Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21

I t was player number two , Calla had reported over the telephone. They called her Pampi, and she was Crescent Society. The leader of the Hollow Temple now, in fact.

A small drizzle of evening rain leaks onto the street level, adding to the puddles that collect on uneven ground. August picks his way through, pulling a hat low over his hair. There was no time to find a new body today. He’s out and about in his own face, fingers flexing every minute to adjust his rings. San whispers for his attention—a toy seller hawking from the corner, a prostitute trailing her fingers across his chest when he passes by—but he ignores it in favor of the temple ahead, observing the Crescent Society members bustling outward.

She did something unbelievable, Calla had continued. Used her qi to strike people without touching them. A pause. Another man did the same the day of the flood sirens. The one who jumped without light.

August could hardly believe it. This was so much information at once that he needed to backtrack. Are you sure it was qi?

I could feel it. Don’t ask me how, because I don’t know. But there are piles of dead bodies below their temple that have something to do with it.

There had been another pause over the telephone. One more thing. Yilas—you remember Yilas? Before she was knocked out, she found a set of printouts at the back of the Hollow Temple. She said that they looked like screen captures of surveillance from the games. From inside the palace.

Calla’s voice had faded out then, too tired to keep going, and August had released the line, letting her rest. It didn’t sound like she thought much of the Crescent Societies and their use of qi past these anomalies, but the gears in August’s head were turning. His first move was to check the records kept of the games, searching for a list of every player who had been drawn. Right at the top, under number two, was Pampi Magnes, followed by a series of numbers that made up her identification serial.

But when August plugged that number into San-Er’s system, it gave nothing. A ghost. The only matching record was an employee in the palace surveillance room, which explained Calla’s warning about the Hollow Temple having access to the players’ locations. August had pulled up security footage and employee data to confirm that it was the same woman, except she didn’t exist, so how had she enrolled in the games and found work inside the palace?

An inside job .

August walks into the Hollow Temple. His head is still whirring. This temple is experimenting with qi, letting them move people without being touched. It lets them jump without light. Without seeing a new body first. It gives them the ability they need to be flitting about the twin cities, killing players of the games and summoning the yaisu sickness without being caught on the surveillance cameras.

He has always suspected that this was not foreign intrusion, but internal anarchy, coming right from the group that has always wanted the palace to fall. Now he has only one question.

August comes to a stop in the main hall. No one stopped him from entering, and no one asks now what he’s doing here. Someone, though, is watching. When he looks around, he spots a woman with red eyes, seated by one of the shrines and smiling at him.

If the Crescent Societies are attempting to sow anarchy in San-Er, how did they get the proper access—into the games, into the palace—to do so?

August doesn’t walk up to Pampi Magnes. He turns on his heel and chooses a random path deeper into the temple. From his periphery, he sees the woman frown, as if she expected August to confront her. She’s dressed nicely and doesn’t appear to be carrying any visible injuries, which means she’s probably changed bodies since she encountered Calla. No one who goes up against Calla walks away without some sort of bleeding or bruising.

August ventures along the temple’s corridors, pressing deeper and deeper, until he comes across a small nook where a shrine of a single deity is propped in the corner, illuminated by a semicircle of candles. There is no other light here, only the glow of false worship.

“Your Highness.”

Pampi has followed him, of course.

August glances over his shoulder. “Hello,” he says. “I’ve heard a lot about you these past few days.”

“Oh?” This gets her attention. She gravitates forward slowly, practically floating on her shined shoes. “Tell me more.”

“I’ve heard mention of heart tearing and rapid jumping. Qi being used in ways the gods never intended for us.” The shrine remains steady when August crouches in front of it. The candles, however, all flicker, like they have sensed a disturbance. “Tell me, did the gods themselves come down and show you how?” He pinches a candle, snuffing out the flame. “Or was it someone mortal, offering you a false identity number while they were at it?”

A light, discordant laugh rings from Pampi. It sounds cold to the ear—practiced, rehearsed.

“You won’t find what you want here,” she answers. A thud echoes through the temple.

August is running out of patience. “Someone put you in that surveillance room. Someone gave you a false identity. Who? ”

“The gods let us jump so that we could be free,” Pampi goes on. “And instead, this kingdom decides to root us down, trap us in its hold. We will stand for it no longer. The wall will fall, the throne will crumble—”

“I will not ask again.” His hand flexes. This is foolishness. There is no peace in anarchy. There is peace only in good rule, which August can provide. “Who put you in the palace?”

A soft sigh. Although August doesn’t crane his neck to look, he knows that Pampi is standing right behind him now. The candles flicker with her exhale.

“You must know, Prince August, that your reign will soon be over.”

She will not offer a name. But that alone is enough for August. The refusal means that a name exists: there is a traitor in the palace. His job here is done.

“You are mistaken,” August says. “My reign hasn’t even arrived yet.”

