Hysan hears the sharpness in my voice because it takes him a moment to answer. “We asked them to join us here, but they . . . they decided it would be better if they infiltrated the Party and became our spies. Ezra and I built a special device with a heavily encrypted code to communicate that should be near-impossible to break.”
I sit up. If Ezra and Gyzer are with Imogen and Blaze, that means they’re with Nishi, too. “Have you heard from them? Have they told you where the Tomorrow Party is?”
“Not yet,” he says, and on my other side Mathias sets down his fork and doesn’t meet my gaze.
From the corner of my eye, I notice a tall girl in a brown suit slowing down as she walks past our table. She has dark skin and darker eyes, and she’s scrutinizing me so closely that she doesn’t seem to realize I’m staring back. Her gaze drifts to Hysan next, and when I look at him, I find he’s glaring at her. Like they know each other.
The girl blinks and strides away. Hysan locks eyes with me next, and I see the next lie starting to form on his lips—when I suddenly realize I don’t care what he’s hiding. Whatever’s going on with Hysan and his harem of women, it’s just a distraction.
“She’s—”
“I don’t think I’m up for a meeting tonight after all,” I say, cutting him off.
Mathias, Pandora, Skarlet, and Hysan watch me in bewildered silence, until Hysan finally says, “But I thought you said there was no time to waste—”
“I’m tired,” I say loudly. “I’ve been through a lot, don’t you think?”
“Of course,” Mathias answers, jumping in. I spy him shooting Hysan a warning look over my head. Then he touches his Ring, like he’s accessing the Collective Conscious to send out the necessary alerts.
“General Eurek would still like to meet with the rest of us,” says Hysan, his gaze as distant as Mathias’s, like he’s syncing with either the Psy or his Scan.
Skarlet stands, her plate spotlessly clean. “Let’s go then.”
“Rho, would you like someone to walk you back to your tent?” asks Mathias as he rises, too.
“I can escort you, my lady,” injects Hysan, also getting to his feet. His meal is the only one that’s untouched.
“That’s okay,” I say, remaining seated in the space between the guys as I stare after Skarlet, the only one of the group who’s started walking away to bus her tray.
“Skarlet will take me.”
? ? ?
When we leave the dining hall, the others exit the keep through the front door while Skarlet and I head the back way, toward the tents.
As soon as we’re alone, she rounds on me. “You don’t feel like going to the meeting, fine—but you’re not the only leader here. I have a duty to my House and the Zodiac, and I didn’t sign up to play babysitter.”
“Well I need your help.”
“With what? Pulling you a bath?” She crosses her arms, her breath blowing down on me like an angry wind. “I know you’re used to lady’s maids and all that fluff, but that’s not how things work on Aries.”
“Are you refusing a direct order from your superior, Major Thorne?” My voice is thin as ice.
Her nostrils flare as I pull rank on her, and even though she’s a head and a half taller and could squash me like a water-fly, she snarls, “No.”
“Then you’ll do as I say, and you won’t tell a soul.”
Her fingers fidget toward the weapons holstered to her belt, but she just jerks a nod and says through gritted teeth, “As you wish.”
“Stellar.”
Skarlet may not like me, but she’s an honorable soldier—she won’t go back on her word. “I wish for you to take me to see Corinthe. Immediately.”
The Ariean’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline.
As she opens her mouth to argue, I add, “And I further wish that you shut the hell up.”
9
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE MAKING me do this,” growls Skarlet as we walk up the stone plank, back into the mouth of the mountain.
By now the night is fully cloaked in darkness; the red sun seems to have set, and the clouds are so opaque that I can’t see any stars. Behind us only the shadowy shapes of the forest trees and the three fortresses shade the horizon.
“This is a really stupid idea,” Skarlet goes on. She’s been complaining the whole way, and her whining is making it hard to concentrate on what I’m going to say to Corinthe. “Do you even have a plan—”
“What part of shut up is giving you trouble?” I snap.
“The part where you get to keep interfering with my life and meddling with what’s mine,” she says as we reach the hidden doorway in the mountain.
I roll my eyes. “He chose. Get over it.”
“I think he’s the one who’s getting over it,” she says, glowering at me. “He was just distracted by something new, but I think it’s quickly losing its charm.”
“Quit baiting me and open this door. I’m going to make you take me to Corinthe’s cell no matter how hard you piss me off, so you’re wasting your energy.”
Skarlet presses her face to a retinal scan, and the world thunders around us as the slab of stone slides down.
“I don’t know what you think you’re going to get out of this,” she says as we stride inside. The wall shuts quickly and deafeningly behind us.
“She won’t tell you anything,” Skarlet goes on. “Her mind has no reaction to Aquarian truth-telling tonics, and Stridents report that she seems to actually enjoy pain”—the sour turn her tone takes when she speaks of Scorpio’s methods makes it clear she disapproves of them—“and even the most persuasive of Librans couldn’t charm anything out of her.”
I wonder what Libran fits that bill.
I stay silent as she leads us into the cavernous heart of the mountain, the place illuminated with red flames, just as it was when I woke up here a few hours ago. Skarlet parades past two Majors stationed at either side of a passage, and my muscles clench in anticipation of an interrogation, but they don’t stop us or even ask us for identification. I thought for sure Skarlet would have to do some scheming to get us into The Bellow, but it seems nobody cares where we go.
I’m about to ask her why we haven’t been stopped yet, but the question escapes my mind when I see what the guards are protecting: a massive wall of black flames.
“What is that?” I ask in awe.
She turns to me solemnly, the dark fire’s reflection dancing in her catlike eyes. “This wall is what makes The Bellow impenetrable. The flames are from the Everblaze, and the wall is called Black Truth. This is the sole entry point to the prison: Every other surface beyond here—floor, wall, ceiling—is armed with enough firepower to bring down this whole mountain.”
“So then . . . how do we get in?”
Her manner grows professional, and I’m reminded of how quickly the Leonine Truther Traxon switched to his journalist persona on Aquarius. “If you have any nefarious plots beyond this point—if you plan to murder or break out a prisoner—this fire will burn you when you walk through it. But if you are pure in your purpose, you will walk through unharmed.”
I blink, completely at a loss for words. Finally, I manage, “How?”
Skarlet doesn’t break her official demeanor. “I can only provide this warning: If you wish to turn back, now is your only chance—”