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“Your way.” I say nothing. Her lips make a thin line. “No. We tried your way. Now let’s try mine.” She touches the datapad on her wrist. “Wulfgar. Bring the Wardens.”

From the distant sky comes a mournful sound that most would mistake for the wind. But I know the noise military gravBoots make on full thrust. I burst to my feet. “Mustang…”

“I’m sorry, Darrow. You made this choice. If you will not listen to your wife, you will obey your Sovereign.”

I pull up my com. “Sevro, we have to go! Now! Wardens inbound.”

He does not answer. The com is jammed.

I push past my wife and sprint toward the landing pad. The roar of gravBoots fills the air above me now, rattling through the pine needles. High-intensity light shines down on me. I feel an intense burning on my neck as someone in the air opens up with a beam weapon.

“Halt!” an amplified voice calls from the air. “In the name of the Republic, halt!” I tear across the grass, almost to the landing pad. There’s a concussion in the air behind me. I whip my razor off my arm just in time and tense my body. The birdcage hits me like an Obsidian punch in the spine. I slam to the ground as the fiberwire constricts around me. Before it pins my arms to my side, I activate my razor. The blade severs the net and I scramble to my feet as ten Republic Wardens slam down onto the turf in front of me in full armor. Five Colors are represented. Their sky-blue capes droop in the humidity of the summer night. Wulfgar lets his helmet slither back into his armor. His white hair flows over his shoulders.

“?’Lo, Wulfgar,” I say, gaining my feet.

“Darrow.”

“Out for a midnight stroll?”

He smiles. “The night air soothes the spirit.” My eyes rove the knights as they move forward. Wisely, they keep their distance and stay in an arc instead of encircling. There are Obsidians and Golds in their ranks. I mark them first, but I’m wariest of Wulfgar. There’s a pained look on his face. They came prepared, wearing new-model pulseArmor and carrying nonlethal weapons except the razors on their forearms. I’m keenly aware of the thinness of my leather jacket, the nakedness of my bare hands and exposed head. Wulfgar looks at the razor in my hand. “Perhaps we could walk together, Morning Star? Your spirit could use soothing.”

“My spirit’s light as a kite,” I say. “Seems everyone else is the problem.”

“I’ve been given orders by the Senate and the Sovereign to place you under arrest.”

And the Sovereign. I resist looking back at my wife.

“So you’re with them then. You want to barter with the Ash Lord.”

“I am with the Republic, Darrow. As are you. Do not claim I betray you. No man is above the law. And the law will find you innocent. The People would not let the Reaper be punished. You will rise stronger than ever.”

“Is that what you think?” They’ll put me in a cell. I feel the Jackal roving through the back of my mind. Hear the dinner plates echoing through the stone. I told myself long ago that I would never be a prisoner again. To have my choice robbed from me, to have my body constricted…I cannot fathom allowing any man or woman to ever strip me of my liberty again.

“You really think the Ash Lord is ever going to accept peace?” I ask. “You’re sharper than that. You saw New Thebes. Death for forty kilometers.”

“It is my duty to uphold the New Compact and obey the Senate. Just as it is yours. That is what I know.”

He’s too starry-eyed to see there’s a vast gulf that separates his idea of the Republic and the corrupt reality of what it’s become. “I thought you might say that.” I nod to my ship. “You’re going to have to move, Wulfgar.”

“I will not.”

“You don’t want me to move you.” I take a step forward. The knights ripple back. Their cloaks roll up into compartments in the back of their armor.

“Darrow, stop,” Wulfgar says with a laugh. “We’re in SI-7 pulseArmor. You’ve got a leather jacket.”

“So?”

His voice softens. “Think what you risk.” He nods back to the house. I look back for Mustang. She stands on the edge of the clearing, letting the law do its own work. “Would your son be proud?” He steps forward, voice plaintive. “Would he understand?”

His nearest man is ten meters away. I’ll never close the distance before they put me down. “One day he would,” I say. I’m buying time for Sevro to join us. I’m not sure they’ve clocked him back at the house.

Wulfgar’s face hardens as he sees I’m not going to come with him. “Out of respect for who you are, I will ask you one last time to come peacefully.”

“And if I don’t?”

He opens his hands. “There will be violence.”

Sevro must be out in the darkness somewhere. Even with him, the odds are not good. But the odds will be far worse if I let them take me into custody. I’ll be at the mercy of bureaucrats and they won’t let me out till Dancer’s peace is made and the Ash Lord’s trap sprung. Or my men will break me out, and start a civil war.