“Who are you?” I ask.

He sets a small onyx box down on my bed in front of the other Pink.

“Who is it from?” I demand.

“You’ll see, dominus,” he says. Daintily, he extends a hand to the other Pink, who, confused, takes it and follows him from the room. The door closes. I’m just as confused as the Pink. I rush to the box, opening it, and find a small holoCube. I activate it.

Mustang’s face appears, glowing. “Take cover,” she says.

The power goes out and the door locks by default. The room is plunged into darkness. Lightning lashes through the clouds outside; thunder rumbles. And I hear something. A howling. It is not the wind.

Another flash of lightning and he appears, floating in the bitter storm like the ugliest angel ever shit out of heaven. A wolfpelt hangs from his shoulders, whips in the wind. His black metal helmet is that of a wolfshead, and he’s armed to the bloody teeth.

Sevro has come, and he’s brought friends.

Lightning. Thunder again and this time it illuminates his slash of a smile and the eight floating killers behind him. Nine Howlers in all. Small, cruel little devils waiting in the darkness, silhouetted by the crackling of the storm’s electricity. Long-legged Quinn is there too.

I duck into the sauna as Sevro touches the glass with a pulseFist after setting up a jamField to absorb the sound. The glass ruptures inward. The distorted sound of the storm follows them as they thump down onto the carpeted marble floor. Wind whips at my bedsheets and tapestries. One by one they kneel—pudgy Pebble, cruel Harpy, spindly, open-faced Clown, and all the others.

“Friends. Get up!” I bellow. “You’re already short enough.”

They laugh and rise. Pebble and Clown rush forward and weld shut my metal door with plasma torches.

Water drips from Sevro’s hook nose as he nods toward me, his helmet absorbed into his armor. Hair buzzed in the shape of dragons. Quiet, and so full of derision, he hefts a huge, heavy bag in his other hand. And when he walks, he moves with disdain for this low gravity. As though it were a thing for weaklings and fools.

“Lord Reaper. You look like a Pixie ponce in this lady-den.” Sevro sweeps into a theatrical bow after he places the bag at my feet. “Perhaps that’s why Mustang believed you were in dire need of your gorydamn pack.”

“She brought you back from the Rim?”

“All of us,” Quinn says. “We’ve been here several weeks on standby. She needed men she knew wouldn’t be loyal to the Sovereign.”

An insurance policy. I can’t believe I ever doubted her.

In no world would Mustang help kill her father. I realized during my conversation with the Sovereign that it had to be why she’s here in first place—to infiltrate the Sovereign’s family like I infiltrated the Golds. As she entered the Sovereign’s suite, I remembered how before the duel she mentioned having her own plans. Now it finally clicks into place. They were both playing their own games, but I helped reveal the Sovereign’s hand.

The Sovereign wasn’t worried about me knowing anything, else why play the game? But as soon as Mustang entered the room, the paradigm altered. She should have concluded the game then and there. But her pride got the better of her.

As for Mustang, I knew she was with me as soon as she took the gold horse ring I gave her from her pocket and slipped it onto her finger. My heart leaped in that moment, and I knew she’d find our way out of this.

“Sevro.” I smile and clasp his hand. “Our ArchGovernor is—”

“I know. Mustang briefed us.”

“Come here, you tall devil.” Quinn steps past the others and slips her thin arm around my waist and kisses my cheek. She smells like home. I have missed these people. The wind howls as it passes through our jamField. Sevro’s bionic eye glitters unnaturally in his pale face. Quinn has brought me gravBoots, ebony in color. I slip them on.

“Mustang might have brought us from the Rim. But we didn’t come for her. We didn’t come for Augustus. We came for you, Reaper,” Sevro snarls. Quinn frowns as Sevro spits on the pretty carpet. “We saw what you did to Cassius. And we want what you’re trying to make.”

“And that is?” I ask, more than a little confused.

“What poor killers always want. War,” he growls. “And all its spoils.”

“What of your father? He has a high place now.”

“Fitchner is a shiteater,” he sneers. “He’s made his bed. Let him sleep in it while we burn the house down.”

“Well, if you want war, if you want spoils, we better move. The ArchGovernor’s the one with an army.”

Quinn nods. “And Roque’s down there. And Tactus.”

“Tactus,” Sevro mutters, though I know the sneer on his face is for Roque. He watches Quinn, eyes sad for the smallest moment, before adjusting his armor.

“So what’s the plan?” I ask as I pull on the gravBoots and take the razor Pebble tosses me.

Sevro and Quinn look at each other and laugh. “Mustang’s fetching a ship. She said you’d figure the rest out,” Quinn says.

Just then the door behind me shudders and glows with a dilating pupil of red-hot metal. I slip the boots on, and as I do, I notice something. The bag that Sevro threw down. It moves.

Sevro smiles at me. I know that smile.

“Sevro?”

“Reaper.”

“What did you do?”

“Mustang brought us a package. Let’s just say”—Quinn grins at my shoulder—“it’s not their cook.”

I unzip the bag and gawk.

“Are you mad?” I ask him.

He just howls.

18

Bloodstains

Father once told me that a Helldiver can never stop. You stop and the drill can jam. The fuel burns too quickly. The quota might be missed. You never stop, just shift drills if the friction gets too hot. Caution comes second. Use your inertia, your momentum. That is why we dance. Transfer movement into more movement. Uncle Narol always told me to stop. He was wrong. Blew so many drill bits because of him.

Then again, Narol lived longer than Father, so maybe he has a point.

My Howlers jump with me out the window and we don’t stop when we dive into the black storm. We freefall, piercing the clouds without the use of our gravBoots. Like black rain screaming toward the ground. I’m first. I feel them behind me. My Howlers. The oxygen is thin at first. I hold my breath. My eyeballs nearly freeze in their sockets. Tears trickle out. My body shivers as the cold wind bites me.