Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

The sun goes down. Night settles the muggy air, bringing the barest bite onto the streets. And in the darkness, a civilian wanders into a side alley, stumbling in his step. His name is Lusi, but no one calls him that. The foremen at the factory where he works bark at everyone all the same. His wife doesn’t speak anymore. His daughter used to shout Baba across the apartment, only she is dead now—three weeks of a contagious plague, shooed off her hospital bed because they couldn’t keep paying the fees. Her breathing stopped before they even returned home, her body bundled in those stolen white hospital linens, the last of her qi diminished.

“Come on!”

Lusi’s sudden yell pierces into the empty alley. He’s near-delirious. The pain at his side has reached an unbearable peak, but he won’t go back to those wretched hospitals. His debt is already sky-high, bearing the cost of his daughter’s last miserable days. Everything in this city makes his aches worse: the babies next door crying, the dampness in the hallways, the rent bills pouring in without end.

Lusi was not drawn for the games. It was his last hope, and still, the palace could not do this one thing for him.

“Take me! When did you care about the rules anyway?” He lurches forward, then stumbles, crashing onto his knees and sinking into the sludge of a puddle.

Lusi’s next scream of frustration echoes even louder. Maybe it would be better if San-Er simply killed its people faster . Instead, it lets them rot. The elderly with nowhere else to go live stacked atop one another like animals inside enclosures. The children breathe asbestos in their schools and store poison in their lungs. Sometimes the sick and injured intentionally wander the streets during the games, hoping to be invaded. The games make jumping legal for the players, after all—they must answer for it by providing some sort of care. Collateral casualties who are gravely injured must be taken to the hospital free of cost; collateral casualties whose bodies are destroyed must be paid handsomely, and if their qi is killed alongside it, then their family members get the money. Plenty throw themselves in front of players on purpose, making a sacrifice so that their loved ones can eat. Each year, the smaller television networks interview the newly orphaned children who have been left with a small compensation and an empty apartment. It is hard to decide whether they should be envied or pitied.

“Do you hear me?” Lusi screams. “Do you—”

He freezes. Someone has appeared in his field of vision. The nearest alley bulb illuminates enough to present the newcomer’s outline, coming closer and closer. Palace uniform. A masked face.

“Don’t fret,” they say evenly.

Lusi tries to get back onto his feet. Though he was calling for aid, his heart is suddenly beating fast, sensing terrible danger.

“Who are you?” he demands. “Stop right there—”

There’s a flash of blinding light.

When Lusi stands, his movements are even and controlled. Lusi is not Lusi at all anymore, his consciousness stamped into the background, too weak to fight back. So his body turns on its heel and begins to walk.

Calla pushes on the door of the Magnolia Diner, ducking under the turnstile at the door and watching her wristband tick down. It’s late now, almost midnight. Almost time to report to the coliseum. Outside, San-Er is a series of loud clatters and clangs, pressing in through the open windows of the diner. The twin cities remain active at this hour, the restaurants filling orders and the brothels at their busiest, funneling people through the streets without pause.

Practically every street in San leads toward the coliseum grounds, because the Palace of Union is attached to the coliseum, and heavens forbid the palace be inconvenienced in any way. The marketplace that operates within the coliseum is the only outdoor market in San-Er, hawking the cheapest goods and unhealthiest foods, which Calla simply does not go near. She has spent a long time avoiding that part of the city. All these years, knowing that King Kasa stood nearby and she couldn’t act… it has broiled a hot anger inside her, forcing her to steer clear of palace grounds until the day came that she could play her hand. She didn’t think someone would recognize her outside of its vicinity. Perhaps she should have been more careful.

But she doubts that it was she who gave her own hand away.

“Yilas!” Calla tears her mask off, then calls out again without the muffle. “Yilas.”

