Aja just stares at me, watching like a taunted panther in a zoo, eyes silent, horrible, as if willing the bars between us to disappear.

“Sevro, Thistle, check the villa. See if anyone managed to survive.” They shoot away. “Quinn, guard the boy. The rest of you, get the ArchGovernor and his retinue out of the pool.

“You’ll want to call off the ripWings,” I say to Aja. They blink in the darkness kilometers above. “Too much noise and this whole thing will turn into a nightmare for all of us. The Sovereign massacring a house … but the house escapes! What a dastardly testament to her hunger, her impotence. What a debacle that might cause.” I smirk at her. “Why, I fear some houses might rally around the offended house. Some may fear they too will be snuffed out like candles in the night. What would happen to the poor Pax Solaris then?”

Quinn stays with me, fingers twitching toward her weapons as Aja obeys my commands. I keep my hand on the boy as the other Howlers splash into the water and emerge with members of House Augustus clinging to them, soaked and gasping for air—some in formal wear, some in armor, most without helmets. They were sharing oxygen, it seems.

Augustus holds on to Harpy’s back. The Jackal holds on to Clown’s arm. Pliny hangs on to his feet. Where are my friends?

The Howlers deposit the survivors into the bay of the hovering stork high above and return to fetch the rest. Victra is the next they bring out. She’s helmetless and wounded on her neck. But she clings to her razor as though it were the thing carrying her aloft. Her eyes strafe the gathered Praetorians wrathfully, and when they find me, they spark against mine like bits of flint. Her anger falls away for a moment and I see a smile of joy, then it’s gone and she shouts.

“I will remember you all with great joy!” She laughs madly. “Starting with you, Aja au Grimmus. I will make a coat of your hide.”

She disappears into the belly of the craft overhead. Roque is the next one borne aloft. Theodora is with him. I say a quiet prayer of thanks. Quinn touches my shoulder and gives him a wave. His thin face bursts into a smile at the sight of her. He doesn’t even notice me. Then he’s gone too, landing in the back of the ship. Thistle soon joins us from the manor, helping along several survivors, including the Telemanuses and Tactus, who bleeds from a dozen holes in his gold armor. He put up a nasty fight.

“Darrow?” he cries. “You mad bastard!” He sees the Sovereign’s son and cackles gleefully. “Oh, that’s ripe. That’s ripe. I owe you a drink, my goodman.…” His voice fades away as he slips higher in the sky, though he managed to throw his fingers into the crux and wave them in Aja’s direction.

“Tactus,” Lysander whispers. “He’s taller than in holos.”

“That’s the last of them,” Sevro says to me.

“Tell your master we of Mars do not bow so easily,” I say to Aja.

The rain beats down between us. Dripping over her dark face, so her eerie eyes blaze in the night. She breaks the silence I imposed on her.

“That is what the Governor of Rhea said when my Ash Lord came to put down his rebellion.” Her voice does not sound like her own. It’s as though someone speaks through her. “He looked at the thin man I sent with the armada and he laughed and asked why he should bow to me, the bitch patricide of a dead tyrant.”

The Sovereign is speaking in Aja’s ear, through her com, with Aja repeating the words. My blood runs cold.

“The Governor of Rhea sat upon his Ice Throne in his famed Glass Palace and asked one of my servants, ‘Who are you to breathe fear into a man such as I? I who have descended from the family that carved heaven from a place where once there was nothing but a hell of ice and stone. Who are you to make me bow?’ Then he struck the Ash Lord here under the eye with his scepter. ‘Go home to Luna. Go home to the Core. The Outer Reach is for creatures of sterner spines.’ The Governor of Rhea did not bow. Now his moon is ash. His family is ash. He is ash. So run, Darrow au Andromedus. Run home to Mars, for my legions will follow you to the ends of this universe.”

“I hope so,” I say.

“You have one bargaining chip,” the Sovereign, through Aja, reminds me. “My grandson is your safe passage. If he dies, I wipe your ship from the sky. Spend him wisely.”

Why is she telling me something I already know?

“It’s time to go, Darrow.” Quinn leans into my shoulder. She sets a hand on my low back, as if to remind me I am not alone. I nod to her. She covers my retreat as I rise upward with the boy, razor slithering around his neck.

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 spend it only 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. Quinn is bait. Aja 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 Augustans stare 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. Roque pushes through the others to see me, then his eyes go to the Jackal, to 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 riffles 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.