At seven o’clock, Exeter’s ship takes him down to the city, along with most of the servants, who are concealed in the cargo hold for their rendezvous with our loyalists. A skeleton crew remains behind. The guards are none the wiser. They watch me.
At eight o’clock, the clone program Glirastes’s loyalist Greens cooked up hijacks the feed from my security spike and transmits falsified data back to them, showing that I am in the library reading. I cut it out of my shoulder with a small knife from the dresser.
Then I sit on the edge of the bed and take the card off the smoked-glass box that Glirastes left for me. The note is simple: This summons legions.
Inside the box is a silver horn inlaid with gods and goddesses and racing chariots with wild steeds pulling the sun. The Horn of Helios, which has begun every race in the Hippodrome since it was built. It is a priceless relic. I set it on the bed as I open a second, far larger container that conceals the gravBoots, razor, and military hardware provided by the loyalists. I’m about to slip the gravBoots on when a knock comes at the door. I frown as a servant’s voice comes through the oak.
“You have a visitor, my liege.”
I open the door. “A visitor? What the devil do you mean?”
“Alexandar au Arcos and his maidservant are in the atrium demanding to see you, dominus.”
Alexandar? The timing could not be worse. I don’t have time to wag jaws at the crown prince of the Free Legio
ns as he thanks me for his deliverance.
“Tell him I am indisposed.”
“He knows you are on house arrest. He can see you’re in the library, dominus.” He looks at the equipment laid out on the bed. “He will be suspicious if I send him away.”
That suspicion will lead to a cascade of consequences that may upturn the entire venture. I am supposed to be at the Hippodrome in ten minutes. With Glirastes in motion, there is no secure way to alter the timetable.
Dammit.
“Admit him into the library in two minutes. Tell him I am finishing a chapter.” I shut the door. There’s absolutely nothing to be done about the spike. I have no way of contacting the Greens.
I hide the loyalist razor in my boot and race to the library.
I’m sweating by the time the door to the library bursts open, and Alexandar waltzes in as if he owns the place. Behind him trails the child soldier Rhonna. Darrow’s niece gapes at all the books. I find her particularly offensive today. She wears her arms bare to show off the unnatural bolts that permit lowColors to parody the Blue mind-sync with their vehicles. This condition, compounded by her Color’s adverse disposition to disciplined warfare, creates anarchy in a single individual. A sort of dissociative mania, which I can see behind her eyes.
A zealot, this one. I must tread carefully.
“This is where they keep the renegade libertines, in the library?” Alexandar asks, running his tongue along his new teeth. “I hope it was an interesting chapter to keep us waiting, you tart.”
He greets me like a brother, wrapping me in a hug and slapping my back in a sort of thuggish display of camaraderie.
“You may have heard,” he goes on. “Departure is imminent, and I told Rhonna it would be a crime against culture to depart without a tour of the Lady Beatrice. It will likely be months before we’re back again.” Even the thought of the Rising returning to claim Mercury sets my blood to a boil.
“What a splendid idea,” I say before making an apologetic face. “But I fear I am rather indisposed at the moment.”
“Told you we should have called ahead,” Rhonna says. She smiles apologetically at me. “Sorry, lad, entitlement is one habit the man can’t break.”
“A book is hardly as interesting company as are we!” Alexandar says. He grins with his new teeth. “Fear not, goodman. I know better than to insult local customs. I brought a bribe.” He tosses me a bottle and winks. “I hear Erebians simply adore Venusian brandy.”
FEAR STARES AT ME through the glass. It does not seem as if he has moved since I resisted cutting off his hands. “Hasn’t talked a lick, despite the cocktails,” Screwface says from beside me.
“Neurological conditioning?” I ask.
“If it is, it ain’t like any I’ve ever seen.”
Atlas’s side of the wall is blank, but I feel his eyes on me. I move left, and they follow. “He can sense us.”
Screwface believes it. “I noticed that too. Should we up the dosage?”
“No.”
“Darrow, we need to know when Atalantia will attack.”