The diner patrons hardly pay her any heed. It’s as crowded inside as it is on the main streets: old men in tank tops smoking their cigarettes, dripping with sweat to add to the filth that leaves the floor slick. Booths line the walls, crammed with schoolkids without parental supervision, yelling over their card games. Only Yilas glances up from the other side of the diner. She closes the logbook she was writing in and pushes away from the register with a roll of her pale-green eyes.

“You could have walked over like a normal person, you know.” Yilas tightens the knot of her apron as she approaches, then nudges her dyed bangs away from her face. They’re red today, which clashes with her eyes, but Yilas is the sort of person to purposely match a leather jacket with a silk dress. Half of Calla’s wardrobe is borrowed from Yilas, so they look a matching pair with their dark-red coats, one size too large and draping down to their knees. “What are you in a fit about?”

Calla flashes a wide grin. “A fit? Me?” She twirls around to Yilas’s side, throwing an arm over her shoulder. The grip looks casual, but Yilas’s immediate wince speaks to the bone-crunching reality. “I’ve never thrown a fit in my life. Where’s your darling girlfriend? I have some matters to discuss with you both.”

Yilas looks up at Calla, chin tipped to accommodate their height difference. It’s a shock that Calla manages to blend so well into the city when she’s a head taller than average. Though Yilas scrunches her mouth a moment in thought, seeming to debate whether Calla has brought in a serious matter or only her dramatics, she does walk forward and take Calla with her, pushing through the kitchen door and then another into the diner’s cramped office.

“Calla!” Chami greets, perking up at their appearance.

Calla lets go of Yilas and slams the office door closed behind them. Her grin drops at terrifying speed; the room seems to go cold, too, in concert.

“Sit down,” Calla demands.

Chami’s brows knit together with concern. Quietly, she drops back into her chair. Yilas makes a slower job of the task, strolling over to Chami and perching on the desk, giving the slightest shake of her head when Chami turns a questioning gaze to her. Before they left the palace in Er, Yilas and Chami had been Calla’s attendants. And three years later, when Calla caused a bloodbath that soaked Er in red, she showed up on their front step asking for help. At the time of the massacre, Chami Xikai and Yilas Nuwa had long established themselves comfortably as civilians in San. Attendants used to come and go often—the Palace of Heavens was far less guarded than the Palace of Union is now. Hundreds passed through the walls in the three years between their departure and Calla’s massacre, with a considerable fraction assigned as Calla’s personal attendants. No one knew that Yilas and Chami had been her favorites, and so no one from King Kasa’s forces has known to come sniffing around—yet. Calla has been living as Chami, staying under the radar but using her number when necessary. The real Chami uses Yilas’s identity number, since the two are attached at the hip anyway. Take Chami away from Yilas for ten minutes, and she might spontaneously combust.

“Give me a list of everyone who has asked for your name recently,” Calla says.

“What happened?” Chami’s eyes grow unbelievably wide, the pink standing stark against her whites and even starker against the black ink she brushes over her bottom lashes. Even in the palace, Chami always looked pristine, as if she wrapped up her makeup at the end of each night and wore around her perfectly preserved efforts in the morning. “Did you take out a loan?”

Calla throws her mask at her, but Yilas’s arm whips out, catching it before it can hit Chami. Yilas shoots her a glare.

“No,” Calla hisses. “A Weisanna found me.”

Yilas’s expression shifts from annoyance to horror instantly, an exact mirror of the immediate dread that drops Chami’s jaw.

“We haven’t said anything,” Chami hurries to supply before Calla can ask. “The diner has been operating per usual too. The same few Crescent Society members coming in at odd hours, the same few criminal patrons who come to swap change. Certainly no one has asked—”

Chami stops, cut to a halt when Calla raises her hand. Calla’s gaze isn’t even on her former attendant anymore. It’s pinned on the table behind her.

“What is that?” She marches forward, eyes narrowing. “Is that a computer ?”

