“The Oracle,” Niobe whispers.
“They have Pax and Electra,” Daxo replies. “You saw Father. What do you think they’re doing to them?” His mother’s shoulders slump. “It has to be done. Holiday, hold her down.”
The Gray hesitates. “Does the Sovereign know?”
“We are her council,” Theodora says. “You told Darrow you would protect his family. When he returns, do you want to tell him you failed?”
Holiday’s hands bruise my shoulders as she grabs me. Daxo reaches into the aquarium and pulls free the carved monster. Its legs claw at the air as he approaches me. The scent of its pale flesh is sweet, like candied almonds. Its scorpion tail is covered with a plastic cap and waves as it sees my exposed forearm. I shiver in fear, begging them to stop. They don’t listen. I knew this would happen. I knew the Sovereign would have her men peel me apart. But it doesn’t make the horror any easier. In Daxo’s other hand is a small knife. He draws a shallow wound on the underside of my forearm.
“Stop!” I beg. “Please! I’m telling the truth.”
“We will soon find out.”
The creature lunges for the blood and begins to suck. Its cold, slippery legs hug my arm like the fingers of an old woman. I jerk in horror, but go nowhere under Holiday’s hold. “Let us begin again,” Theodora says. “Who—”
“What are you doing?” an angry voice says from behind.
Niobe sweeps into a bow. Daxo follows, his less deep. “Virginia. The girl is intransigent,” he says. “We need what she knows.” I crane my neck around and see the Sovereign standing at the door in a tunic of white.
“Did I say you could torture her, Daxo?”
He meets her gaze without flinching. “There’s no need for you to see it. This is why you have us.”
“Because I’m such a frail flower that I need bold souls to do my torturing for me?” She sneers. “Niobe, even you?”
“After what was done to Kavax—”
“Yes. And what would he say about this?” She waits. Then, whipping out her razor, she storms to my side and grips the barbed tail of the creature sucking my blood. She stabs it in the back of the head. It screams like a human child, tail thrashing in her hand. She flings it to the ground, where it crawls and finally shudders to death. She turns on Theodora. “I told you to kill all those monsters. Years ago. Did you not hear me or is insolence now to be expected from my spymaster?”
“I preserved a litter,” Theodora says. “To protect your family I would do anything.”
“If Darrow were here…”
“I would look him in the eye and tell him I will not stop till his child is found, without apology and without remorse.”
“And will you tell him that his child is lost?” Theodora is taken aback. “Oh, you thought I didn’t know you helped him get into Deepgrave to release a war criminal who tried to murder my family in our sleep?”
“Virginia…”
“No.” The Sovereign raises a hand. “I tire of being treated like a child by my own council because I have chosen to obey the laws. You’re no different than Victra. You mistake morality for na?veté. Now get out. I don’t want to look at any of you any longer. It’s time I talk with the girl alone.”
THE SOVEREIGN WATCHES ME from Daxo’s vacated chair.
I feel shredded and thin from the interrogation. The horror of the Oracle has not fled. I still feel its legs around my arm.
Only Holiday remains with us in the room. I glance at the Gray nervously out of the corner of my eye, knowing if there’s pain to come, it’ll be from her.
The Sovereign is dressed simply, her hair held back from her head in a ponytail. Unlike most Golds you see on the street, she doesn’t wear jewelry, only a gold lion ring on her left middle finger for House Augustus, and an iron ring of a howling wolf on her right. She’s younger than I thought she was when I first saw her. But her youth doesn’t make her look vulnerable. It makes her look alive, powerful. No wonder a boy from the mines fell in love with her. I used to think it a betrayal. He should have stuck with his own. But how could he resist a woman like this?
“I apologize for that,” she says softly. “They are…afraid.”
I nod, barely hearing her. “Your son—”
She interrupts. “Why did you return? Whether you were working for someone or were simply used, you knew the dangers in coming back here.”
“What does it matter?” I ask in frustration. “We’re wasting time. Your son is out there….”
“You think that fact is lost on me?” I shake my head. “Understand that you are a stranger to me. I have seen you twice—in Quicksilver’s meeting room and again on the landing pad…” She saw me watching her there? I was a hundred meters away. What doesn’t she miss? “…and both times you were listening and seeing more than appropriate. That and your dossier and testimony from Telemanus servants and their steward are all the information I have of you. They say you are angry, judgmental, and isolated. The picture of a terrorist. So, to your question: why do your motivations for returning matter? Because any information you give is suspect. If you want me to believe you, you must first make me believe in you. If you fail…”
“Then you torture me again?”
“No. I stop wasting my time. Why did you return?”
“Because it is the right thing to do.”
She shakes her head. “Not enough. Try again.”
I don’t know what answer she wants. But I understand there’s no point in bluntly answering her questions like I did the others’. She’s not like them. So how do I reach her? How do I make her understand? I search her face and find no hint. But there’s something we have in common. Perhaps the only thing.
“Your…husband was a Red…” I say haltingly.
“He is a Red,” she corrects. “No matter what the Vox Populi say.”
“If you saw my dossier and talked to Kavax, you know how I came to be here, on Luna. What…what happened to my family. And you know I brought my nephew with me and that he is in the Citadel school.”
I touch the Sigils on the back of my hands self-consciously.
“If I ran, Liam would grow up without a family, thinking I was a terrorist. And he’d feel small the rest of his life. He’d think the evil’s in his blood. That he deserves shame. And he’d believe what they say about us, about Reds—that one of us was worth more than the rest of us combined. About Gamma—that we’re greedy in the blood.” I shake my head. “I’d sooner rip my eyes out than let him feel that. I…I promised my sister I would protect him. And I will. Liam will be proud of who he is, who his family was, and the Gamma blood that runs in his veins. So throw me in Deepgrave. Kill me. My life doesn’t mean shit. Your son’s life does. The girl’s life does. And if I can help save them, then Liam can hold his head up high.” I pause. “And so can I.”
She watches me without a smile. The moment stretches. I’ve not reached her. I’m not smart like them. I know it deep down. But then she smiles.