“Was it her or was it you?” he asks carefully.

“What do you mean?”

“Who kept the Obsidians from boiling out my eyes and taking my tongue? You or Virginia?”

“It was both of us.”

“Liar. Didn’t think she’d shoot, to tell the truth of it.” He reaches up to feel his neck, but the manacles jerk his hands to a halt, startling him back into the room. “Don’t suppose you could take these off? It’s dreadful when you’ve got an itch.”

“I think you’ll live.”

He chuckles as if saying he had to try. “So, is this where you act morally superior for saving me? For being more civilized than Gold?”

“Maybe I’m going to torture you for information,” I say.

“Well, that’s not exactly honorable.”

“Neither is letting a man put me in a box for nine months after torturing me for three. Anyway, what the hell ever made you think I give a shit about being honorable?”

“True.” He frowns, creasing his brow and looking startling, like something Michelangelo would have carved. “If you think the Sovereign will barter, you’re wrong. She won’t sacrifice a single thing to save me.”

“Then why serve her?” I ask.

“Duty.” He says the words, but I wonder how deeply he means them any longer.

In his eyes I glimpse the loneliness, the longing for a life that should have been, and the glimmer of the man he wants to be underneath the man he thinks he has to be.

“All the same,” I say, “I think we’ve done enough evil to one another. I’m not going to torture you. Do you have information or are we just going to dance around it for another ten minutes?”

“Have you wondered yet why the Sovereign was suing for peace, Darrow? Surely it must have crossed your mind. She’s not one to dilute punishment unless she must. Why would she show leniency to Virginia? To the Rim? Her fleets outnumber those of the Moon Lord rebels three to one. The Core is better supplied. Romulus can’t match Roque. You know how good he is. So why would the Sovereign send us to negotiate? Why compromise?”

“I already know she wanted to replace the Jackal,” I say. “And she can’t very well have a full-scale rebellion on the Rim while trying to cuff his ears and fight the Sons of Ares. She’s trying to limit her theaters of war so she can focus all her weight on one problem at a time. It’s not a complicated strategy.”

“But do you know why she wanted to remove him?”

“My escape, the camps, the disruptions in helium processing…I could list a hundred reasons why installing a psychopath as ArchGovernor could prove burdensome.”

“All those are valid,” he says, interrupting. “Convincing, even. And they are the reasons we provided Virginia.”

I step back toward him, hearing the implication in his voice. “What didn’t you tell her?” He hesitates, as if wondering even now if he should tell me. Eventually, he does.

“Earlier this year, our intelligence agents discovered discrepancies between the quarterly helium production logs reported to the Department of Energy and the Department of Mine Management and the yield reports from our agents in mining colonies themselves. We found at least one hundred and twenty-five instances where the Jackal falsely reported helium losses due to Sons of Ares disruption. Disruptions which didn’t exist. He also claimed fourteen mines destroyed by Sons of Ares attacks. Attacks which never happened.”

“So he’s skimming off the top,” I say with a shrug. “Hardly the first corrupt ArchGovernor in the worlds.”

“But he’s not reselling it on the market,” Cassius says. “He’s creating artificial shortages while he stockpiles.”

“Stockpiles? How much so far?” I ask tensely.

“With the surplus inventory from the fourteen mines and the Martian Reserve? At this rate, in two years he’ll have more than the Imperial Reserves on Luna and Venus and the War Reserve on Ceres combined.”

“That could mean a hundred things,” I say quietly, realizing just how much fuel that is. Three quarters of the most valuable substance in the worlds. All under the control of one man. “He’s making a play for Sovereign. Buying Senators?”

“Forty so far,” Cassius admits. “More than we thought he had. But there’s another kink which he’s involved them in.” He tries to sit up straighter in his cot, but the manacles around his hands anchor him to a half-slouched pose. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to tell me the truth.” I’d laugh at the idea if I didn’t see how serious he is. “Did the Sons of Ares rob a deep space asteroid warehouse in March, several days after your escape? About four months ago?”

“Be more specific,” I say.

“A minor main belter in the Karin Cluster. Designation S-1988. Silicate-based junk asteroid. Nearly zero mining potential. Specific enough?”

I reviewed the entirety of Sevro’s tactical operations when I was making my recovery with Mickey. There were several assaults on Legion military bases within the asteroid belts, but nothing remotely like what Cassius is talking about.

“No. There were no operations on S-1988 that I know of.”

“Gorydamn,” he mutters under his breath. “Then we judged right.”

“What was in the warehouse?” I ask. “Cassius…”

“Five hundred nuclear warheads,” he says darkly.

The blood on his bandage has spread to the size of a gaping mouth.

“Five hundred,” I echo, my own voice a distant, hollow thing. “What was their yield?”

“Thirty megatons each.”

“World killers…Cassius, why would they even exist?”

“In case the Ash Lord ever had to repeat Rhea,” Cassius says. “The depot lies between the Core and the Rim.”

“Repeat Rhea…that’s who you serve?” I ask. “A woman who stores enough nuclear warheads to destroy a planet, just in case.”

He ignores my tone. “All evidence pointed to Ares, but the Sovereign thought it gave Sevro too much credit. She had Moira investigate it personally, and she was able to trace the tags of the hijacker’s ship to a defunct shipping line formerly owned by Julii Industries. If the Sons truly didn’t steal them, then the Jackal has the weapons. But we don’t know what he’s doing with them.” I stand there, numb. Mind racing to piece together how the Jackal might utilize so many atomics. According to the Compact, the Martian military is only permitted twenty in its arsenal, for ship-to-ship warfare. All under five megatons.