A knock comes on the office door, interrupting Chami before she can answer. One of the diner waitresses pokes her head in, gesturing for Chami’s attention frantically, and when Chami turns back to Calla with a pleading look, Calla waves her off with a sigh.

“I reiterate,” she says when Chami hurries away. “Please don’t tell me that’s a computer.”

“It was cheap,” Yilas answers, pushing a button beneath the table with her shoe. The rectangular box starts to hum. When the screen of the bulky computer monitor flashes green, the box also starts to emit a sound, whining loud enough through the office space that Calla suspects the patrons outside must surely be able to hear it—

The noise stops. Calla drops the computer plug that she had pulled out of its socket, spitting a lock of long hair out of her mouth. Everyone in San-Er chases what is shiny. The poor mailmen have started complaining about electronic mailing, which Calla won’t register for since she’s a nameless criminal, but even if she could, why would she trust the ether to pass along her correspondences?

“Hey!” Yilas complains. “I was—”

“You were turning on a data feeder,” Calla interrupts. She carries a pager, and that is the extent to which she’ll allow the tech towers to follow her around. Prices have lowered across the twin cities for all the larger monitors; ordinary people have scrambled to purchase personal computers instead of dropping into the cybercafes that litter every street, but Calla didn’t think Chami and Yilas were stupid enough to do so too.

“They’ll know that Chami isn’t registered! This whole thing is an identity—”

The door opens again, cutting her off. In that split second, Calla prepares to switch back to a grin, baring her teeth as wide as they will go, but it’s only Chami again. Her face is pale. There isn’t a single spot of blood in her cheeks.

“Calla,” she whispers. “Come out here, please.”

Fuck.

Calla swoops for the nearest sharpest thing she can find—a set of keys—and encloses it within her fist. In the Palace of Heavens, they trained her to use everything. Blades and arrows, explosives and projectiles, even the occasional firearm when they could scrounge up the gunpowder, despite its rarity in San-Er. They needed to prepare her, in case their kingdom went to war with its neighbor to the north, and Calla was to take a sector of Talin’s army and march through the provinces.

Instead, she used everything she was taught against them. That was their own fault.

“Who is it?” Calla asks Chami, following her out. “Palace guard? Leida Miliu?”

Chami shakes her head helplessly. The captain of the guard is known to switch bodies often, but would Leida come for Calla personally?

“I could take a guess, but… you may as well see for yourself. He asked for you by name and told me not to play stupid when I denied it.”

Calla stops right before the kitchen door. The keys cut into her palm. “Okay. Stay here. If I scream, drop to the floor immediately.”

Before Chami can finish making her strangled noise, Calla has marched out, braced for battle. The diner appears as normal—smoke and movement and chaos, chopsticks clinking against ceramic bowls and teacups tapping against the glass table covers.

Then, Calla spots the anomaly. At one of the far booths, a man sits alone, his hair cropped close to his neck, a color unnatural to the people of Talin. It takes bleach and hours of chemical work for a blond so fair and gleaming. Within the borders of Talin, where jumping bodies is signaled by a change in eye color, dark hair is the one consistency against eyes running in every hue.

A palace brat, then , Calla decides immediately. No one outside the luxury of nobility would have the means otherwise. Yilas touches up her bangs with a cheap new color every few weeks; the elderly slather coarse dark dye onto their gray. But the frequency of fine treatment needed for glistening perfect blond is something only the palace can afford.

She strides closer, taking in the burgundy silk shirt, the myriad of jade rings encircling his fingers when he lifts his teacup to his mouth. Material observations rarely offer anything conclusive in a city where people can swap bodies at will. Here, though, there are enough details that Calla has gathered an unfortunate suspicion.

Not just any palace brat.

She approaches the booth. Slides into the opposite seat. When her companion’s eyes flicker up, they are black, outlined with the barest blue that is only visible because Calla is looking for it.

“August,” she says evenly. She puts the keys in her pocket. “It’s been a while.”

“Five years,” Prince August replies, setting his cup down.

