Chapter 37

CHAPTER 37

The Crescent Societies are privy to mutterings from every corner. There is havoc erupting outside the wall, in a security base where Eigi’s capital used to stand. The qi is changing in San-Er, the twin cities overwhelmed by enormous volumes of it, more than they have seen in decades. The old gods are whispering. They have their hands on the underside of the kingdom, hefting for a great big turn.

Bibi gives a thumbs-up from the diner she’s stationed herself inside. It has just opened, unlocking its doors with the sunrise, so she is their only patron. On the other side of the windows, Woya sets off the timer.

“You again.”

The server puts down a pot of tea. Bibi, as she’s reaching for the cup, lifts her eyes and sees the server’s dyed purple bangs first. Yilas.

“What a coincidence,” she says. “I knew we would run into each other again.”

“We’re one of the only diners open this early.” Her same companion from the cybercafe comes to put tarts on the table too. Chami, who has jade dangling from her ears despite the oil stains on her apron. Her pink eyes are lined with electric-blue pencil. There’s far more natural qi emanating from her than there is from Yilas. “It was bound to happen.”

“I’m grateful for it.”

Bibi takes a large bite, then checks her watch. This is her last meal under these circumstances, before San-Er returns to how it should be ruled. There are so many stories of the ones who came before her. The power-hungry, the desperate. Blinded by greed, damned to play god.

Bibi starts to get under the table. Yilas blinks, watching curiously.

“What are you doing?”

“I’d suggest you do the same.”

When the watch hand strikes the top of the hour, San-Er tremors once, and the windows on the Magnolia Diner shatter, blown in by the blast.

By the time Galipei arrives on scene, it’s havoc.

He can’t see anything. The lights have gone out across the whole building. There are other Weisannas already present in the hallways, shouting commands at one another with overlapping voices while they try to make sense of the situation, while they, too, rush to the room where they’re keeping the divine crown.

“August?” he bellows. “August!”

Just as Galipei is approaching the room, a body flies out from inside, hitting the hallway. For a startling second, Galipei thinks he sees blond hair—he thinks he sees August, limp and broken. Then he blinks and his vision clears. It is not blond hair, only the tint of burgeoning daylight coming from the double doors he left open on his way in. Galipei recognizes the man on the floor as one of his second cousins, and he appears fine, twisting onto his shoulder with a groan.

An alarm is blaring throughout the security base. He doesn’t know what the threat is or who is at risk. Even the yelling inside the office is indecipherable. Galipei warned August that the office wouldn’t be a good room for the crown. He warned that for once they needed to defy protocol and keep it close by, because no number of guards would stop a truly hostile takeover, no number of windowless rooms would—

A loud boom rocks the office. At that point, Galipei merely shoves his way forward, losing all measure of patience. He ducks under a flailing arm and enters the room, where he finds the source of the noise to be a hole blown clean through the wall. It leaks in the morning’s first orange wisps, illuminating Calla’s outline when she strolls through the rubble and emerges into the daylight with the divine crown on her head.

“Calla.”

Finally, now, Galipei sights August pressed to the wall on the far side. Perhaps there was some unnatural force keeping him there before, because when he pushes off now, he’s furious.

“Calla, stop right there!”

“Tell me, August,” she calls. Her voice amplifies across the base. Each word has the tremendous hollowness of shouting into a large cavern, ricocheting around and around and around. “Did you order the attack on Rincun?”

August pauses. The witnesses will not take that to mean anything particular, but Galipei knows, and Calla certainly knows too.

“No,” August lies, recovering. “No, of course not. And besides, those were palace soldiers who died. Why would I do that?”

“There were children there, August,” Calla seethes.

“My goodness, Princess Calla, I don’t know what’s gotten into you.” August has perfected this voice he uses. The one that makes people doubt whether he was ever born a commoner, whether he might have been an actual progeny of Kasa Shenzhi, and everything the cities thought before was some mass hallucination. “I would never.”

Galipei feels it building before the threat comes. His sixth sense for August is never wrong, solely purposed toward incoming danger. A tuning fork, emitting a protective measure at every glance. He bolts forward.

“They’re just. Children .”

The air turns heavy, sour. Each of Galipei’s steps strikes the ground hard.

“How dare your games touch them. How dare you bring them into it.”

Galipei lunges into place the moment Calla turns back and flings an arc of light out of her hands. Before it can hit August, he takes the strike. It pierces through his stomach and ripples up his spine. In the place of blood, an electric current runs through his veins.

His world turns white. He sees a terrible bright light, as though a pantheon of gods might reach through the haze at any moment and haul him up.

Galipei’s eyes roll into the back of his head.

Then, nothing.

Two things occur to August in tandem.

First, Galipei is alive, but he needs a doctor immediately.

Second, Calla cannot be seen by San-Er with the crown on her head.

“Take him into the city now,” August spits. “There’s one carriage. Go! ”

He sends three Weisannas off with Galipei, numbers that he should not be sparing during an attempted coup. August can’t fathom this. Calla has no forces. No soldiers. Nothing that comes close to constituting an army.

But she has the crown, and August has only ten remaining guards.

Calla is almost out of sight, running for the far building. Makusa. He’s still in there.

“Your Majesty,” one Weisanna exclaims, “should we surround the building? She’s going for Anton Makusa.”

“No,” August answers immediately. Fuck. Fuck . “Get to San-Er first. Guard the wall. We’re keeping her out .”