“When did you turn traitor?” Ryzek was in the hallway, dressed in his armor. The pale overhead lights tinted his skin blue. He put his arm against the glass that separated us, and leaned in.
It was an interesting question. I didn’t feel like I had “turned” so much as finally moved in the direction I had already been facing. I stood, and my head pounded, but it was nothing compared to the pain of the currentshadows, which had gone haywire, moving so fast I couldn’t keep track of them. Ryzek’s eyes followed them over my arms and legs and face like they were all he could see. They were all he had ever been able to see.
“You know, you never actually had my loyalty to begin with,” I said, walking toward the glass. We were just feet apart, but I felt untouchable, for the moment. Finally, I could say whatever I wanted to him. “But I probably wouldn’t have acted against you if you had just left us alone, like I told you to. When you went after Akos, just to control me, though . . . well. It was more than I could accept.”
“You are a fool.”
“I’m not nearly as foolish as you believe.”
“Yes, you’ve certainly proved that.” He laughed, gesturing wide, to the prison all around us. “This is clearly the result of your brilliant mind.”
He leaned into the barrier again, and hunched so he was closer to my face, his breath fogging the glass.
“Did you know,” Ryzek said, “that your beloved Kereseth knows the Thuvhesit chancellor?”
I felt a pang of fear. I did know. Akos had told me about Orieve Benesit when we watched the footage of the chancellor declaring herself. Ryzek didn’t know that, of course, but he also wouldn’t have brought it up to begin with if Akos had made it out of Noavek manor with the renegades. So what had happened to him? Where was he now?
“No,” I said, my throat dry.
“Yes, it’s very inconvenient that the Benesit sisters are twins—it means I don’t know which one to strike at first, and Eijeh’s visions have made it very clear that I must kill them in a particular order for the most desirable outcome,” Ryzek said, smiling. “His visions have also made it clear that Akos knows the information I need to accomplish my goal.”
“So you still haven’t taken Eijeh’s currentgift,” I said, hoping to stall him. I didn’t know what there was to gain from stalling him, just that I wanted time, as much time as I could get before I had to face what had happened to Akos and the renegades.
“I will remedy that soon enough,” Ryzek said, smiling. “I have been proceeding with caution, a concept you have never quite understood.”
Well, he had me there.
“Why didn’t my blood work in the gene lock?” I said.
Ryzek only continued to smile.
Then he said, “I should have mentioned this earlier, but we caught one of your renegade friends, Tos. He told us, with some encouragement, that you were participating in an attempt on my life. He’s dead now. I’m afraid I got a little carried away.” Ryzek smiled still wider, but his eyes were a little unfocused, like he was on hushflower. As much as Ryzek acted like he was callous, I knew what had really happened: He had killed Tos because he believed it was necessary, but he had not been able to stand it. He had taken hushflower to calm himself down afterward.
“What,” I said flatly, finding it difficult to breathe, “have you done with Akos?”
“You don’t seem to have any regret,” Ryzek continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Perhaps if you had begged for forgiveness, I would have been lenient with you. Or with him, if you chose. And yet . . . here we are.”
He straightened as the door at the end of the cell block opened. Vas marched in first, his cheek bruised from where I had struck him with my elbow. Eijeh came in next, hoisting a sagging man at his side. I recognized the hanging head, the long, lean body that tripped beside him. Eijeh dropped Akos to the floor in the hallway, and he went down easily, spitting blood on the ground.
I thought I saw a flicker of sympathy on Eijeh’s face as he looked down at his brother, but a moment later, it was gone.
“Ryzek.” I felt wild. Desperate. “Ryzek, he didn’t have anything to do with it. Please don’t bring him into this—he didn’t know, he didn’t know anything—”
Ryzek laughed. “I know he doesn’t know anything about the renegades, Cyra. Haven’t we been over this? It is what he knows about his chancellor that I am interested in.”
Both of my hands pressed to the glass, I sank to my knees. Ryzek crouched in front of me.
“This,” he said, “is why you should avoid entanglements. I can use you to find out what he knows about the chancellor, and him to find out what you know about the renegades. Very neat, very simple, don’t you think?”
I backed up, body pulsing with my heartbeat, until my spine touched the far wall. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t escape, but I didn’t have to make this easy for them.