His voice is deeper than she remembers, his movements almost lethargic. Had she searched her memory, perhaps she would have recalled that this never-smiling face is August’s birth body save for the new hair, but she wouldn’t have expected him to approach her with such precious cargo. His personal bodyguard must be waiting outside. Or inside one of the bodies nearby, ready to spring to his defense at the smallest breach in safety.

“I trust you’ve been well?” he continues.

Calla leans back into the seat, resting her arm on the booth. Take her by surprise once, fine. A second time—that won’t do at all. This is August Shenzhi, the golden boy with a one-track mind for climbing the palace ranks, no matter who he had to step on to get there. They didn’t interact enough in their teenage years to become friends, but they’ve shared enough diplomatic visits that Calla has learned how the crown prince of San behaves—learned to ooze ease around him and let nothing be used against her.

“I’ve been better,” she says. “It can’t compare to life as heir to the throne, I’m sure. How’s Galipei? Still in love with you?”

August’s eyes narrow. His gaze darts to her wristband, dangling in full view of him.

“Bold of you to be saying such words when I could have you executed.”

“Bold of you to threaten to execute me when I could gut you this very second.”

“Ah,” August sighs, reaching for the teapot. He pours Calla her cup, but she makes no move to touch it. “Here I was, thinking your bloodlust would fade with time.”

Calla stares at him, saying nothing. If anything, she is only more unhinged now.

August taps his finger on the table. The order receipts and paper-thin menus tremble from the movement, trapped underneath the slab of glass.

“Did you think I wouldn’t recognize Chami Xikai registering for the lottery? Or that I wouldn’t remember she could barely bump into a wall without apologizing to it? You dug your own grave, cousin.”

“I dug my own grave?” Calla leans onto the table, her elbows pressed to the glass. “I am dead , by the Palace of Union’s own declaration. The funeral was a little lackluster, I must admit, but it was nice of King Kasa to broadcast it on every station. Even if you recognized Chami’s name, why connect it to me? Perhaps my former attendant is interested in the games.” She splays her hands. “No, my grave is perfectly untouched. Someone sent you to look for me.”

The only signal of August’s annoyance is the twitch of his sharp jaw. Before he speaks again, a waitress approaches with notepad in hand, rubbing flour off her nose.

“Can I—”

Calla shakes her head, and the waitress takes the gesture smoothly in stride. She lowers her orange-brown eyes and tucks the notepad into her apron, then leans in to check the teapot before whisking it away for refill.

“Believe it or not,” August begins when the waitress is out of earshot, “I tracked you down of my own volition, not at the palace’s instruction. King Kasa certainly wouldn’t recognize Chami in the lottery list. His attention has never been for the small details.” He lifts his teacup and takes a sip. “I alone have been looking for you, Calla. Ever since the Palace of Heavens went under.”

It’s a lot of effort to go through when he had no assurance that she was even alive. Calla kicks her feet up onto the table. August jolts with surprise, but he blinks it away as fast as it came, watching Calla fold her arms over her chest, her coat rustling as she adjusts her boots comfortably.

“You weren’t afraid you were chasing ghosts?” she asks.

“I knew you were alive,” August retorts immediately. “Otherwise, King Kasa wouldn’t have locked himself up the moment you committed your little bloodbath. Otherwise, he wouldn’t still be afraid to leave the palace’s impenetrable security. He might have the rest of the twin cities fooled, but at least give me some credit.”

The bitterness in his tone is clear. He makes no effort to hide it.

“So why haven’t you told him?” Calla asks. “Go tattle and collect your points as heir.”

“Because I’m seeking your help.”

Calla can’t help the snort that escapes. She unfolds her arms, then reaches over to poke a finger at August, mostly to see if he’ll allow it. Her nail digs into the soft, vulnerable flesh of his arm. Maybe Galipei will reveal himself as one of the patrons nearby. Maybe he’ll lunge over the booths and push her away before August can utter a word of complaint.

