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How easy would it be for him to peel my arms from their sockets? I’ve seen Rising Obsidians do it to captured Gray legionnaires and Golds. Would I scream like those poor bastards?

“Eveything here he stole with his own hand. There was a Duchess before him. He stole her crown too,” Gorgo says.

“Surprised he doesn’t have the children in here on a pedestal.” I fish for a hint of their whereabouts. Would be a shame if I called Holiday and the cavalry and had nothing to show for it. Gorgo doesn’t take the bait. “Back to the ants…they soothe him? Is the Duke an entomologist as well?” Gorgo does not reply. He just sits there like a cultured yeti with those eerie eyes bugging out of his cadaverous face. “You don’t like me very much, do you, Gorgo?”

“No.”

“May I ask why?”

“You talk too much.”

“So?”

“Talking wastes wind, slows cogitation. Unlike you, I don’t need to wag my tongue to soothe my nerves.”

“Communication is the soul of civilization. Otherwise we’re like them, aren’t we?” I nod to the ants. “Carrying, ferrying, digging, and toiling. If you express yourself only through your work, what are you but an ant?” I want to get a rise out of him. His quietness irks me. “You really should try it.”

“I told him he should kill you. Like that Green.”

“I take it back. Maybe stick to silence.”

“I still think he should kill you.”

Gorgo isn’t the sort of man you want envisioning your mortality.

“But death is so permanent. You’d miss me.” I puff a cloud of smoke between us. “Any particular reason you want to put me in the ground?” My lungs feel tight tonight.

Gorgo doesn’t answer. I eye his black duster and black boots. “I’ve always wondered, the dusters…do they give them to you when you sign your employment contract or do you go out and buy your own from a criminal apparel store?”

“You’re funny,” he says.

“Thank you.”

“How’s that working for you, Gray? Being funny.”

I look around. “Pretty good. How’s being the Duke’s dog work for you?”

He just smiles that eerie metal smile of his.

The man puts the fear of hell into me. You can read most men, but not this gilded golem. I have no idea what he wants. Feigning boredom, I stand and walk the length of the ant colony. On closer inspection, I realize there are two species of ants, the colonies separated by a sliding glass partition near the ceiling. Hundreds of each gather at the partition. They’re little trundling war machines. Larger than the worker ants, with thick plates of shell armor, oversized heads, and comically large mandibles. The yellow ants crane their bodies upward like howling dogs and wave their mandibles in the air while the blue ants throb their stingers in and out. I look again above the yellow ant colony and peer at the carcass that feeds them. I step closer to the glass to see past the squirming bodies. Oh hell. It’s a severed hand nearly picked clean of flesh. Too large for the children. An Obsidian’s crescent metal Sigil can be seen fused to the bone of the metacarpals.

Dread rises from my balls into my belly. So the Duke collected on his debt. Belog? Wasn’t that the Obsidian’s name? I have a sudden urge to vomit. They’re going to murder me. That’s why they brought me to see the ants. They’re going to kill me and feed me to the fucking ants.

I turn away in disgust. Gorgo’s watching me with those quiet eyes that promise so much pain. He gathers his datapad and my gun, and stands when the Duke enters several minutes later. My heart plummets even further into my intestines, hitting each rib on its way down, when two Obsidian bodyguards follow the Pink into the room.

“Have you two been playing nicely?” the Duke asks.

“Relatively,” I say with an earnest smile of relief. “Gorgo is a bit taciturn.”

“It’s his charm. I don’t need you anymore tonight, Gorgo. Go play with your little toys,” the Duke says. “I took the liberty of refreshing your stock.”

Metal glints between Gorgo’s lips.

“His gun.” Gorgo hands over my Omnivore and leaves with a short bow. The Duke wears a black robe with a purple sheen and black slippers. “Ephraim, darling. So dreadful of me to keep you waiting. I hope Gorgo wasn’t too much of a bore.”

“Quite a vocabulary on that cold fish in there. Where did you find him?”

“Oh, we’ve been acquainted for some time. Let’s just say that we melted that gold in his teeth down together. Come. Come. I hope you’re hungry.” He keeps my gun and sets it next to the knives on his side of the table. Close enough for me to reach. I could get it and take his datapad to signal Holiday, but the Obsidians would peel me apart.