Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

The delegation finally returns to the capital shortly after nightfall.

Calla was quick to clamber out of the carriage as soon as they stopped outside the wall, but she’s been waiting around for what feels like eons now. There’s metal and rubble littered everywhere, decorating the ground with ladders and half-prepared dig sites. Muted green lights beam down from the top of the wall at two-meter intervals, enough illumination to let the incoming carriages navigate their way but not to disturb the occupants living at the edge of San. At this hour, most of the apartments taller than the wall have their blinds pulled down anyhow, preparing for sleep.

Calla wraps her arms around her middle and drums her fingers along her elbows. Every time there’s movement near the gate, she thinks it must be opening wider, but it’s only province migrants trying their luck to get closer to the wall before being shooed back by the guards and their batons. Calla has been tracking a young boy who keeps skirting in and out of sight to avoid them. First he was poking his head around the left of the main path. A few minutes later, he was sidling nearer and nearer the right side before a guard barked at him and he skittered away. No one has called for him. No parent, no adult to chide him to be careful and usher him inside one of the tents.

Calla shakes her head, pulling her attention away. It’s not her problem. There are too many orphans in Talin. If she were to start tending to every one of them, it would drive her mad.

“What’s taking so long?” Calla calls to the nearest line of guards, finally losing patience. “It’s like a snail is pulling the gate open.”

“Manual operation, Your Highness,” one of them replies. “The electric wiring has been shut off and taken out.”

There’s a pause. She’s waiting for the guard to elaborate, but he only stands at attention, watchful in the dark.

“Shut off and taken out,” Calla echoes, “for what?”

“Renovation starts tomorrow, Highness. We’re moving the wall a mile out.”

The gate groans a colossal complaint. It lurches once in a taunt of speeding up—pulling just wide enough for a carriage to squeeze through if it didn’t mind getting its sides scraped off—before the gate stops entirely, stuck.

Calla waits a moment. Someone is shouting from the other side of the wall, but the voice is muffled, as though water fills the space between rather than brisk night air. They’re calling instructions for this disaster of a manual operation, she’s sure. She’s also sure that the manual operators aren’t even listening, because the sides of the gate suddenly inch closer together again.

The carriage door opens behind her. Venus Hailira steps out, shivering in the cold. She likely heard every word Calla was exchanging with the guard, so she doesn’t ask what’s going on. She watches the wall for a few seconds before asking, “I don’t suppose we could ride through anyway?”

“San-Er only has a small number of carriages,” Calla replies. “The council won’t be very happy with you for destroying these.”

Venus sighs. “This could take a while.”

“It could,” Calla agrees. She makes up her mind. “I’ll see you inside, then?”

“You’ll what ?”

Calla starts forward, her chin lifted high, the glint of her circlet beaming back the wall’s green lights. The guards nearest to her don’t find the fortitude to say anything when she strides past them on the main path. Movement flashes in the corner of her eye. The boy again, still circling the crowds. Right as he pushes to the edge of the cluster, surfacing among the other migrants, she reaches out to snag him by the arm.

“Move fast,” she hisses under her breath.

“Your Highness—” The guards at the wall half-heartedly raise their batons at the sight of her, but Calla merely ducks under one of their arms and keeps moving, tugging the child along. She makes use of their shock, and then she’s in, through the gate and scuffing her boots against overgrown yellow grass.

“Go,” Calla hisses, letting go of the boy. “Hurry!”

He doesn’t hesitate. The boy is running immediately, headed for one of the alleys. Behind her, the guards scramble to follow, calling protests, but Calla has already located her own route, crossing the short field behind the wall and cramming into another small alleyway between two residential buildings. They’ll go after the boy first, but he didn’t seem like he would be easily caught. By the time they send people after her too, she’ll already be out of sight, and then why would they bother pursuing it further?

The cities vibrate beneath her feet, as though they’re voicing agreement. Calla climbs a few steps up and emerges from the alley, turning right to use a narrow pedestrian walkway. She’s not a little girl from Rincun anymore. She’s not one of the rural dwellers waiting outside the wall, hoping to be granted entrance into the cities on the palace’s whim. She’s Calla Tuoleimi. The man on the throne may be doing everything in his power to squeeze her out of sight, but Calla’s been wearing a weapon in the shape of a face far longer than he has. Anton Makusa doesn’t even know what he can do yet. He can’t play this game like she can.

