“I’m a bit more worried about Bellona razors.”
“Worry? Is that what I saw on your face as we descended?” She lets a merry sigh escape her lips. “Curious. See, I thought it was dread. Terror. All the truly unsettling things. Because you know this moon will be your grave.”
“You too? I thought we weren’t fencing anymore,” I say.
“You’re right. It’s just I find you very odd. Or, at least I find your choice in friends to be odd.” She comes to sit in front of me on the lip of the fountain. Her heels scrape along the aged stone. “You’ve always kept me at arm’s length while bringing Tactus and Roque close. I understand Roque, even if he is as soft as butter. But Tactus? It’s like flossing with a viper and expecting not to get bitten. Is it because he was your man at the Institute that you think he’s your friend?”
“Friend?” I laugh at the idea. “After Tactus told me how his brothers broke his favorite violin when he was a boy, I had Theodora spend half my bank account on a Stratovarian violin from Quicksilver’s auction house. Tactus didn’t thank me. It was as if I’d handed him a stone. He asked what it was for. I said, ‘For you to play.’ He asked why. ‘Because we’re friends.’ He looked back down at it and walked away. Two weeks later, I discovered he took it and sold it and used the money for Pinks and drugs. He is not my friend.”
“He’s what his brothers made him to be,” she notes, hesitating as if reluctant to share her information with me. “When do you think he’s ever received something without someone wanting something in return? You made him uncomfortable.”
“Why do you think I’m wary with you?” I lean closer. “It’s because you always want something, Victra. Just like your sister.”
“Ah. I thought it might be Antonia. She’s always ruining things. Ever since the shewolf gnawed her way out of mother’s womb and stole human clothes. Good that I was born first, else she might have strangled me in my crib. And she’s only my half sister anyway. Different fathers. Mother never saw much point in monogamy. You know Antonia even goes by Severus instead of Julii just to take a piss on Mother. Cantankerous brat. And I get saddled with her moral baggage. Ridiculous.”
Victra plays with the many jade rings on her fingers. I find them odd, contrasting with the Spartan severity of her scarred face.
“Why are you talking with me, Victra? I can’t do anything for you. I have no station. I have no command. I have no money. And I have no reputation. All the things you value.”
“Oh … I value other things too, darling. But you do have a reputation, all right. Pliny’s made sure of that.”
“So he did play a part in the gossip. Thought Tactus was just running his mouth.”
“A part? Darrow, he’s been at war with you since the moment you kneeled to Augustus.” She laughs. “Before then, even. He counseled Augustus to kill you then and there, or at least try you for the murder of Apollo. Didn’t you know?” She shakes her head at my blank stare. “The fact that you’re just now realizing this shows just how unequipped you are to play his game. And because of that, you’re going to be killed. That’s why I’m speaking with you. I’d rather you found an alternative instead of sulking in your beastly quarters. Otherwise, Cassius au Bellona is going to come and he’s going to take a knife and dig right here …” She caresses my chest with a long-nailed finger, etching the outline of my heart. “… and give his mother her first real meal in years.”
“Then what is your suggestion?”
“You stop being a little bitch.” She smiles and holds out a dataSlip. Grudgingly, I take the edge of the thin metal slip, but she holds on, pulling me toward the edge of the fountain, between her legs. Her lips part, her tongue playing along the top as her eyes trace my face, up and up to my eyes, where they try to spark a fire. But there’s none there for her. I try to pull back. “Stop hesitating.” With a feline sigh, she lets the dataSlip go. I run it over my personal datapad and an advertisement for a tavern appears on my display.
“This isn’t on Citadel grounds,” I say.
“So?”
“So, if I leave, it’s open season on my head.”
“Then don’t advertise your leaving.”
I take a step back. “How much are they paying you?”
“You think this is a setup!”
“Is it?”
“No.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“Most people can’t afford the truth. I can.”
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You never lie.”
“I am of the gens Julii.” She stands slowly, anger uncoiling like a razor. “My family trades in commerce enough to buy continents. Who could afford to purchase my honor? If … one day I become your enemy, I will tell you. And I will tell you why.”
“Everyone’s honest till they’re caught in a lie.”
Her laugh is husky and makes me feel small and boyish, reminding me she’s seven years older than I. “Then stay, Reaper. Trust in chance. Trust in friends. Hide here till someone buys your contract, and pray they didn’t do it just to serve you up to the Bellona like a suckling pig.”
I weigh the odds. “Well, when you put it that way.”
“Colonel Valentin?” Victra asks the shorter of the two Grays who wait for us on the ramp of the shuttle. It’s a shit can. One of the ugliest fliers I’ve ever seen. Like the front half of a hammerhead shark. I eye the taller of the Grays warily.
“Yes, domina,” Valentin says, nodding his cinderblock head with the rigid precision of a man risen through the ranks. “You are sure you were not followed?”
“Certain as death,” Victra says.
“We should depart fastlike, then.”
I follow Victra into the shuttle, scanning the grounds behind us. We wore ghostCloaks as soon as we departed Augustus’s villa. A dozen hidden hallways and six old gravLifts later, we arrived in a dusty, seldom-used section of the Citadel’s launch pads. Theodora left us there. She wanted to come, but I won’t take her where we’re going.
A Gray scans Victra and me for bugs as we board the ship.
The ship’s ramp slides closed behind us. Twelve craggy Grays fill the small passenger hold of the shuttle. They’re not the dashing sort. Just craftsmen of a dark trade.