“What can I help you with?” she asks. Her tone turns teasing, condescending. “Patricide?”

Silence. August doesn’t refute her. He only stares at her steadily, like it isn’t a preposterous suggestion at all. Calla drops her feet from the table, quickly straightening up.

“Oh, shit. Really? ”

“Are you so surprised?” he asks. His voice drops lower. “Don’t tell me that wasn’t why you enrolled in the games.”

Of course it is. For five years, Calla Tuoleimi has been biding and biding her time, tending to the fury that burns beneath her ribs. There is but one task left in her vengeance: King Kasa’s head plucked from his spine and flung across the coliseum. The image of it keeps her warm at night, propels her forward even when she feels listless and useless, another cog turning in these twin cities despite the power her title has… or had.

She’s not a princess anymore.

She made sure of that when she killed both her parents and littered Er’s throne room with the bodies of their guards. Her plan had been to destroy both thrones at once and wipe out the royal bloodline. The roots had been in place. Civilian grievances had reached their height. Protests erupted by the city wall every week. Given an opportunity, the people of San-Er could march into the palaces and raze them… she knew, she knew they could do it.

Calla forces herself out of her thoughts, pushing away the frustration that mounts whenever she thinks back to that night. She hadn’t been fast enough. King Kasa had scrambled to protect himself as soon as the news of her massacre started to travel, knowing that he was next. Calla had no choice except to run, slipping into his city to wait while San’s royal guard searched for Er’s traitor princess. Now, so close to her second chance, she cannot sink into her anger, or she might never emerge. She has spent too long compartmentalizing every terrible impulse and smoothing them down to be palatable. When the time comes to confront the blistering shards that live inside her, it will have to be in one big swallow.

“Cousin,” Calla simpers falsely, “if Kasa drops dead, can you count on installing yourself? You might be heir at the moment”—she reaches over the table, cupping her palm to his cheek—“but we have no true blood relation. The divine crown could reject you. Take the throne then, and the council will rebel against your rule before the people do.”

August slaps her hand away, visible irritation strengthening in his expression. He is August Shenzhi now, but he was born August Avia, to a rubber-factory owner and his seamstress second wife. It wasn’t until his father’s sister married King Kasa that they were all brought into the palace when August was eight years old. Calla still remembers it. She was ten, attending that frightfully lavish wedding in an itchy dress with a collar that scratched her throat.

The Palace of Earth went through a year of tragedy when August was fourteen. First, his father died from illness. Then his half sister caught the yaisu sickness and his mother left the city, jumping to her death from the top of the wall. August started making his slow climb in the palace thereafter, a crowd favorite among the distant relatives—and most importantly, King Kasa’s favorite. Shortly before eighteen-year-old Calla wrought havoc on her side of the city, August’s aunt died as well, and the widowed king gave up on children of his own, naming August his heir instead.

“The crown has never rejected anyone before,” August says. He keeps his words level, but there is a strain in his voice.

“Yes.” Calla raises an eyebrow. “Because it has always been passed down the same bloodline, matched to the same familial qi. As it was made to.”

There has always been one crown of Talin, even when the kingdom was split between two kings. It sits in the Palace of Union at present, never mind where, atop a satin pillow with guards stationed around it. Every coronation, it’s brought out for a momentary fitting—if a ruler is righteous and suited to rule, it remains on; if a ruler is found inadequate, the crown will burst into sparks and revolt. Though they have been taught to believe it as a divine choosing, Calla is mostly convinced that it’s only science. As the story goes, there was one attempted usurper during the reign before Kasa’s. A councilmember led a revolting force into the Palace of Earth, marching his province’s armies in with weapons raised. But the moment the councilmember placed the crown on his own head, he was felled on the spot, keeling over with no discernible cause. His armies were dissolved, and his province was reassigned to another councilmember. The reign went on securely.