Calla pulls a cellular phone from her pocket and presses it to her ear. Along with her small knife, this was also swiped from the palace—the surveillance room, specifically. It only works within the twin cities, or else the wireless signal isn’t strong enough.

As the phone rings, a pungent smell suddenly hits her nose. It’s coming from a half-shuttered storefront, and Calla hastens her speed. There could well be a corpse rotting in there, and she’s startled for a heartbeat by her own callous reaction. Finding dead bodies out in Rincun is a reason to send her hurrying toward the palace, but not in San-Er. Dead bodies out there are a problem, a symptom of something terrible soon to erupt; here, they are another day, another damp gray afternoon turning into a cloying night where cracked ground-floor windows look onto addicts lying diagonal on insect-infested mattresses.

“Magnolia Diner.”

The cheery voice crackles, answering right as Calla ducks into a building and hits a patch of rough signal. Her surroundings remain at a low drone: murmurs from a higher floor, an electric bulb buzzing overhead, a shudder along the walls that might be an air conditioner coming to life. Though she can run fast, it’ll take considerable time to get to the Palace of Union on foot. Less, however, if she goes by way of the rooftops and cuts a direct line through the dense city.

“Hey,” Calla says. There’s a blue arrow spray-painted beside the staircase at the end of the corridor. “Is that you, Chami?”

“Unless I’ve been jumped unbeknownst to everyone around me, yes.”

Calla almost misses the first step up, her grip turning bone white on the handrail. Chami is joking; of course she’s joking. It’s common sarcasm that children fire back at their mothers, something so impossible it can only be in jest. Still, Calla shudders as she corrects her stride, ascending three stairs at a time.

“Is Yilas around?”

“When is she not? One second— my love? My dearest, softest baby? ”

Calla snorts. Despite herself, she cradles the phone close. She continues climbing, passing seven flights of stairs, then eight, nine, ten…

“Hello, Your Royal Highness.”

Calla pushes through the rooftop door just as Yilas’s voice bursts through the static.

“Your brother,” Calla says without greeting. “Is he on shift in the palace surveillance room right now?”

In the one night she had as royal advisor before being booted from the palace onto a delegation mission to Rincun, Calla did everything she could to plant an extra set of eyes in the Palace of Union. Both Yilas and Chami said they would rather defenestrate themselves than serve the crown again. But Matiyu Nuwa… he needed a new job after his departure from the Crescent Societies. It was easy enough to maneuver him into place, especially with Anton distracted. Calla presented the edict to let palace employees come and go rather than reside inside the walls—to let ordinary civilians working the surveillance room or cleaning the kitchens take shifts and clock in and out for the first time since Calla’s parents were murdered in the other palace and Kasa ramped up security in his own.

Their esteemed new king signed off on it right away to get her out of his sight.

“Princess Calla, you were the one who hired him. Shouldn’t you know?”

“I haven’t exactly carried his schedule out with me to the great provinces.”

“Fine, fine. Let me see…”

Yilas trails off to the sound of rapid clicking. Her pager, probably. Moments later, just as Calla is leaping between two rooftops, Yilas reports: “Yes, he’s on shift for the next hour. Why—”

“Tell him to get me in. I’ll wait by the south entrance. One of the cameras should pick me up. Thank you, bye!”

Calla hangs up. She’s being rude, but Yilas won’t mind. It’s hard to hold a phone to her ear and listen to San-Er under her feet at the same time. If there’s any burst of noise, it will be civilians emerging from their homes and flocking to the main thoroughfare. They will want to watch the returning delegation while it moves through San-Er to return to the palace, and Calla needs to keep an ear out so she can get back first and check on some business.

“Oh, shit .” When Calla leaps to the next rooftop, her boot skids. It must have rained earlier, shallow puddles forming where the surface is uneven. Calla narrowly recovers her balance to avoid falling off the building, but her knee goes down fast, striking cement and whatever discarded electronic pieces have been left up here.

Sharp pain moves through her leg. Calla grits her teeth hard, then picks herself up and continues forward. A brief slip. She’ll be okay. Though she’s been away for some time, the twin cities don’t warp around her absence. San-Er waits, ever patient, perking to attention the moment she returns like her best-fitted shirt, more easily indulged than resisted.

