Alone with Ophiuchus, I sit on one of the faded couches and try not to think about how much time has already passed. How much pain Nishi has already endured.
Tick, tock, tick, tock, crab.
I distract myself by contemplating the Thirteenth Guardian. Even though he’s nothing like the godlike being he was in his original form, he’s no mere mortal either. Being around him feels like I’m in the presence of something holy, yet undeniably dark.
He’s a fallen god who succumbed to the worst kind of evil.
A broken star.
The front door opens, and I’m relieved the guys were so quick. I stand up in anticipation—only instead of Trax and Tomás, a dozen masked Marad soldiers in white uniforms march inside, training their Murmurs on us.
I can almost delude myself that it’s just a bunch of Leonine actors, but then a thirteenth Lion strides into the room.
The leader of the Tomorrow Party.
21
I RAISE MY HAND AND make a fist, releasing the blue sword of my Barer. “Wake up!” I shout at Ophiuchus, but he remains on the floor, deep in his Center.
Blaze Jansun eases in with the same conqueror’s confidence he always exudes—like every room he enters instantly becomes part of his domain. He’s wearing a royal purple Lionheart uniform, and his russet eyes and bright brown skin glow against his newly dyed white hair.
“I’ll kill you,” I warn as he walks closer, holding the sword as steady as I can. “Your master wants me alive, so you can’t hurt me,” I remind him.
“I have no intention of hurting you, Rho,” he says, sounding wounded by the mere suggestion. He settles into the center couch cushion, stretching his limbs and taking up the whole thing. “These weapons are for your friend.”
“Did you hurt Trax?”
Traxon comes forward from behind the wall of soldiers, and for the first time I hear how truly gullible I am.
“We knew you spoke with Traxon on Aquarius because we saw you meeting with him in the Pegazi stables,” says Blaze. “So once you left, I found him and offered to hand over the one thing he’s always wanted from both of us.”
The truth.
Traxon doesn’t shrink from my glower because by his standards, he didn’t do anything wrong. He’s stayed true to his own code—truth above all—and he probably sees me as the one in the wrong for manipulating him. And maybe I am.
Every truth is relative. I hear Gamba’s words in my mind, but I shake them off by digging into Blaze. “And what version of the truth did you give him?”
“We told him everything.” From the way Blaze says the word, it’s clear that Traxon’s knowledge of the Party now far surpasses mine. “And in exchange, we asked that he tell you Untara was funding Black Moon—which, full disclosure, was all along just a ploy to draw you in and steal your followers.”
Fire flames inside me at the thought of how they used Nishi, but for her sake I keep it tamed. I need to save her first—I’ll worry about making them pay for what they did after.
“I thought you were honorable,” I growl at Traxon.
“I don’t go back on my deals,” he says, glaring back at me just as angrily, and in his hurt expression, I see the pain of my refusal to trust him. “Besides, you wanted me to take you to the Party, and now I’ve brought the Party to you.”
I lower my hand but don’t turn off my Barer. Instead, I transform the energy into electric brass knuckles, and I keep my arm ready to swing if the need arises. “So what exactly are you doing for Aquarius, Blaze?”
“It’s what he’s doing for us, Rho,” he says, sitting up with excitement. “He’s freeing us from the old ways and the old politicians and the old prejudices—he’s giving us a chance to re-create our universe. To make it the way it ought to be. All of us living as one, not twelve or thirteen.”
“That’s inspiring, but I’m curious: How does murder play into that utopia?”
“That’s what you Cancrians don’t understand,” he says, shaking his head. “Sacrifice.”
I hear Fernanda’s accusation in his words: On Cancer you believe the loss of one life is as unacceptable as the loss of ten thousand—but on Taurus, we’re team players and we believe in making sacrifices for the greater good.
“Sometimes a broken building can’t be repaired,” he goes on. “Sometimes you have to blow up its foundation and build it anew.”
This time, it’s Deke I hear: To change the norm, you have to break it.
Words can be so easily manipulated—all you have to do is assign them new meanings, and the message changes. They’re as inconstant as the streets of the Artistry Pride, and that’s what Aquarius—a wordsmith by nature—realized. It’s what he’s used to change the Zodiac.
Words have always been his weapon of choice.
But they’ve also been mine.
“So what are we waiting for?” I ask, and the electricity snuffs out from my Barer. “Take us to him.”
“You friend is a little large to carry,” says Blaze. “We’ll wait for him to wake up.”
Ophiuchus’s silver eyes open, and he rises to his impressive height.
“Well then.” Even though Blaze is still playing it cool, there’s a tense note in his voice now. “As they say in Artistry: It’s time to meet the director.”
? ? ?
Rather than marching us out, Blaze and his soldiers force Ophiuchus and me upstairs, and then they open a hatch in the ceiling and make us climb onto the rooftop. Traxon and Tomás stay behind.
A machine that looks like a massive silver cat lands lightly and soundlessly before us, and I gasp.
A Panthera plane.
Everyone in the Zodiac has heard of Panthera planes, but hardly anyone has ever seen one. Only the highest level of Leonine government officials have access to them because of their stealth—since the ships don’t exactly fly, they have no real engine and operate on minimal technology, so they slip past almost every kind of detection.
Panthera planes play a big part in pretty much every Leonine action film, so on Cancer every kid grew up wanting one. Even Dad used to talk about them.
The craft operates on four powerfully springy legs that silently leap from rooftop to rooftop. The only windows are in the plane’s catlike head, where the driver sits, guiding the legs’ direction.
An entryway opens in the silver cat’s round belly, and Ophiuchus and I follow Blaze inside, Murmurs aimed at our backs. The space is dark and velvety, without windows or wallscreens, and each of us straps into a seat. Then the mechanical cat extends its legs, and the craft barely shakes as we leap from roof to roof.
With nothing to watch or listen to, all I have to think about is the meeting that’s coming. If Traxon’s betrayal did anything, it cemented that I was right not to trust anyone but myself. It’s not like any of this changes my plan anyway: I was always going to go before Aquarius and beg for Nishi’s life. I was just hoping to show up on my terms, not dragged in at gunpoint.
My stomach tickles as the Panthera makes an especially low jump, and as soon as we land, Blaze and the soldiers get to their feet. When we deplane, I turn around quickly to watch the huge silver cat leap away.