“His squad tried to cover for him,” called Colin, breathless.
“Idiots,” muttered Mony. “Like that kind of thing just washes off. Sunai can smell it. So, the Council decided to make an example. They gathered all the squads here in the hall, and brought Tanner out, and made us watch while that one”—at this, she flicked her head toward the doors and Kate twisted to see Soro, straight-backed and chin high, surveying the hall—“reaped him. An object lesson in what happens to sinners.”
Kate’s chest tightened. “Did it work?”
“I’m telling you the story, aren’t I? Every now and then, someone messes up. Tensions get high, mistakes are made. They don’t make an example of those. When it happens, the soldier just disappears. There’s a saying in the ranks: Soro comes for the bad, but Ilsa comes for the sorry.”
They ran a full lap before Kate spoke again.
“What about August?”
Colin panted. “What about him?”
“Well, if Soro reaps the bad and Ilsa reaps the sorry, who does August reap?”
Mony snorted. “Everyone else.”
August made his way to the stage.
The crowd parted, staggering out of his way as if he were a live coal.
I’m willing to walk in darkness . . .
He drew the violin from its case, kept his focus on the bow and the strings instead of the people beyond.
I’m willing . . .
He began to play.
The song spiraled out, but for once, his limbs didn’t loosen, his mind didn’t clear. August wanted to lose himself in the music, to relish these rare moments of peace, but Kate’s words were lodged like a splinter in his skull.
What happened to the August I knew?
What happened?
Things change.
I’ve changed.
He had changed.
It was just—his brother wanted him to be like his violin, the one made of steel, but August felt like the first one, the one left shattered on the bathroom floor in Kate’s house beyond the Waste. An instrument of music reduced to slivers and sharp fragments.
There was Leo, telling him to be the thing the monsters feared, and Soro, who made him feel selfish for wanting to want to be human, and Ilsa, who made him feel like a monster for not wanting it enough, and Henry who seemed to think he could be everything to everyone, and Kate, who wanted him to be someone he couldn’t be anymore.
You’re lying.
His fingers tightened on the bow.
Focus, brother, chided Leo.
You even sound like him.
His song quickened.
The August I knew—
The bow slipped, and the note came out too sharp. He stopped playing, let the violin fall back to his side. He hadn’t finished the song, but it was enough. The crowd stared up at him, wide-eyed, complacent, souls shining on their skin.
A sea of white, and in the center, a single bloom of red. A man, squat and unassuming, with a woman at his side, the two pressed together despite the space around them. Her soul shone white, but his burned red, and as August approached, he heard the man’s confession.
“. . . but fear makes us do stupid things, doesn’t it? He could have been after me. I didn’t know . . .” His head was up, his eyes on August, but his gaze went straight through him. “I wasn’t a bad person, you know. It’s just a bad world. I was young, and I didn’t know any better.”
Red light rose off the man’s skin like steam.
“Can you blame me? Can you?”
August didn’t blame him—it was a bad world—but that didn’t change anything. He pressed his palm to the man’s skin, and the confession faltered, the words trailing off as the man’s life rolled through him.
The corpse crumpled to the floor, and August turned away as souls sank beneath skin, and the symphony hall twitched back into life around him.
He heard the woman sob, but didn’t turn back. Harris and Ani tried to calm her as he forced himself to keep walking.
Your job is done here.
He was nearly to the door when the gun went off.
August spun back as plaster rained from the ceiling, and people cowered, shielding their heads. The woman had Harris’s pistol in both hands, knuckles white as she leveled it at August. Ani and Jackson were already reaching for their tasers as he started down the aisle, hands raised. “Put it down.”
“Crazy bitch,” growled Harris.
“Drop the gun,” demanded Ani.
But the woman had eyes only for August. “He didn’t deserve to die.”
He took another step toward her. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know him,” she sobbed. “You didn’t know him at all.”
“I know his soul was stained.” Another step, past Ani and Jackson. “He made his fate.”
“He made a mistake,” she spat. “You can stand there, all righteous, but you don’t understand. You can’t understand. You’re not even human.”
The blow landed, not sharp, but dull and aching and heavy.
August was level with Harris now.
“He chose—”
“He changed. People change.” Tears streamed down her face. “Why doesn’t it matter?”
Maybe it should, thought August, just before she shot him.
The hall echoed with the deafening cracks as she emptied the gun into August’s chest. It hurt, the way everything hurt, but only for an instant. She continued squeezing the trigger long after the magazine was empty and all that left was the impotent click click click.
He let her do it, because it didn’t change anything. Her husband was still gone and August was still standing, and when the chamber was empty, the last of the strength went out of her limbs and she sank to the floor beside his body, the gun falling from her fingers. August knelt in front of her, one hand resting on the empty weapon, the gun smoke still rising off his skin.
“You’re very lucky I’m not human.”
He jerked his head, and Ani and Jackson swept behind the woman, hauling her to her feet.
The tower lobby hummed with energy.
Corsai pooled in the corners, whispering to themselves, while the Malchai shifted and stirred, restless at being gathered together in one place.
Sloan stood on the lowest landing and looked down at the sea of red eyes, reminding himself that this teeming mass, these filthy, feral things were nothing more than shades, foot soldiers, subjects.
And he, their king.
“There is an intruder in our midst,” he said. “A monster has seen fit to come into our city, and feast upon our food. It is a thing of darkness,” continued Sloan. “But we are all things of darkness. The Corsai claim they cannot catch it”—here the shadows chittered—“but we are not all Corsai.”
A low growl, a snarl of agreement.
“Sloan is right.” This came from Alice.
She was perched on the rail of a balcony above. It looked as though she were wearing dark gloves—in truth, she simply hadn’t washed her hands after her latest feast. The sight repulsed him, but the other monsters stared at her in rapture, as she knew they would.
“We are Malchai,” she said. “There is nothing we cannot hunt, no one we cannot kill.” She flashed a smile at Sloan, all teeth. “What would you have us do, Father?”