The south entrance of the Palace of Union protrudes from a section of the coliseum. Calla descends before she’s within distance and returns to the pavement. Illegal drug trade starts on the rooftops during these hours, keeping operations close to the coliseum for the sort of patrons wanting to make a pickup after their late-night grocery shopping. Plenty of Crescent Society presence on those rooftops too, and Calla doesn’t have time to be recognized.

Brief glimpses of the coliseum peek through the narrow spaces between shop buildings, flashing gray stone and golden lights. Calla takes a wrong turn at first, but before she can circle back, she catches casual conversation in the next alley over—palace guards. With a brief, muttered curse, she acts fast, rushing over to a window and tapping the glass a few times.

She pauses to listen. No response. When she hears the guards turning the corner, she nudges open the window and enters the apartment, keeping her tread light over the messy floor. The room is surrounded by scattered burlap sacks and emptied cans of precooked meat. Whoever the occupant of this apartment is, it appears they’re unpacking from a fresh move, which strikes Calla as strange. People don’t move around much in San-Er; the circumstances don’t change enough to warrant it, unless someone is drawn in the migration lottery and allowed entry from the provinces.

She steps out the front door and hurries down the hall, then through an exit into the next street. The palace’s south entrance looms ahead, around the dark bend and past the dilapidated fragment of an awning that has fallen from a third-floor restaurant. Calla presses forward just enough for the cameras to catch her, then checks her phone so the guards at the entrance don’t notice her arrival.

While she pretends to tap the buttons, a real message comes through.

What number were you calling from? Will my pager come through can you see this

Calla blows out air in the shape of a laugh, her bangs puffing up before landing back in place.

I am on cellular. Yes I see this.

Yilas texts back instantly.

Oh fab. Matiyu says turn back and follow coliseum on right. keep going until you see wires

Wires?

Despite her confusion, Calla quickly follows instructions. She’s loitered for long enough, and the guards have noticed her. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if she did walk right in through the palace entrance, but she doesn’t want them declaring her presence. She doesn’t want news of her arrival to reach the king’s ear, at least not until she makes a stop first. If Anton’s been sitting here simmering in his anger, maybe he’ll throw her in prison the moment she returns.

“Over here, Calla!”

Calla stops. She’s paced too hastily past an alley and slowly reverses back two steps, peering into what she thought was a dead end blocked off by the coliseum’s exterior. To her surprise, Matiyu is waving at her from the end of the alley, standing by a large tangle of electric wires. Ah.

“I didn’t know there was another entrance,” Calla remarks, entering the alley. On the left side, there are two back doors that lead into restaurants on the upper floors, surrounded by trash cans overspilling with food scraps. If she weren’t looking, she wouldn’t see the other door hiding behind the wires that feed out of the ground and into the top of the coliseum.

“It’s an emergency passage,” Matiyu says brightly, turning to pull the door. When it doesn’t move, he sighs, patting around the wires until he clears a tangle to reveal an electric panel. Calla watches him input what must be his identity number. A puff of air emits from the wall as the door unseals. Quickly, Matiyu grabs a corner to haul it open and waves her in first.

“I’m impressed. You’ve been here less than two weeks, and you’ve already discovered an unused entrance.”

Matiyu dabs his sleeve against his nose to try to stop it from running—either a result of the night chill or his rapid dash across the palace to meet her here. He and Yilas look startlingly alike, down to the exact same mannerisms when they want to be polite. “Don’t think I don’t know why you got me this job. I registered my identity number for access through every emergency entrance on my third day.”

“Good work. Now take me to the surveillance room, would you?”

“I’d better get a good year-end bonus for this.”

Calla rolls her eyes and starts to walk. Before she can make an arbitary right turn, Matiyu reaches to steer her shoulders left. She pivots. Even when she made diplomatic visits here with the king and queen of Er, she never spent more than a few days in the Palace of Union—then named the Palace of Earth. Heaven overshadows Earth: the Tuoleimis were the ones who played host more often. In keeping with its name, the Palace of Earth was supposed to be the grounded one, satisfied with its portion of Talin claimed below the Jinzi River. The Palace of Heavens, meanwhile, stretched the kingdom’s ambition north, higher and higher until the kingdom was complete at twenty-eight provinces, having conquered Rincun and each bite of uncharted territory up to the borderlands.

“This way,” Matiyu says, pointing at the stairs. The moment they start to ascend, a rumble of voices floats from the top, signaling their impending descent. Matiyu grimaces, waving Calla off the first step and down the next corridor instead.