“Don’t worry about it,” August assures. “It will accept me.”

Calla lifts her brow again, but her cousin keeps his gaze even. He’s far too optimistic for someone trying to stick his foot into hundreds of years of hereditary succession.

Like every other physical object in the world, the royal crown holds a small amount of qi—nowhere near the amount that makes up a person’s soul, but enough to provide a breath of life. Believers say it was made with a deciding power, guided by the old gods to seek out the royal who is most deserving to hold the throne of Talin.

Most likely, whatever ancient magic gave them the ability to jump between bodies also molded the crown, binding it to the Shenzhi and Tuoleimi bloodlines. Which means, of course, that everyone of that lineage should be found worthy.

“So what?” Calla asks, still contemptuous. “Kasa drops dead, then you take the crown? You can’t wait it out, drop a little poison into his tea yourself?”

Her cousin shakes his head. “I cannot be suspected in the slightest,” he says. “I want a public murder. One with a clear perpetrator, perhaps a wanted princess who plotted her way into the palace by winning the games. That way, no one can accuse me of being party to it—I can play the good, mournful son. Once you are hauled away, I’ll install myself and pardon you out of the kindness of my new reign. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

“No,” Calla says plainly. “I don’t want to see another reign. I want it gone. Besides, you’re deluded if you think having the crown is enough for you to rule. Even if it accepts you, the council can still take it away”—she snaps her fingers—“like that .”

It’s not quite a smile that graces August’s face, but something close enough. A quirk of a lip in fleeting amusement. As if he is tickled that such a thought would be proposed to him.

“Do you think we would be living like this if people didn’t trust in the crown?” August asks. “You don’t think our civilians would have risen up and demanded a new ruler by now? They believe in it, Calla. They need it for order. They may complain and bemoan the throne day after day, but an unshakable part of them decides that they aren’t deserving of better as long as the crown says so.”

The door to the Magnolia Diner chimes, and a group bustles in, each coming upon the turnstile slowly as their fingers scramble over the keypad. Almost pensively, August watches them pile into a booth.

“The council too. The crown’s acceptance is a mandate of the land. Once it’s on my head, no councilmember would dare yank it off. To deny it would be to deny Talin. If I have no right to be king even after the crown accepts me, then those on the council have no right to their plots of land either. They were installed by kings, were they not? Kings chosen by the crown.”

Calla sits back, pursing her lips. The newcomers nearby are making themselves at home, the rise and fall of conversation in the diner adapting to their loud, excitable screeching. Yilas comes out from the back to take their orders and shoots a wary glance at Calla, but she does not intrude. She jots down several requests for spicy wontons, then returns to the kitchen.

“All right,” Calla says. “Say that every other component falls into place. You could leave me in a cell once I carry this through. Why should I trust you?”

“Why shouldn’t you?” August shoots back. He pushes his sleeves up, exposing his forearms to the blue-white light. Everyone else in this diner looks a little sickly under its cold glow, the usual malnourishment of the city rendered starker than ever. August could not look malnourished even if he tried. His features only stand out more, as does the small scar near his wrist.

On one diplomatic visit during their childhood, a servant had shattered a vase near August, the shards cutting his arm. King Kasa had whirled in, asking what happened, and instead of having the servant hauled away, August lied. He said that the vase fell by itself, that the blood dripping down his fingers was no matter. August, though cold and monotonous at times, is not hateful.

If given a throne, he would rule well. There are no good kings, but there are fair ones.

“What was your alternative, Calla?” August says quietly. “You must know that there is no other way to walk out of regicide alive. The palace guard would have you captive as soon as you strike him. You sign your own execution papers.”

“If that’s what it takes,” Calla replies. “I would do it. My execution papers for Talin’s freedom from his reign.”

“Then listen to me. You don’t need the execution papers at all. You have me. I will free you after you free the kingdom.”

