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Sevro and I look at the Obsidian. He shakes his head.

“You trust him?” the warden says. “Him?”

“Seems you’re the one who took his tongue,” I say. The Obsidian points at me. “So yes. Did he see something you didn’t want him to see? Say something you didn’t want him to say?”

“No, he—”

“Liar, liar, prick on fire,” Sevro says into his ear, and lowers his multiRifle to rest on the warden’s groin.

“Prisoner 1126 is dead!”

“My goodman, if he had died, then you would have simply entered it into your logs and his cell would be filled with another deviant. So, pray tell, why was his beacon there?” I pat his leg. “I’ll answer for you. It was there in case you were visited by Republic inspectors. It was there to cover up your graft.”

“No,” the warden says sharply. “I would never…”

“Be able to afford a carpet like this on a warden’s salary?” Alexandar asks. He toes the carpet. “Venusian silk. Dyed with crustacean extract. Really ties the room together. Perilously fine taste, my goodman.”

“What’s the price on something like that?” Sevro asks.

“At least forty thousand credits,” Alexandar answers.

Sevro coughs. “No shit?” He takes the pot of coffee on the warden’s table and dumps the coffee inside on the carpet. If the man is angered, he hides it well. “Oops.”

“Warden, warden, make it stop,” Alexandar moans.

“A little cuprum weasel like you might fancy yourself a special sort of conniving,” I say. “An entrepreneur harvesting an inefficiency in the system. What a waste it must seem to have Aureate sons and daughters locked in little metal coffins, with all their hidden bank accounts and vaults languishing out there in the worlds. What a waste that someone should not profit.”

The warden looks up at me tactically, searching for some angle. He will see a giant in black armor and stare at a reflection of himself in the pitiless, insectoid eyes of the helmet. Submission is his only option, and it wounds his pride. It’s no backwater bumbler who finds himself warden of Deepgrave. This is a h

igh post.

“Prisoner 1126 paid you to leave solitary, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” the warden says smoothly. “He made improved arrangements for his incarceration. The Omega Block is…”

“A dungeon,” Thraxa says.

“…taxing on the psyche. But he is still here.”

“Your testicles thank you for that,” Sevro says, nudging his gun deeper into the man’s groin. The warden flinches. “Ya hara,” Sevro coos—Venusian argot for “poor thing.” “Does that hurt?” he adds. The theater is for the warden so there is no doubt in his mind that we are from Venus. That it was Society operatives who broke out one of Deepgrave’s most hated charges. At the very least, I hope it throws a wrench into the peace talks. Mustang may puzzle it out, but if it gets back to the Ash Lord, he can’t know I was here.

“I wonder, what if we were to report your graft to the noble Republic after our departure?” I ask the warden. “No matter how clever your Copper accounting, your actions will be discovered. Your trial will be a public farce, to set an example of how their Republic is intolerant of corruption.” Sevro snorts at that. “To proclaim the circularity of justice, you will be sent here to serve your sentence.”

“How long do you think you will last on the other side of the bars, pennyfingers?” Sevro asks. “How will you sleep, how will you shower, how will you eat knowing the monsters you once lorded over are now watching, waiting?”

I lean forward, allowing his imagination to work its worst magic. His composure falters for a moment and I see my chance: “When they come for you in your cell, I want you to think back on this day when I sat here before you and I want you to wonder if there was not something you could do to erase it all.” I lean forward. “Because, warden, I’m here to tell you that there is something you can do.”

His eyes light up. “Name it, dominus.”

“Take us to prisoner 1126, and then, when we escape, carry on with your life. Do not report the escape or our presence here to the Republic. Do this, and it will be our little secret. What do you say?”

“I’d say yes if I were you, goodman,” Alexandar says, leaning back in a divan. “A life as an Obsidian’s pet is no life at all.” As if on cue, the old Obsidian bends to pet the dog again. I’m beginning to like the skinny man.

“I’ll take you to the prisoner,” the warden says uneasily.

—

The dog follows us, keeping its wary distance but never letting the Obsidian out of its sight as the warden leads us to a newer part of the facility. From a guard station, he extends the ramp over the divide to a suspended cellblock. We cross, and as the great doors to the block open, music trickles out.