Though this is a different palace from the one she grew up in, Calla can almost fool herself into thinking she knows the way. When San and Er merged, when King Kasa took over the latter and his council grew from twelve seats to twenty-eight, any illusion of difference between the two palaces snapped away. Somewhere nearby, the throne room glitters coldly, its half-circle entryway decorated with ostentatious carvings, words and symbols of immortality for Talin’s rulers.

“Servants’ passages,” Matiyu explains when they descend three steps and the plush red carpet suddenly turns thin and gray. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“How dare you. Fetch me a palanquin right now.”

Matiyu snorts. Though Calla hasn’t seen Yilas’s little brother since the Palace of Heavens—when Yilas was her attendant and Matiyu visited on weekends to steal palace food—she feels the same sort of ease with him as she feels with Yilas. They may not know her truly, but they don’t fuss about wanting to know the princess either. That’s more than she can really ask for.

Three staircases up, two staircases down, and five sharp hallway pivots later, they’re finally approaching the surveillance room with Matiyu huffing for breath. Calla follows closely on his heels, ever casual as Matiyu drops into his cubicle. The two people on either side of him glance over curiously before snapping their attention back to their monitors, pretending they don’t see Calla Tuoleimi hovering over his shoulder.

“Show me the palace prison,” Calla says.

“Which one?”

Which… one? Calla thinks back to the cell she was kept in after the victor’s banquet. The chipping walls, somehow both water-damaged and charred with electric burns. The thin, threadbare blanket on the creaky bed. She only spent one night in there, believing Anton dead, believing that she had done everything she needed to in this kingdom and that it was time for rest.

She almost wishes she had been right.

“How many are there?”

“Two.” Matiyu clicks around on his screen. A camera feed appears on the left side, showing the row of prison cells she remembers. Surveillance for the rest of the cities is nowhere near as sharp as this. During the king’s games, sometimes the reels were too pixelated to see a player’s limb being severed off. The light in certain alleyways made fights appear as clumps of shadow on-screen. Inside the palace, meanwhile, the quality of the footage is almost better than what Calla sees with her own eyes.

Matiyu clicks again. Another display appears on the right side of the screen, showing only one cell and one prisoner, her head lolled against the wall.

“Stop. Zoom in on that one,” Calla says.

Matiyu follows instructions. He inches closer and closer, until the live surveillance is focused entirely on the prisoner.

So Leida Miliu is still locked up. There is no trick here, no possibility that the reality is anything otherwise. Yet something happened out in Rincun, with the same echoes of the events that unfolded in San-Er during the games. Calla rushed back in a fit because she was sure she would find an escaped prisoner. A part of her hoped for an empty cell, because that would mean she knew who to hunt; it would mean Leida was the adversary to best.

If Leida Miliu remains in the palace cells, then trouble has sprung from somewhere else.

“The Crescent Societies,” Calla says out loud.

“What?” Matiyu asks.

“We should check on the Cres—”

“ Announcing His Majesty. ”

A drumbeat booms through the palace wing suddenly, reverberating low and long. Calla, though she swallows a curse, isn’t surprised. It was only a matter of time before word spread that she slipped into the city ahead of the delegation. She entered the palace and didn’t report to the king first. What a poor royal advisor she makes.

When Anton strolls through, unaccompanied by the usual presence of the royal guards, Calla barely keeps her arms at her sides. The roots of his blond hair are coming in dark, curling around the crown on his head. He hasn’t been maintaining August’s dye routine. It’s a shock to see the change, as though the two of them have started merging into one. She wants to claw August’s face off him. Then she wants to caress his cheek and beg him to understand what she did in the arena. But she stays put, because it doesn’t matter what she wants. Anton Makusa is furious with her.

“Your Majesty,” Calla says.

“Your Highness,” he echoes back. “What a surprise.”

“You couldn’t possibly believe I’d remain in exile for long.”

The surveillance room presses past quiet, growing tense enough to register as unusual. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Matiyu wince, and Calla attempts a course correction, flashing a smile. The machines at her side blink green and red. The walls loom closer, each tear in the iridescent blue wallpaper growing larger to listen too.

You should have left the games. You should have run. You should have run with me.

“No one here can take a joke between cousins, it seems.” Calla laces her hands behind her back. She grips the edge of her jacket, hiding the tremor that threatens to show. “I was so efficient at surveying the provinces that I have returned early ahead of the delegation. Aren’t you pleased, Your Majesty?”

