what I said," Sam whispered. "But how can you know if it’s true? I could’ve been lying."

"Or you could be lying now. One last chance for you to cause trouble."

"Always a possibility." She coughed… very lightly, but a bead of blood dribbled out the side of her mouth. "Neither of us got very good brain chemicals, did we? Even now, I’m trying to think of ways to trick you into giving me the gun." "Who would you shoot?" I asked. "Me? Innocence? Yourself?"

"Yes," she said, with a weak grin. "In that order."

She coughed again. The sound had a choking gurgle to it. "Kiss me," she whispered. "Kiss me good night."

I wondered if she had some hidden weapon she could kill me with if I got close, or perhaps some suicide pill she’d pop into my mouth instead of her own. No sign of anything like that; no smell either. She must have guessed what I was thinking, because she said, "Do you really think I’m that evil?"

"Yes."

"You’re right. But kiss me anyway."

I knelt beside her and leaned forward, only intending a little peck on the cheek. But she turned her head at the last moment to meet my lips with hers, and she reached up to hold me — hold me with her crushed broken arms. It must have hurt hideously but she didn’t even wince. For a long moment, there was only her mouth pressed desperately against mine, my sad, scared sister…

Then she became the second woman to die kissing me. I’d barely known either of them.

Something went CLONK above my head. Looking up, I saw Festina had heaved out a grapnel attached to a rope and caught it on the hole in the cube’s glass. As usual, the Explorer Corps had come prepared for any contingency… even for snagging a floating cube and hauling it closer to the palace. It took everybody up there to get the cube moving — all five Mandasars as well as the Explorers — but centimeter by centimeter, they began dragging me in.

I couldn’t help them, so I went to check on Innocence. The glass slab had missed her, but she’d hit real hard when the cube rolled. All eight of her legs looked broken and a tiny ooze of blood had begun seeping through a crack in her tail. Still, she was breathing pretty evenly. Like I said, queens are tough.

Her eyes were shut as I approached… but the moment I came within grabbing range, the eyes snapped open and one of her front claws whipped toward me, I dodged and slapped it aside, which shows how badly the fall had hurt her — under normal conditions, humans just aren’t strong enough to block a queen’s pincer.

Then again, maybe Innocence had pulled her attack at the last instant.