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“Will Sefi strike before the vote?”

“I doubt it. We’ve gained half the Silvers today, but in a month they’ll all come begging.” I look at my datapad and glower. “To Sunhall. Looks like the Goblin has made a new mess.”

THE CHIEF ASSASSIN OF the Syndicate is dead. The Duke of Heads’ cranium has replaced that of a neo-Rococo mermaid who endures the unwanted attention of a particularly immoral agate satyr. The pool beneath is brackish with blood. Scarlet frogs hop along the lip of the fountain. I am thoroughly repulsed.

Bravo, Sevro. You’ve outdone yourself. Your wrath is so legendary.

In my private office off Sunhall in the Citadel, I chew the inside of my cheek and cycle the hologram. Theodora’s investigators sent it from the North Hyperion mansion not ten minutes ago. With Daxo managing the vote hunt, I have precious time to spare to search for evidence they missed, just no time at all for my untouched dinner.

The arch-assassin for the Syndicate was a Gray man with a heavy mustachio held together at the ends by two platinum bands. He had big bones. And a strong neck, before it was severed by a razor. Amplifying the image, I find minor imperfections in the cut. Sevro’s razor. He’s the only Howler who uses a serrated blade. Doesn’t make much difference when the edge is so sharp, but he thinks it looks scarier. He’s right.

Little else remains of the Duke’s body. The carnivorous fish in the pool below were as thorough as my tax collectors should be. All that remains is his skeleton, and the hook that lowered him. What a waste of a chance. If Sevro finds the Duke of Hands before I do and does this, then I fear we will never find who is truly behind this.

Since he snuck onto this moon, Sevro has brought the horrors he learned on the front lines fighting the Fear Knight to the prime stream of the holoNet. I’ve managed to cover most of the massacres up, but some slip through.

To make matters worse, he’s in lonewolf protocol. No contact until the mission is complete, until the Queen is dead. Damn Victra for setting him to this madness. It has netted him little more than eight hundred Syndicate thorns, seven narcotics-processing facilities, sixteen minor nobles, a duke, and a duchess, but no Queen. It has cost him far more. Three Howlers, three weeks of precious time, the attention of the Republic Warden, and a declaration of war by the Syndicate Queen.

Gruesome details flicker past: appendages nailed to walls, headless bodies sitting around an equally offensive topaz table, corpses in the atrium wearing glossy green armor. Emerald Orphans, by their markings. A freelancer company from Mars, consisting of elite ex-legion Grays. Mercenaries. A predictable but frustrating escalation.

Unable to stop him on her own, the Queen of the S

yndicate has turned to the free market to rid herself of Victra’s attack dog.

The highest-priced contract in the history of the war hangs over Sevro’s head. It is sufficient to draw every bounty hunter, hitman, and freelancer in the Republic to Luna for the greatest private manhunt in a century.

A small economy has spawned from the underworld wagers on who will claim top prize. Sevro will not see it coming. Death will fall from a quiet man atop a skyscraper some kilometers away. A smart-slug or a DNA-seeking hunterkiller drone. And then my brother’s best friend is gone.

He should be on Mars with Victra, or Mercury with Darrow, or working with me. Is revenge worth that much to you, Victra?

Gods, she pisses me off.

They underestimated the Queen. As did I, at first. She has training. Military-style organization and compartmentalization, safe-houses, heavy arms, an impressive network of spies, even several military-grade attack ships.

Theodora’s women were thorough in their forensic investigation of the scene. I give up on finding exotic clues and deactivate the hologram. Here in a vestibule of my private sanctuary, the walls are covered with fragments of paper. Remnants of my childhood that Darrow thinks best burned. I keep them to remember what madness lurks within myself. To stay on the stiletto path, and realize what waits if I am tempted to wander off.

Within the frames on the wall of the vestibule are 311 puzzles, all that remains of those that my brother Adrius would make for me when we were children. I stare at them. Many are mazes, others complicated cryptograms or esoteric experiments. Each I solved. But I cannot solve this puzzle of who threatens my Republic. I gently stroke the leaves of the night lily at the base of the puzzles. Many more of the plants decorate the room. My office, like many of the rooms in the Citadel, contains defense mechanisms. Most are violent in nature. But some, like the escape tube concealed in the walls behind the puzzles, are only meant for retreat. I prefer the flowers, personally. The maids and staff know they are never to be touched, on pain of incarceration. They don’t know why. The lily’s necrotic needles quiver at my touch, but it was gentle enough to leave them docile. If one seized the plant, the needles would spring forward. The pain is said to be worse than amputation. The poison spreads slowly, but eventually death follows. Dangerous to keep around, but so incongruent with the rest of my personality that it seems a necessary last line of defense.

I cross my arms as I look at the puzzles. They all challenged me. My brother was clever. But once they are solved, they seem so simple.

Will I think the same when I unwind the Queen of the Syndicate?

When I discover why Quicksilver continues to stonewall?

I look around. Am I being played right this very moment?

A fire crackles in the hearth across the room, and I wonder if this isn’t the beginning of my tragedy. If Victra fails in her clumsy gambit to retrieve my son, if no ships sail to Mars, will I reign for sixty more years in the shadow of their memories? An old woman in an empty castle?

Boots clack against the metal floor behind me, and I seal the vestibule of puzzles behind a security wall. “I just spit in the eye of my oldest ally, Nakamura. While the godfather of my son decorates my doorstep with corpses. I could really use some good news.” I turn to face the centurion at the door. She wears a rare smile along with her black lion assault armor. In her arms is my white box. “She got him?”

“She got him. Lionguard is kitted and ready to roll.”

I grab both her shoulders and kiss her straight on the mouth. She gawps at me and then laughs as I rush out the door. “Come, Centurion, the hunt’s afoot.”

* * *

—

Four stealth shuttles filled with Lionguard elite, a Sovereign, and a former Howler fly west as the blitz presses into its twenty-fourth hour. Beneath, Hyperion boils. Armored, with my precious white box in my lap, I watch the holoDisplays.