Anton, like he’s already exhausted, drops into an open chair beside the surveillance cubicles. Their eyes meet; his are pitch-black. When Calla takes a step closer, his gaze narrows, still dark as night but reflecting a hue of purple. Anyone who knows August Shenzhi well enough should know that his eyes flash blue-black instead. But that list is very small, and given that Galipei Weisanna is nowhere to be found at present, Anton is probably doing a fine job keeping those people away.

“Protocol says the delegation must travel together.”

“Oh, psh.” Calla shrugs one shoulder. “Since when have I followed protocol?”

His expression darkens in an instant, sweeps that violet away like a midnight flash flood. This visit to Rincun was, of course, an implicit threat. Anton Makusa is the only one who knows the truth about her identity, and she is the only one who knows the truth about his current deception—so she should keep her mouth shut if she wants him to do the same. Her once lover looks at her with the ire of a battle adversary: she chose herself over him, over them , in that arena, sacrificed him to fulfill her ultimate goal. If the tables had been turned, she would have lunged for Anton’s throat the moment she saw him again after the battle.

Then again, if the tables had been turned, they never would have ended up in that arena to begin with, but Anton wouldn’t listen to her and pull his wristband. He chose the allure of victory too. She is not alone in this blame, and if she’s being honest, she’s growing increasingly irritated at the fire he’s tossing her way, given his own role in this mess.

“I expected you to report to me first, Princess Calla. It is only proper.”

Anton is alive, at least. She didn’t lose him to her vengeance. She murdered King Kasa, and Anton Makusa still walks the earth. That’s something. Even if it feels like a bomb that could blow up in her face at any moment.

“I’m here now.”

“After I sought you out myself. I had to leave an important meeting about the wall.”

His behavior is a good imitation of August, she can admit. Every movement is the graceful sort of casual, his limbs relaxed even while his attention remains alert. But she knows what to look for, and his small faults slip out in a silent herald. The quicker tilt of his head. The longer swing of his arm. August would never prop his hands against furniture like that. It’s too cavalier. August would have both his feet flat on the ground, not rested lightly on his toes. That’s the behavior of someone used to running. Though August’s body isn’t ill-fitting on Anton, it’s off in the manner of a mirror reflection having a half-second lag.

“May I speak to you now?” Calla asks. “In private.”

“No.”

Someone in the corner gasps. A small sound, nothing that draws further attention. It only makes audible what every witness here must be thinking. In King Kasa’s toppling, Calla Tuoleimi and August Shenzhi were certainly allies. While the palace servants whispered King-Killer , if it hadn’t been for August, the council would have instantly had Calla executed for her crimes.

“Matiyu, clear the room,” Calla orders.

“What?” Matiyu blurts. He looks between Calla and his king. “Is that allowed?”

“You may be overstepping, Highness,” Anton says blithely.

“Confidential palace business,” Calla offers without missing a beat. It is not entirely out of line to ask for the first convenient place of debrief—especially not for Calla Tuoleimi, whom the palace knows to be a wild card. If Anton Makusa has any sense of self-preservation, he will agree without argument. As he should have back then, in the arena. Yet instead, he’s playing his own stupid games, and Calla wishes she could take him by the shoulders and shake him into submission.

The room begins to clear. Each employee gets up hesitantly enough to afford them deniability if their king were to declare that anyone leaving ought to be imprisoned, their bodies still facing their cubicles until the final second. Matiyu is the last to shuffle through the entryway, and he grimaces awkwardly at Calla before sliding the door shut. It clicks.

“You need to get out.”

Anton’s gaze is knife sharp when it pivots to her. He performs a haughty sniff, but no amount of feigned disdain can disguise his fury.

“Why?” he asks. “So you can kill me without consequence a second time?”

They haven’t been alone like this since the arena. Since Calla put a blade into his back and through his heart. Where she hasn’t changed her wardrobe from her getup during the games, he is dressed in a pressed blue jacket and fitted trousers, looking like he could lead a royal battalion across Talin and lounge back on the throne after a long day. This isn’t the manner of someone wreaking momentary havoc. He’s staying in August’s body.

“Anton, please,” Calla says, her voice dropping to a whisper. “The arena… you know I didn’t want to—”

“Whether you wanted to or not doesn’t change anything, does it?” Anton interrupts, rising to his feet.

