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“Dancer, my husband and the Free Legions are our two greatest symbols. If the Republic abandons the Free Legions, Mars will give up on Luna. Then Luna falls to Atalantia. Atalantia takes Earth. Mars stands alone. And, eventually, Mars falls. Give us an alternative. A compromise. I’ll send my own ships, Kavax’s, Arcos’s, but I need a hundred ships-of-the-line from the defense fleets to stand a chance against Atalantia. That’s less than a third of Luna’s fleet.”

“And if you lose?”

“We won’t.”

He sits in silence, rubbing his outsized hands together. The movement slows as his resolve forms. I hear the door shutting before he looks up. I missed my opportunity, or perhaps it never really existed. “I cannot risk those atomics coming here,” he says. “I may hate this human swamp, but it’s filled to capacity.”

“Then I wish you good health and ill fortune.”

“Wait, Virginia.” My hand hovers over the datapad as he leans forward, voice barely above a whisper. “You know this will escalate. If I somehow fall off a balcony or eat an unruly fishbone—”

He hits the nerve.

“Pity. I never confuse you and Harmony. Yet after all this time, you still think I am my father. Or is it my brother?”

“It’s not you. It’s your people.”

“Daxo, you mean.”

“And Theodora, the Seventh, the Arcoses.”

“I have them under control.”

If he knew Sevro was here and out of control, he’d be shitting himself.

“That’s either a big fat lie or you’re drinking your own swill. You and I both know Darrow and the Reaper are two different things entirely. And the Reaper didn’t gnaw through the Society because he was a better military strategist than the Ash Lord. His gift is making men go mad. You’ve seen it.”

I have. Fighter pilots going “Polyphemus” and driving straight into the bridges of enemy torchShips so much the Golds put them in the center of the ships. Unarmored lowColors using their tattered bodies to weigh down armored Golds so their fellows can finish them, like hounds after a cougar, baying my husband’s name.

“I didn’t stop carrying a rifle because I was old or it was heavy,” he says. “I did it to counter the Reaper’s weight as I never could in the legions. Some literally think he is a god. If they think he wants it…they’ll murder cities. They’ll murder me.”

There is a frail quality in him that goes behind weariness of the flesh. One he has never permitted me to see before. But the frailness is not weakness. It is a cornered spirit too tired for anything except a killing blow. “If I am assassinated…the Vox will retaliate.”

“I will control my people,” I say. “I wish I believed you could control yours. I will see you in three days, Senator. Try to avoid fishbones.”

I punch off the datapad. It fizzles with broken circuits. I punch it again. What good is being smarter than everyone if no one listens? Is this how my father felt? My brother? Is evil born of pure frustration?

Holiday watches the blood drip from a gash on my knuckle. It’s already coagulating. Even Mickey couldn’t match that genetic blessing. “Centurion, if I told you to kill Dancer O’Faran, would you do it?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Why not?”

“If Darrow and Orion are dead, you two are the Republic.”

We don’t know if they are or not. Communication to the planet is down. But I reject the concept of doubt. Darrow and Pax do not die. It is a paradigm of my life that will be true until proven beyond reasonable doubt.

I lick clean the congealing blood. “Good answer.” Even Kavax would never have refused my father like that. If Holiday only knew how much her presence restrains my darker urges, she might think it wise to put a few rounds through my skull just to be safe. “Make sure the word goes through the ranks again. If anyone so much as touches a hair on Dancer’s head, the last face they’ll ever see will be mine as I entomb them in the bowels of Deepgrave, with only lonely Boneriders for company.”

“Yes, ma’am. But it’s not them you have to worry about.” She lowers her voice. “The Seventh is climbing the walls. They think the Senate is filled with traitors. If Sevro goes to them…”

“He has thirty thousand elite shock troops within twenty minutes of the Citadel. I’m aware, Nakamura. I am very much aware.” I stretch my neck as my ship approaches the Moonhall landing pad. “Silenius walked his stiletto. I’ve no doubt we’ll walk ours.”

“What makes you so confident?”

“Well, for starters, we have smaller feet.”

DICTAEON ANTRON, THE PERSONAL SKYHOOK of my closest confidant, Daxo au Telemanus, and for ten years the informal headquarters of the Vox’s nemesis, the Optimate Party, floats over the Citadel. Daxo designed it himself to look like a brain. Viewed from above, it resembles little more than a pair of very engorged testicles. And everyone, excluding perhaps four people, is afraid to say so. For years, I had him park it over the Sea of Serenity to maintain the impartiality of my office. And for aesthetics.