“I don’t.”

“Liar, liar, cheeks afire.”

“I’ve told you a hundred times, we’re not talking about her.”

“Fine. Fine. Then you’re worried, aren’t you? About the auction?” He pauses, smiling and watching me. “You shouldn’t. I’ve settled that matter. I’m going to bid on you.”

“Roque, you don’t have the money.”

“Do you know how badly a Pixie would pay to get a Peerless with my pedigree and connections in their debt? Millions. I could even go to Quicksilver if I need. He loans to Golds all the time. Point is, I’ll have the money, even if my parents won’t help me. So never you worry, brother.” He pokes me with his foot. “House Mars has to mean something, eh?”

“Thank you,” I say, stuttering out the words, unable to really grasp what he’s done. And why? It puts his neck out. It endangers him and crosses his parents. “No one else has even mentioned the auction to me.”

“They’re afraid your bad luck is contagious. You know how it is.” He pauses, waiting because he knows me so well. “There’s something else. Isn’t there?”

I shake my head. “Do you …” My words fail me. “Do you ever feel lost?” The question hangs between us, intimate, awkward only on my end. He doesn’t scoff as Tactus and Fitchner would, or scratch his balls like Sevro, or chuckle like Cassius might have, or purr as Victra would. I’m not sure what Mustang might have done. But Roque, despite his Color and all the things that make him different, slowly slides a marker into the book and sets it on the nightstand beside the four-poster, taking his time and allowing an answer to evolve between us. Movements thoughtful and organic, like Dancer’s were before he died. There’s a stillness in him, vast and majestic, the same stillness I remember in my father.

“Quinn once told me a story.” He waits for me to moan a grievance at the mention of a story, and when I don’t, his tone sinks into deeper gravity. “Once, in the days of Old Earth, there were two pigeons who were greatly in love. In those days, they raised such animals to carry messages across great distances. These two were born in the same cage, raised by the same man, and sold on the same day to different men on the eve of a great war.

“The pigeons suffered apart from each other, each incomplete without their lover. Far and wide their masters took them, and the pigeons feared they would never again find each other, for they began to see how vast the world was, and how terrible the things in it. For months and months, they carried messages for their masters, flying over battle lines, through the air over men who killed one another for land. When the war ended, the pigeons were set free by their masters. But neither knew where to go, neither knew what to do, so each flew home. And there they found each other again, as they were always destined to return home and find, instead of the past, their future.”

He folds his hands gently, a teacher arriving at his point. “So do I feel lost? Always. When Lea died at the Institute …” His lips slip gently downward. “… I was in a dark woods, blind and lost as Dante before Virgil. But Quinn helped me. Her voice calling me out of misery. She became my home. As she puts it, ‘Home isn’t where you’re from, it’s where you find light when all grows dark.’ ” He grasps the top of my hand. “Find your home, Darrow. It may not be in the past. But find it, and you’ll never be lost again.”

I’ve always thought of Lykos as my home. Of Eo as my home. Perhaps that’s where I’m going now. To see her. To die and find home again in the Vale with my wife. But if that’s true, why am I not full? Why does the hollowness grow inside me the closer I draw to her?

“It’s time to go,” I say, rising from the bed.

“As sure as I am your friend”—Roque begins to rise as well—“you will recover from this. We are not our station in life. We are us—the sum of what we’ve done, what we want to do, and the people who we keep close. You’re my dearest friend, Darrow. Mind that. No matter what transpires, I will protect you as surely as you would protect me if ever I needed it.”

I surprise him by clasping his hand and holding it for a moment.

“You’re a good man, Roque. Far too good for your Color.”

“Thank you.” He squints at me as I release his hand and he straightens the wrinkles in his uniform. “But whatever do you mean by that?”

“I think we could have been brothers,” I say. “Were this a different life.”

“Why do we need another life?” Then he sees the automatic syringe in my left hand. His hands are too slow to stop me, but his eyes are quick enough to widen in trusting fear, like a loyal dog’s as he’s put slowly to sleep in its master’s lap. He doesn’t understand, but he knows there’s a reason, yet still comes the fear, the betrayal that breaks my heart into a thousand pieces.

The syringe pierces Roque’s neck and he sinks slowly down onto the bed, eyes drifting closed. When he wakes, everyone he has worked with and for over these past two years will be dead. He will remember what I did to him after he said I was his closest friend. He will know that I knew what was going to happen at the gala. And even if I don’t die tonight, even if they do not discover I was the bomber by other merits, saving Roque’s life means I will be found out. There is no going back.

11

RED

Tonight, I kill two thousand of humanity’s great. Yet I walk with them now, untouched by decadence and condescension as never before. Pliny’s arrogance raises none of my blood. Victra’s immodest dress does not disconcert me, not even when she slips her arm in mine after Tactus offers her his. She whispers in my ear how silly she is for forgetting her undergarments. I laugh like it’s a merry joke, trying to mask the coldness that’s taken me over.

This is static.

“I suppose Darrow deserves some consolation before he leaves,” Tactus says with a sigh. “Have you seen Roque, my goodman?”

“Said he was feeling ill.”

“That’s very Roque of him. Likely coiled around a book. I should fetch him.”

“If he wanted to come, he would come,” I say.

“I want him to come,” Tactus replies. He shrugs at the other lancers who jockey for position close to our master.

“If you need him so badly, go fetch him,” I say, tactically.

He flinches. “I need no one on my arm. But if I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re still bitter about the whole escape-pod affair.”

“You mean when you launched it without him?” Victra asks. “Why would that ever bother him?” Even now that betrayal stings me.

“I thought he was dead! It was simple calculation.” He bumps my shoulder with his fist and nods to Victra. “You understand. Had to watch out for the lady here.”

“She is a delicate little flower,” I say, pulling her away.

“Woe for the lone god of the sea,” Tactus hums melodically. “His friends, like mine, abandoned he!”

Victra adjusts the gold pauldron on her shoulder, which winds its way down her arm in a series of golden cuffs. “That darling boy is so vain he could make a thunderstorm be about him.” She notices my lack of care. “The bidding won’t begin till after the gala.” She nods to a landing aircar. “Well, I was wondering when he’d show.”

The Jackal exits the car, skin faintly pink only in patches. His Yellows did him well. He bows faintly to his father, ignoring the murmurs of the aides.

“Father,” he says, “I thought it fitting if the Family Augustus arrived at the gala with at least one of your children. We must present a united front, after all.”

“Adrius.” Augustus eyes his son for something to criticize. “I wasn’t aware you enjoyed banquets these days. I’m not sure the fare will be to your liking.”

The Jackal laughs theatrically. “Perhaps that is why my invitation was not delivered! Or was it the furor over the terrorist attacks? No matter. I am here now, and ever eager to attend your side.” The Jackal falls in, smiling broadly to all, knowing his father will never escalate family quarrels in public. He offers me a particularly sinister sneer, one others see and shrink away from. All stage. “Shall we?”