“Not now,” she says. He blames me. And he should. They all should blame me. And it’s only going to get worse.

23

Trust

I find him in a communal washroom. He’s earned one of the staterooms that the others are claiming for the return voyage to Mars, but that’s not how he thinks. This is still the boy who hid in the horse. No, I think. Not a boy any longer.

“She cared for you, Sevro.”

His arms cross before him, freckled and thin. A towel wraps around his waist, another hangs around his shoulders. Golds don’t care about nudity but Sevro always has. He’s gained a tattoo since last I saw him. A huge black and gray wolf along his back. The Howlers are his everything. Once they were just a tool to me; now I think of them as something more. But what does that mean, when I use them just the same? He stares at the water running into the drain of the shower. Down and down it spirals.

“In the end, I believe I’ll enjoy war,” he says. “Gotta toughen my spine a bit. Callous my hands. Bastards tell us it’s all roses and glory.” He looks up. “Don’t you smell the roses, Reaper?”

I sit beside him on the bench. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Course I gory heard you. I’m missing an eye, not an ear.” He taps his bionic eye with a bony finger. “Course I know she cared. But never in the way I wanted. She deserved to live. If any of us ugly little shiteaters deserve it, it was her. There wasn’t a cruel bone in her body. Not one. But it didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if we’re good or we’re evil. It’s all up to chance.”

“It was chance you knew her at all,” I say. “Chance that brought her to House Mars.”

“No. It was my father,” Sevro says. “He drafted her, traded a pick with Juno to get her.” He shakes his head. “All because he thought she would temper us, govern our anger. If he hadn’t picked her, we wouldn’t have met her, and she’d be alive.”

“Maybe,” I say, thinking of Eo. “But she chose to come here. She chose to follow me. To follow you.”

“Just like Pax.”

I nod, touching my pegasus.

“It’s all piss and shit. Isn’t it?” Sevro says. “Doesn’t matter how pretty they dress it up. We’re still in the game. We’re always going to be in a slagging game. Spit on their empire. Spit on this piss and this shit. I came for you because he told me what you are.”

I stare at him, unable to understand.

“What do you mean?” I ask with a nervous laugh.

“Turn it on,” he says. “I know you brought one. You’re thorough, Reaper. Always thorough.”

“Why are you acting so—”

“Shut up and turn it on.”

I nod and activate the device in my pocket. A jamField deploys. I’m not so prideful as the Sovereign to believe no one could listen in. Sevro stares as me till I shift uncomfortably.

“So what am I?” I ask.

“Even now?” he asks, shaking his head. “You are wound tight. Say the name of the person who sent me.”

“Mustang sent you. You told me she brought you in from the Rim. Same with all the Howlers.”

“That’s right. She did. Took six months to get from Pluto. But guess who came to me during my layover in Triton. Go on, Reap. Guess.”

“Lorn?” His lips curl into a sneer. “Fitchner?”

Sevro spits in my face, right under the eye. “Guess wrong again and I leave you like this.” He snaps his fingers. “I will not come back. I will not help you. I will not bleed for you. I will not sacrifice my friends for a man who doesn’t give enough of a shit about me to put his neck out just once. Trust goes both ways, Darrow. This time you have to take a leap.”

He’s not bluffing. And I know what I want to say. But how can it be? Sevro is a Gold. A bloodydamn Gold. He heard me say “bloodydamn” to Apollo. He covered it up. Didn’t he? Or was that a mistake? Is he trapping me? No. No, if that’s true, then the game is already over. Eo’s dream has failed. Who is closer to me than he? Who loves me more than this strange, nasty outcast? No one.

So I look him in his dull gold eyes. “Ares sent you.”

Silence between us.

A terrible five seconds. Six. Seven. He stands and locks the door before pulling a small black crystal from the pocket of his crumpled pants. “For your breath only.”

“A whisperGem …”

I take it tenderly, knowing how much it costs, and blow against its surface. My breath makes it wobble, then shatter. Small motes of black rise, drifting up like fireflies out of the grass as dusk settles in deep summer. They coalesce. Floating and forming a rough holo that hovers between Sevro and me. The spiked helmet of Ares.

“My son,” he warbles. “I am sorry. Harmony has betrayed you. She has betrayed me and initiated a campaign against our principles. I discovered her intended use of you too late. But you were wise. This is why I chose you. Steps are being taken to curb her efforts. Continue with your own. Set Augustus against Bellona and fracture the Pax Solaris.”

I try to ask it a question, but it is a recording.

“I realize this must be difficult. I have asked too much of you already. But you must carry on. Sow chaos. Weaken them. You have much reason to doubt me. We have not contacted you until now, because you were watched by Pliny, by the Jackal, and the Sovereign’s spies. Troublemakers breed interest. But I have watched you too, and I am proud. I know Eo would be as well. In case you doubt the veracity of this message, a friend would like to say hello.”

Ares’s helmet fades and Dancer smiles at me. “Darrow, I want you to know, we’re with you. Your family is alive and well. The end is coming, my friend. Soon you’ll be with us. Till then, trust the man Ares sent; I recruited him myself. Break the chains.”

The image erodes, blackish light decaying into the air. And I’m left staring at the shower floor.

“You look good for all that surgery,” Sevro says. His smile is no less nasty than usual. “Ares sent that cripple to me. The one who sent you to the Institute. Dancer.”

He can’t say any more because I’m hugging him and crying. I sob and hold on to him, shaking, scaring him. He doesn’t move except to pat me on the head. All the weight falls from my shoulders. Someone knows. He knows and he’s here. He knows and he came to help me. To help me. I can’t stop shaking and saying thank you. Eo was right. I was right. “You are my friend,” I tremble out like a child. It almost makes him cry seeing me this way.