The Telemanuses scramble to separate themselves from Ragnar, confused at who the masked man they are fighting is and why they’re bleeding in so many places. They try to regroup on Mustang, both men rushing for her in a hasty retreat, but as they pass me to join her near the door, I know I can’t just watch her go. So I whip my razor around Kavax’s neck. He gags and reels against me, but I hold on. With the press of a button, I could retract my whip and sever his head. But I’ve no interest in killing the man. He falls only when Ragnar sweeps his leg and puts a knee into his chest. Slamming to the floor. Screwface and the others are on him, pinning him down.
“Don’t kill him,” I shout. Screwface knew Pax. He’s met the Telemanuses, so he holds his blade and snaps at the newer Howlers to do the same. Daxo tries to rush to his father’s aid, but Ragnar and I bar his way. His bright eyes stare in confusion at my face.
“Go, Virginia!” Kavax roars from the ground. “Flee!”
“I have the Pax. Orion is alive,” Mustang says, eying the bloody Howlers who are at my back, coming for her and Daxo. “Don’t kill him. Please.” And then, with a sorrowful look to Kavax, she flees the room.
“What did she mean, Orion’s alive?” I ask Kavax. He’s as shell-shocked as I am, nervously eying the black-clad Howlers prowling through the room. We didn’t lose one, but we’re in shit shape. “Kavax!”
“What she said,” he rumbles. “Exactly what she said. The Pax is safe.”
“Darrow!” Sevro shouts as he reenters the room with Victra. They pursued Cassius through the blackened door on the far side of the room but return empty-handed and limping. “On me!” There’s more I want to ask Kavax, but Victra’s wounded. I rush to her as she leans against the shattered onyx table, hunched over a deep gash in her biceps. Her mask’s off, face twisted and sweating as she injects herself with painkillers and blood coagulant to stem the flow from the wound. I see the hint of bone through the blood.
“Victra…”
“Shit,” she says with a dark laugh. “Your boyfriend is faster than he used to be. Almost got him in the hall, but I think Aja taught him a little of your Willow Way.”
“Looked like,” I say. “You prime?”
“Don’t worry about me, darling.” She gives me a wink as Sevro calls my name again. He and Clown are bent over Moira’s smoking remains. The terrorist lord is unfazed by the carnage around us.
“One of the Furies,” Clown says. “Roasted.”
“Good cooking, Reap,” Sevro drawls. “Crispy on the edges, bloody down the middle. Just how I like. Aja’s gonna be pissed—”
“You cut my coms,” I interrupt angrily.
“You were acting a bitch. Confusing my men.”
“Acting a bitch? The hell is wrong with you? I was using my head instead of just shooting everything. We could have done without murdering half the damn room.”
His ey
es are darker and crueler than those of the friend I remember. “This is war, boyo. Murder’s the name of the game. Don’t be sad we’re good at it.”
“That was Mustang!” I say, stepping close to him. “What if we killed her?” He shrugs. I poke his chest. “Did you know she would be here? Tell me the truth.”
“Naw,” he says slowly. “Didn’t know. Now back up, boyo.” He looks up at me impudently, like he wouldn’t mind taking a swing. I don’t back up.
“What was she doing here?”
“How the hell would I know?” He looks past me to Ragnar, who is pushing Kavax back toward the Howlers gathering in the center of the room. “Everyone prepare to squab out. We’re gonna have to cut through an army to get out of this shit den. Evac point is ten floors up on the black side.”
“Where’s our prize?” Victra asks, eying the carnage. Bodies litter the ground. Silvers shivering in pain. Coppers crawling across the floor, dragging broken legs.
“Probably fried,” I say.
“Prolly,” Clown agrees, casting me a commiserating look as we move from Sevro to pick through the bodies. “It’s a slaggin’ mess.”
“Did you know Mustang would be here?” I ask.
“Not at all. Seriously, boss.” He glances back at Sevro. “What’d you mean he jammed your coms?”
“Stop jawin’ and find the bloodydamn Silver,” Sevro barks from the center of the room. “Somebody grab the Pink from the hall.”
Clown finds Quicksilver at the opposite end of the room, farthest from the hallway door, to the right of the grand viewport that looks down onto Phobos. He’s lying motionless, pinned under a pillar that broke from its place in the floor to fall sideways against the wall. The blood of others covers his turquoise tunic. Bits of glass jut from wounded knuckles. I feel his pulse. He’s alive. So the mission wasn’t a damn waste. But there’s a contusion on his forehead from shrapnel. I call Ragnar and Victra, the two strongest of our party, to help pry the pillar off the man.
Ragnar wedges the razor he threw into the Death Knight’s head under the pillar, using a rock as a fulcrum, and is about to heave upward with me when Victra calls for us to wait. “Look,” she says. Where the pillar’s top meets the wall, there’s a faint blue glow along a seam that runs from the floor up the wall to form a rectangle in the wall. It’s a hidden door. Quicksilver must have been rushing toward it when the pillar fell. Victra puts her ear against the door, and her eyes narrow.