Mae strode across the room in seconds. “No. No way is he going without me.”
Persia turned nervous, but a stone-faced guard took over. “Callista’s orders. He goes alone.” He tightened his grip on his gun, and Justin could tell from Mae’s face that she was already planning how to disarm him or pull her own gun.
“Let me go,” Justin told her. He’d seen too many guns today and didn’t want a shoot-out. “Everything’s okay.”
“Going off with unlicensed zealots with illegal guns?” she asked incredulously. “Nothing about that is okay.”
The guards’ faces darkened. Persia stepped forward. “I swear, nothing will happen to him. My mother just wants to talk.”
“Please,” said Justin, meeting Mae’s eyes. “Trust me on this. Remember—we’re tracked. And you’ve got your ego too if I don’t come back.”
Mae said nothing for several tense moments. Finally: “Fine. If he’s not back in an hour, I tear this place down around you.”
The guards looked skeptical, but they stayed outside the door when Persia led him away. She took him to the far side of the house, to double doors that opened into a bedroom. Callista sat at a vanity, clad in a long silk robe, brushing her hair in the mirror. She glanced up at their approach. “Thank you, dear. You can go.” Persia retreated, closing the doors behind her.
Justin stood there waiting as Callista finished her hair and then rose gracefully to her feet, managing to do it in a way that let the robe make the most of her body. “Always drama with you,” he said as she walked over to him. “But I guess that’s part of the job.”
She brushed her lips against his cheek. “Lovely to see you again. Shall we talk?”
“Here?” he asked.
“I didn’t think you’d mind, but if you’ve gone chaste on me, we can go outside.” She glided over to a set of glass doors and stepped out into the warm night. Justin followed, finding a table already set with candles and wine on a garden terrace. More drama.
Callista poured him a glass without asking and then leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs so that the robe slipped off of one of them. She gazed up at the starry night and then looked back at him with a smile. “Are you here to arrest me? How did you even find me?”
“Luck, more than anything else.” He took a drink of the wine, some kind of deep red that Dominic could’ve learned a lot from. “I got a tip after paying your former associate a visit. I actually came here for Nadia, though you were the one I ultimately wanted.”
“So flattering. How is Mr. Arrow these days?”
“Awaiting trial. He tried to drug servants of the government.”
Callista’s lips curled in disdain. “He was always so stupid. Using tricks instead of the discipline needed to get real power. It’s half the reason I left.”
“That, and it’s easier to gather followers in unregulated borderlands?”
“It’s becoming more and more regulated every day,” she said. “Bit by bit, the RUNA’s blanket of uniformity is enveloping this place.”
Justin wasn’t fooled. “Don’t act like that’s a bad thing. You grew up in civilization. You know it’s better than having a bunch of armed nutjobs running around, no matter how gullible they are.”
“Speaking of armed nutjobs…” Callista’s expression of easy charm transformed, making her the hard-edged leader who had ordered around Menari’s people. “What the hell were you thinking bringing her here?”
“Why do you keep saying that? I didn’t bring her to you. We were captured.”
Callista traced the edge of her wineglass, gazing into its depths by the candlelight. “I never thought I’d see the day someone like you was traveling with someone like her. Of course, from what I can tell, a lot’s changed with you.”
“Traveling with a pr?torian’s not that weird,” he countered. “Especially in light of today’s events.”
Callista jerked her head up. “She’s a pr?torian?”
“Isn’t that what you’re talking about? How else do you think she did what she did?”
“You know how she did what she did! She’s an undisciplined and uninitiated elect,” she snarled. No more flirtation now. “Chosen by someone powerful from the looks of it. It was a wonder the rest of them couldn’t see the glamour—and don’t act like you couldn’t. You’ve got a lot more control since the last time I saw you. I didn’t actually think you’d embrace your calling.”
“I haven’t,” he said firmly.
Callista’s face said she didn’t believe that. “What god follows her?”
He hesitated. “I don’t know. It’s not my concern.”
“It should be! A pr?torian elected by something that strong? That kind of combination is a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.”
Justin decided it probably wasn’t a good time to bring up Mae’s nigh-perfect genes.
“She needs to deal with whatever’s following her,” continued Callista. “She needs to either embrace it and get some control or else get rid of it.”