He pushes on one of his rings. When the blade flicks out, the quiet schick sound is the only warning before August shoots to his feet and runs his knuckles across Pampi’s throat, cutting a clean red line.

Her mouth gapes open. There’s no time to jump, no time to summon whatever unnatural abilities she has been cultivating within the walls of this temple. She pitches sideways, blood flowing from her throat like a faucet has been let loose. In seconds, she is still, pallor gray and expression frozen, her red eyes unblinking.

At the end of this desperate scramble for power, Pampi remained human, and humans can always die.

The gods let us jump so that we could be free.

August shakes his head. “There are no gods in this world.” He reaches out to close her eyes. “Only kings and tyrants.”

On that tenth morning, Calla rises early. She can barely see what’s in front of her when she tiptoes to the door of the apartment. Day has not broken yet, and the world is shrouded with a hazy pall. Grimacing, she pulls Yilas’s borrowed coat over her shoulders, then pats around her pockets to check whether her dagger is secured. Her sword is lost now. There’s little chance she can get it back from the Hollow Temple without coming into conflict with the Crescents again. She won’t be allowed to go back to the weapon stores and acquire another, so she has to make do with the rusty dagger that Chami has kept around since her palace days, smuggled out from whatever strange ladies’ network traded in blunt daggers.

It’s better than nothing.

The air outside is colder than Calla expected. The doors of the Magnolia Diner close behind her, the cool pane of glass thudding against the side of her arm and giving her that last nudge she needs to step forward. She has been indoors for so long that the season has tangibly shifted, a wintry chill seeping into the usual mugginess. It will fade in a few hours—as soon as San-Er starts rumbling again and the last of the night turns into the early morning—but it’s the first hint of coming change.

“All right,” Calla says quietly. “I guess we’re back.”

She adjusts her wristband, starting to walk. Her wound is healed enough that she can move without too much caution. Her shirt is skintight, thick and stiff just as her pants are. A pipe drips water onto her neck, the wetness collecting against her collar. A shop raises its security gate, the rapid clunk-clunk-clunk of its panels rolling into itself as Calla passes by. She barely lifts her head to peer into the shop. Dangerous, she realizes with delay—anyone could have dived at her from inside. Still, she continues walking.

Maybe it’s only that she is too rusty after more than a week of sitting idle. Try as she might to summon some energy, Calla cannot feel anything: not the curiosity she had as a princess in Er’s palace allowed out for a few hours, not the smallness she had as a wanted fugitive sniffing around the markets for food. She slinks through the streets and floats to the edge of San where the sea smashes against the rocks, and there, she pinches the inside of her elbow, telling herself, Wake up .

A rustle.

A beat later, Calla’s wristband starts to tremble.

She ducks, only she’s already taken the chain across her shoulder, hissing as it burns a line down her arm. Calla knows then that she has let her guard down too much. At this stage of the games, she may not need to top the rankings, but that doesn’t mean she can let herself get killed .

“Where the hell have you been hiding?” the other player spits. His body is lanky and tall, hair dyed a stringy yellow. As if he had attempted to go blond like August, but the bleach didn’t mix quite right because he used cheaper chemicals. He lunges forward, and Calla catches sight of his wristband in the rising light. The screen reads 19 .

She avoids the next whip of his chains, an inch away from her cheek. If it had landed, it might have blinded her. He’s quick. This isn’t looking like a fight she can skirt easily.

“I was on a comfortable couch, thank you for asking.”

The chain strikes down again. This time, Calla catches it, wraps it around her wrist twice over and yanks as hard as she can. Nineteen anticipates the move, and releases fast before the momentum can reach him. Instead, Calla is the one who is rendered unsteady, stumbling back two steps. There’s a new weapon in her hands, but she is off-balance, which is just enough of an opening for Nineteen to lunge at her, throwing them to the very edge of the rocks, half of Calla’s body dangling off.

Shit.

She’s really out of practice.

“How were you the one leading the games for so long?” Nineteen sneers. “Pathetic.” He punches; Calla jerks her head aside. If this fight had happened before her injury, she would have long found her advantage. Right now, she can barely summon the energy to reach for the dagger in her pocket. She’s so tired already. Her body has healed, but her qi has not.

Move, she urges herself. Move, or he’s going to—

Nineteen’s fist rears back: one last hit to knock her out and throw her into the sea. Perhaps she can take it. Perhaps she can swim back up.

Then he’s tumbling off her and down onto the rocks, landing with a hard splash in the water.

Calla hadn’t even moved. She blinks, letting her senses return. A familiar little face with violet eyes pops into her field of vision.

“Did he get ya?”

Calla rises onto her elbows, wiping sweat from her forehead. “Why are you everywhere I go, Eno?”