“It changes everything.” Calla is trying her damned best not to sound angry. “I don’t—I’m still—”

The truth is, she doesn’t know what she’s trying to say. Whether this is the time to be deciphering why she did what she did. There’s no way for her to say Sorry I killed you without the part that goes but if you think about it, you forced my hand .

“Anton,” Calla pleads, stepping forward. It could be her imagination, but she swears she sees him flinch, even from several paces away. “You are causing trouble where there needs none. Didn’t the palace keep your birth body? You can take it back, jump—”

“I’m not leaving.”

The rest of her words sour in her throat. She doesn’t understand what his purpose is here. Power? Money? If it were only this title he wanted to keep, he should have gotten rid of Calla the moment she placed that crown on his head. He should never have revealed the truth to her. Put her neck under a sword before anyone could question the decision, gain some points with the councilmembers who reported to Kasa and now report to him. Then he could have playacted as August forever.

“Don’t force my hand further,” Calla says tightly. “Leave, Anton. Let the kingdom return to how it should be.”

“And how should it be? Another century ruled by a useless king, I gather.”

“August has plenty to do.”

“August wants power for himself, first and foremost,” Anton counters. “You are a fool to think otherwise.”

Calla has to turn away from him, has to look somewhere else, her eyes falling on the monitors that show her the scenes outside the palace. The marketplace has almost cleared of shoppers, save for a handful of stragglers here and there. “Maybe I am a fool.” There is the truth. There is her pulsating heart, pulled bloody from her chest and harvested for the threads of deceit she wove into it herself. “Once August was on the throne, my job was done. Then everything was supposed to have been worth it, no matter how high the price.”

You , the room whispers. Filling in the blanks where she won’t, whispering impatiently from the monitors whirring around them. If putting August on the throne meant nothing, then losing you meant nothing .

“Unfortunately…” It’s Anton who steps closer now. The metal buttons on his jacket catch each colorful flicker on the screens, and when Calla turns back, she finds herself focusing on that detail to keep her expression in check. She wonders if August had those buttons matched to Galipei’s eyes, silver enough to appear perpetually cold to the touch, bright enough to reflect everything in the vicinity. “I’m not going anywhere. I have unfinished business.”

Calla remains still. He couldn’t mean their battle in the arena. Finishing that business is as simple as picking up the nearest heavy object and bludgeoning her in one quick swing. He could do it while the room is empty, with no one able to punish him for the indiscretion afterward.

She might even let him.

Anton reaches for a lock of her hair. The gesture appears affectionate at first, when he winds it around his finger. Then he yanks hard, and Calla has to yield an inch to stop him from ripping her hair right out. Her hand whips up and grasps his wrist. She doesn’t dare look straight at him. She only squeezes with equal pressure, her breath locked in her throat. It seems absurd to recall how different the circumstances were the last time they stood this close. Maybe Anton is thinking the same thing: her touch and the dark of night, the storm outside raging white light through the blinds. The cluttered floor. The twisted bedsheets.

“What is it?” Calla whispers, her words strained. “Your unfinished business.”

When she runs through the possibilities, she emerges with very few options. Outside of her, if there is anything that would keep a flight risk like Anton in one place, it has to do with August, and what he has discovered while wearing his body.

Anton lets go of her. Terribly, Calla misses his touch despite the sting. She needs more, craves a longer moment of contact to know that he is real, that although she has torn him apart, he has cobbled himself back together as no one else could.

The door to the surveillance room shudders, cutting short anything Anton might have said in reply. Calla has a mere second to get ahold of herself and flatten her expression before Galipei Weisanna appears at the entryway, yanking the door back.

“August, I have been outside your quarters waiting for you all evening,” he says sharply. “You are needed in the royal infirmary.”

Anton doesn’t glance at his bodyguard, but Calla is watching Galipei carefully. His collar sits crumpled. His silver eyes are wild: an abnormal sight for someone who has spent his entire life training to be August Shenzhi’s obedient half.

“Not now,” Anton replies.

“What’s happening in the infirmary?” Calla asks.

Anton shoots her a glare. “What part of not now is unclear—”

“Otta Avia,” Galipei interrupts.

In an instant, Anton swivels around, rearing with shock. “ What did you just say?”

“I said, it’s Otta,” Galipei says. “She’s here.”