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“I would look him in the eye and tell him I will not stop till his child is found, without apology and without remorse.”

“And will you tell him that his child is lost?” Theodora is taken aback. “Oh, you thought I didn’t know you helped him get into Deepgrave to release a war criminal who tried to murder my family in our sleep?”

“Virginia…”

“No.” The Sovereign raises a hand. “I tire of being treated like a child by my own council because I have chosen to obey the laws. You’re no different than Victra. You mistake morality for naïveté. Now get out. I don’t want to look at any of you any longer. It’s time I talk with the girl alone.”

THE SOVEREIGN WATCHES ME from Daxo’s vacated chair.

I feel shredded and thin from the interrogation. The horror of the Oracle has not fled. I still feel its legs around my arm.

Only Holiday remains with us in the room. I glance at the Gray nervously out of the corner of my eye, knowing if there’s pain to come, it’ll be from her.

The Sovereign is dressed simply, her hair held back from her head in a ponytail. Unlike most Golds you see on the street, she doesn’t wear jewelry, only a gold lion ring on her left middle finger for House Augustus, and an iron ring of a howling wolf on her right. She’s younger than I thought she was when I first saw her. But her youth doesn’t make her look vulnerable. It makes her look alive, powerful. No wonder a boy from the mines fell in love with her. I used to think it a betrayal. He should have stuck with his own. But how could he resist a woman like this?

“I apologize for that,” she says softly. “They are…afraid.”

I nod, barely hearing her. “Your son—”

She interrupts. “Why did you return? Whether you were working for someone or were simply used, you knew the dangers in coming back here.”

“What does it matter?” I ask in frustration. “We’re wasting time. Your son is out there….”

“You think that fact is lost on me?” I shake my head. “Understand that you are a stranger to me. I have seen you twice—in Quicksilver’s meeting room and again on the landing pad…” She saw me watching her there? I was a hundred meters away. What doesn’t she miss? “…and both times you were listening and seeing more than appropriate. That and your dossier and testimony from Telemanus servants and their steward are all the information I have of you. They say you are angry, judgmental, and isolated. The picture of a terrorist. So, to your question: why do your motivations for returning matter? Because any information you give is suspect. If you want me to believe you, you must first make me believe in you. If you fail…”

“Then you torture me again?”

“No. I stop wasting my time. Why did you return?”

“Because it is the right thing to do.”

She shakes her head. “Not enough. Try again.”

I don’t know what answer she wants. But I understand there’s no point in bluntly answering her questions like I did the others’. She’s not like them. So how do I reach her? How do I make her understand? I search her face and find no hint. But there’s something we have in common. Perhaps the only thing.

“Your…husband was a Red…” I say haltingly.

“He is a Red,” she corrects. “No matter what the Vox Populi say.”

“If you saw my dossier and talked to Kavax, you know how I came to be here, on Luna. What…what happened to my family. And you know I brought my nephew with me and that he is in the Citadel school.”

I touch the Sigils on the back of my hands self-consciously.

“If I ran, Liam would grow up without a family, thinking I was a terrorist. And he’d feel small the rest of his life. He’d think the evil’s in his blood. That he deserves shame. And he’d believe what they say about us, about Reds—that one of us was worth more than the rest of us combined. About Gamma—that we’re greedy in the blood.” I shake my head. “I’d sooner rip my eyes out than let him feel that. I…I promised my sister I would protect him. And I will. Liam will be proud of who he is, who his family was, and the Gamma blood that runs in his veins. So throw me in Deepgrave. Kill me. My life doesn’t mean shit. Your son’s life does. The girl’s life does. And if I can help save them, then Liam can hold his head up high.” I pause. “And so can I.”

She watches me without a smile. The moment stretches. I’ve not reached her. I’m not smart like them. I know it deep down. But then she smiles.

“That is something I can belie

ve.”

I breathe in relief and let my hands relax, not realizing I’d been clenching them into fists this whole time. “The key to this seems to be the man you call Philippe.” She motions to Holiday. The woman opens her datapad on the table and waits for her instructions. “Where did you meet him?”

“On Hyperion Promenade outside the museum. I’d just come from the exhibits there and a Gold…a woman accused me of pickpocketing her. I hadn’t. Think it was another Red. I got thrown in cuffs and they were haulin’ me up when Philippe came and talked ’em out of it.”

“This was Tuesday the seventeenth,” she confirms.

“How did you…” Realization dawns. “My flexipass.”