Eno shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets as Calla clambers to her feet. She picks up Nineteen’s discarded chain, testing the weight on her arm, and slugs it over her shoulder, adopting the weapon. When Eno reaches for it, trying to inspect the little blades embedded at its end, Calla slaps his fingers away.

He draws back, scowling.

“Where did you disappear to?” Eno asks. “Where’s Anton?”

Calla doesn’t answer. She hurries away from the rocks, reentering San through a gap between two buildings. Though the space is so thin she must turn sideways, Eno darts right in behind her, galloping at her heels.

“The other players were trying out your technique,” Eno continues when Calla remains unspeaking. “They saw how effective it was to team up, except it isn’t working out as well for everyone else. Nineteen had a partner last week before he killed him in front of the coliseum. There was a disagreement over his walking speed, I hear.”

Calla emerges from the thin walkway, entering a main thoroughfare that is wide enough for a morning food cart to be pushed through. She swipes a small bag as she passes. Eno darts to her side, keeping pace.

“Eno,” she says, untwisting the bag and tossing pieces of a bao into her mouth. “Thank you for your help, but you can leave now.”

Eno ignores her. “No, really. Where’s Eighty-Six? Don’t tell me you really did have a fight.”

The bag crumples in her hand. When she reaches for another bit of the bao, its round, soft shape is disfigured under her grip.

“Something like that.”

Calla takes a sharp right turn into a thinner alley, toward the south of the city. She passes a grimy window that looks into someone’s bedroom, then another with a set of shades poking through the broken glass, revealing a damp bathroom inside. She hopes Mao Mao is all right, but she knows her cat is probably having the time of his life hiding in her bedroom walls.

Eno continues to follow her. He thuds at one of the control boxes they bypass, triggering a spark of blue in the dark passageway before he yelps, hurrying away from the wires.

“You’re not going to go looking for him?” he presses.

“Why”—Calla heaves a breath—“would I do that?”

Eno frowns, his legs working twice as fast to keep up with her stride. A distant clanging has started in another alley, which means the city is waking properly.

“Because you were allies,” he says, “and allies rescue each other.”

“Oh, he’s not in trouble .” Calla scoffs at the thought. She hasn’t seen Anton in trouble once. Even at the temple, he had had a way out. It was her refusal to jump that had kept them tethered in that room, surrounded by Crescents. And still, he hadn’t left. Kept committed to their alliance.

Foolish . How can they claim to be allies while competing in a contest only one person can win? It’s his head or hers, and no sentimentality is enough to let them both achieve their goal. She hasn’t returned to his side despite being newly healed and back in the games. He must be expecting to hear from her soon, for her to maintain the bargain they made to conquer these games in tandem until they are the final two.

She has to stay away from him. She can’t keep playing nice, nor can she continue acting the part of his ally to the end. This was only supposed to be a temporary collaboration so that they could face each other in the arena sooner.

But after the way Anton Makusa looked at her, his hand scrunched in her hair and his eyes betraying a whisper of devotion, she can’t bear the thought of killing him.

Calla glances toward the approaching intersection, the coliseum looming in her periphery before it disappears from view, blocked again by the buildings. That’s where they will end up, and the dreaded day is fast approaching, given the number of players left. She can convince herself that maybe another player will take Anton’s life before the games whittle down to two, but he has shown himself too sharp to be defeated by anyone else. If he is to die, then Calla trusts only her own hand.

For Talin, she’ll win the games, and King Kasa’s head will roll.

Eno yelps suddenly, tripping on a protruding underground pipe. Calla’s arm shoots out fast. She grabs his elbow and hauls him upright before he can fall.

“Thanks,” he breathes. He makes a show out of brushing his clothes when Calla lets go, saving face by pretending nothing had happened. Perhaps it is only a trick of the light, but his lip seems to quiver—a quick flash of fear, and then gone.

“Eno.” Calla gives him a rough thump on the shoulder, if only to lessen the rebuke in her tone. “You should pull the chip from your wristband. Leave the games. Your life is worth more than this.”

She expects him to argue or stomp his feet. Instead, Eno’s expression screws up, and then Calla is certain she hadn’t mistaken the fear she thought she saw. He’s not wearing the stubbornness of someone refusing the raft tossed his way. He’s entirely awash in relief, spotting the red flag of rescue waving in the distance.

All this time, was he only awaiting a command from someone else? Had he never been told that his life was something he was allowed to hold on to?

“Yeah,” Eno says quietly. “Maybe I will.”

Calla purses her lips. There’s a deep rumble overhead, like thunder approaching. Nothing of the skies is visible from here, so it’s impossible to tell if a storms is rolling in until the downpour begins. Still, something about the air is starting to smell violent.

A beep sounds from her belt. Calla unclips her pager and watches a string of text from August scroll across the screen.

Welcome back. Number 6 by the wall near Gold Stone Street.

“All right.” She tilts her head at Eno, toward the direction of the city wall. “Until then, wanna help me out?”