Page 82

“I’m gonna search the ditches. Again. Bet Bellona wouldn’t do that. Wouldn’t get his precious knees dirty.” He bows mockingly to Cassius before leaving.

Quinn, Cassius, and I remain in the warroom until Cassius yawns something about catching a bit of REM before the dawn hits in six hours. Quinn and I are left alone. Her hair has been cut short and jagged,

though the bangs hang just over her narrow eyes. She slouches boyishly in her chair and picks at her nails.

“What are you thinking on?” she asks me.

“Roque … and Lea.” I hear the gurgle in my mind. With it echoes all the sounds of death. Eo’s pop. Julian’s silence as he twitched in his own blood. I am the Reaper and death is my shadow.

“Is that all?” she asks.

“I think we should grab some sleep,” I reply.

She says nothing as she watches me leave.

33

APOLOGIES

Cassius wakes me in the middle of the night.

“Sevro found Roque,” he says quietly. “He’s a mess. Come.”

“Where?”

“North. They can’t move him.”

We gallop away from the castle under the light of twin moons. An early winter snow fills the air with dancing flurries. Sucking sounds come from the mud as we head toward the north Metas. No sounds but the gurgling of the water and the wind in the trees. Wiping sleep from my eyes, I look over to Cassius. He has our two ionSwords, and suddenly a pit opens in my stomach as I realize what’s what. He doesn’t know where Roque is. But he knows something else.

He knows what I’ve done.

This is a trap I cannot ride away from. I guess there are those times in life. It’s like staring at the ground as you fall from a height. Seeing the end coming doesn’t mean you can dodge it, fix it, stop it.

We ride for twenty more minutes.

“It was no surprise,” Cassius says suddenly.

“What’s that?”

“I’ve known for over a year that Julian was meant to die.” The snow falls silently as we move together through the mud. The hot horse moves between my legs. Step by step through the mud. “He made a mess of his test. He was never the brightest, not in the way they wanted. Oh, he was kind and bright with emotions—he could sense sadness or anger a klick away. But empathy is a lowColor thing.”

I say nothing.

“There are feuds that do not change, Darrow. Cats and dogs. Ice and fire. Augustus and Bellona. My family and the ArchGovernor’s.”

Cassius’s eyes are fixed ahead even as his horse stumbles and his breath makes fog in the air.

“But despite what it portended, Julian was excited when he received the acceptance letter stamped with the ArchGovernor’s personal seal. Didn’t seem right to me or my other brothers. Never thought Julian would be the sort to make it in. I loved him, all my brothers and cousins did; but you met him. Oh, you’ve met him—he wasn’t the keenest of mind, but he wasn’t the dullest; he wouldn’t have been the bottom one percent. No need to cull him from the stock. But he had the name Bellona. A name which our enemy loathes. And so our enemy used bureaucracy, used his title, his duly appointed powers, to murder a kind boy.

“To turn down an invitation to the Institute is an illegal act. And he was so delighted, and we—my mother and father and brothers and sisters and cousins and loved ones—were so hopeful for him. He trained so hard.” His voice takes a mocking tone. “But in the end, Julian was fed to the wolves. Or should I say wolf?”

He pulls his horse to a halt, eyes burning into me.

“How did you find out?” I ask, staring ahead over the dark water. Flakes of snow disappear into the black surface. The mountains are but shadowed mounds in the distance. The river gurgles. I do not dismount.

“That you did Augustus’s dirty work?” He laughs scornfully. “I trusted you, Darrow. So I did not need to see what the Jackal sent me. But when Sevro tried to steal it from me as I slept in the Greatwoods, I knew something was the matter.” He notices my reaction. “What? You thought you consorted with dullards?”

“Sometimes. Yes.”