“As is fitting. War shouldn’t make us abandon metaphor. We’re not savages after all, eh, Bellona?”

“Cassius’s sensibilities are offended, Adrius,” Antonia says from her place near the Jackal. She’s a poisoned apple of a woman. Shiny and bright and promising, but rotten and cancerous to the core. She killed my friend Lea at the Institute. Put a bullet in her own mother’s head, and then two more into her sister Victra’s spine. Now she’s allied with the Jackal, a man who crucified her at the Institute. What a world. Behind Antonia stands dark-faced Thistle, once a Howler, now a member of the Jackal’s Boneriders by the looks of the jackal skull pennant on her chest. She looks at the floor instead of at me. Her captain is bald-headed Lilath, who sits at the Jackal’s right hand. His favorite personal killer ever since the Institute.

“Pardon me if I fail to see the purpose of torturing a fallen enemy,” Cassius answers. “Especially if he’s given all the information he has to give.”

“The purpose?” The Jackal stares at him, eyes quiet, as he explains. “The purpose is punishment, my goodman. This…thing presumed he belonged among us. Like he was an equal, Cassius. A superior, even. He mocked us. Bedded my sister. He laughed at us and played us for fools before we found him out. He must know it was not by chance that he lost, but inevitability. Reds have always been cunning little creatures. And he, my friends, is the personification of what they wish to be, what they will be if we let them. So I let time and darkness remake him into what he really is. A Homo flammeus, to use the new classification system I proposed to the Board. Barely different from Homo sapiens on the evolutionary timeline. The rest was just a mask.”

“You mean he made a fool of you,” Cassius parses, “when your father preferred a carved-up Red to his blood heir? That’s what this is, Jackal. The petulant shame of a boy unloved and unwanted.”

The Jackal twitches at that. Aja’s equally displeased by her young companion’s tone.

“Darrow took Julian’s life,” Antonia says. “Then slaughtered your family. Cassius, he sent killers to butcher the children of your blood as they hid on Olympus Mons. One would wonder what your mother would think of your pity.”

Cassius ignores them, jerking his head toward the Pinks at the edge of the room. “Fetch the prisoner a blanket.”

They do not move.

“Such manners. Even from you, Thistle?” She gives no answer. With a snort of contempt, Cassius strips off his white cloak and drapes it over my shivering body. For a moment, no one speaks, as struck by the act as I.

“Thank you,” I croak. But he looks away from my hollow face. Pity is not forgiveness, nor is gratitude absolution.

Lilath snorts a laugh without looking up from her bowl of soft-boiled hummingbird eggs. She slurps at them like candy. “There is a point when honor becomes a flaw of character, Morning Knight.” Sitting beside the Jackal, the bald woman peers up at Aja with eyes like those of the eels in Venus’s cavern seas. Another egg goes down. “Old man Arcos learned the hard way.”

Aja does not reply, her manners faultless. But a deathly silence lurks inside the woman, a silence I remember from the moments before she killed Quinn. Lorn taught her the blade. She will not like seeing his name mocked. Lilath greedily swallows another egg, sacrificing manners for insult.

There’s animosity between these allies. As always with their kind. But this seems a stark new division between the old Golds and the Jackal’s more modern breed.

“We’re all friends here,” the Jackal says playfully. “Mind your manners, Lilath. Lorn was an Iron Gold who simply chose the wrong side. So, Aja, I’m curious. Now that my lease on the Reaper is up, do you still plan to dissect him?”

“We do,” Aja says. Shouldn’t have thanked Cassius after all. His honor isn’t true. It’s just sanitary. “Zanzibar is curious to discover how he was made. He has his theories, but he’s champing at the bit for the specimen. We were hoping to round up the Carver that did the deed, but we think he perished in a missile strike up in Kato, Alcidalia province.”

“Or they want you to think that,” Antonia says.

“You once had him here, didn’t you?” Aja asks pointedly.

The Jackal nods. “Mickey’s his name. Lost his license after he carved an unlicensed Aureate birth. Family tried sparing their child the Exposure. Anyway, he specialized in blackmarket aerial and aquatic pleasure mods afterward. Had a carveshop in Yorkton before the Sons recruited him for a special job. Darrow helped him escape my custody. If you want my opinion, he’s still alive. My operatives place him in Tinos.”

Aja and Cassius exchange a look.

“If you have a lead on Tinos, you need to share it with us now,” Cassius says.

“I have nothing definitive yet. Tinos is well hidden. And we’ve yet to capture one of their ship captains…alive.” The Jackal sips his coffee. “But irons are in the fire, and you’ll be the first to know if anything comes of them. Though, I rather think my Boneriders would like the first crack at the Howlers. Wouldn’t you, Lilath?”

I try not to stir at the mention of the name. But it’s hard not to. They’re alive. Some of them, at least. And they chose the Sons of Ares over Gold….

“Yes, sir,” Lilath says, studying me. “We’d relish a real hunt. Fighting the Red Legion and the other insurgents is a bore, even for Grays.”

“The Sovereign needs us home anyway, Cassius,” Aja says. Then, to the Jackal: “We’ll be departing as soon as my Thirteenth has decamped from the Golan Basin. Likely by morning.”

“You’re taking your legions back to Luna?”

“Just the Thirteenth. The rest will remain under your supervision.”

The Jackal is surprised. “My supervision?”

“On loan till this…Rising is fully snuffed out.” She practically spits the word. A new one to my ears. “It’s a token of the Sovereign’s trust. You know she is pleased with your progress here.”

“Despite your methods,” Cassius adds, drawing an annoyed look from Aja.

“Well, if you’re leaving in the morning you should, of course, dine with me this evening. I’ve been wanting to discuss certain…policies regarding the Rebels in the Rim.” The Jackal is vague because I’m listening. Information’s his weapon. Suggesting my friends betrayed me. Never saying which. Dropping hints and clues during my torture, before I was sent into the dark. A Gray telling him that his sister is waiting in his salon. His fingers smelling like frothed chai tea, his sister’s favorite drink. Does she know I am here? Has she sat at this table? The Jackal is still prattling on. Hard to track the voices. So much to decipher. Too much.