There’s something about this that feels too convenient to be true. August has always seemed suspiciously well polished. Half of her is ready to accept her cousin’s plan, while the other half knows she is too desperate for Talin’s salvation, and desperation colors one’s eyes from reason. It has been five long years—lonely years, working without the promise of success. The trap laid open for her here is so glaringly obvious, such a flashing red flag, that she has to wonder if August is being genuine, because how could someone trying to trick her possibly make a plan this transparent?

“You sit so comfortable as Kasa’s prized heir.” She needs to hear it in his own words. “Why would you want him gone?”

“You know the answer to that,” August replies easily. “There were once two heirs of San-Er. Why did you kill your parents?”

Calla’s knuckles whiten. Her palms sting with the memory of the maps she picked up that day five years ago, after she’d wandered into the war rooms without any aim and found pencil-drawn plans for the troops they were sending out into the provinces. That wasn’t the only reason she snapped, but it was certainly the final push.

August nods. “That’s why,” he says to Calla’s silence. “I know you, Calla. You don’t really want the monarchy crumbled and burned to the ground—you want this version of it gone. You want Kasa off the throne. The Palace of Heavens had good tutors, I’m sure. Your formal education must have covered the kind of chaos that can arise out of a power vacuum.”

Calla turns a frosty glare in his direction. “Maybe chaos is what we need.”

“Come on.” He fiddles with his sleeve again. “I know you’re more mature now than the eighteen-year-old who tried to vanquish both palaces. You’ve had years to think about your mistakes. About what you could do differently this time. Say you had succeeded. What then? A capital of two hundred million people, descended into anarchy? A kingdom of three hundred million with no order? Don’t tell me I’ve overestimated your intelligence.”

This is what August does best. Clawing his fingers into someone’s mind, deeper and deeper, until his own ideas have been planted there as the truest course of action.

“Listen to me,” Prince August demands, giving her no time to think up a sarcastic response. “I am offering you a future where you walk out with your head intact and get what you want—what you actually want, not just the short-term imitation of it. The people fed. The city wall open. The kingdom flourishing. You were born a princess—you can even serve as an advisor to my throne, if you wish. But I must sit on the throne first. Are you in?”

The coliseum is near enough to the diner that they can hear an audible shift rumbling through San. The alley outside grows with noise, leading spectators en masse toward the palace for the Daqun, the opening of the games. These games are entertainment, whether on the television set at home or in the stands of the arena. Never mind eighty-seven of their fellow civilians being murdered by the end of it. Murder by sword or by the throne’s refusal to save its most vulnerable from starvation… what’s the difference? San-Er has so many fucking people that one life is as common as a cockroach, fit to be squashed and disregarded without remorse.

Calla turns away from her cousin, exhaling as she inspects her wristband. “Are you giving me a choice?”

“Of course.” August tips his chin toward the diner windows. Though it is dark, though it is always dark down here, the movement of the crowds is visible, each head bobbing past the stained glass like shadow puppets controlled by strings from the skies. “The coliseum awaits. I won’t pull you from the games, but you lose my help. You lose me keeping your wristband active even if you don’t check in every twenty-four hours. You lose me wiping out your fellow contestants by invading their bodies and throwing them off buildings. Is that what you prefer: more blood on your hands by the end of this?”

She had forgotten how good August is at talking his way through anything. Calla can’t help but let loose a small laugh. The games are starting. This is practically an offer of guaranteed victory. By that logic, maybe it’s an easy decision after all.

“Very well,” she agrees plainly. She can always back out later if she needs to. She can always kill August too, if he’s only trying to use then discard her.

“Good.” August reaches into his shirt pocket and brings out a small chip between his fingers. Without asking, he takes hold of Calla’s arm clinically, then turns it so he can see the empty slot in her wristband. He puts the chip in, holding it until the screen emits a beep. The number 57 flashes bright.

“Here’s my first gift to you,” August says, releasing her arm. “Go get your weapons and run.”