Behind her eyes, August Flynn stopped fighting, because of her. He collapsed into darkness, because of her. He sacrificed a part of himself—his humanity, his light, his soul—because of her.

She could handle her own blood.

She didn’t need anyone else’s on her hands.

“Rule one,” she said, forcing her voice even, light. “Don’t make friends. It never ends well.”

Riley rolled a soda can between his palms. “But doesn’t it get lonely?”

Kate smiled. It was so easy when you could lie.

“No.”

Violence

has a taste a smell

but most of all it has

a heat— the shadow stands

in the street engulfed

in smoke

in fire

in wrath

in rage

basking

in the warmth and for an instant light glances off a face finding— cheekbones a chin

the barest hint of lips

for an instant— but it is not enough it is never enough one human holds so little heat and it is cold again— hungry again— its edges

blurring

back into darkness the way edges always do

it wants

more

searches

the night

and finds— a woman, a pistol, a bed a couple, a kitchen, a cutting block a man, a pink slip, an office the whole city a book of

matches

just waiting to be struck.

VERITY

The steel violin shone beneath his fingers.

Its metal body caught the sun, turning the instrument to light as August ran his thumb along the strings, checking them one last time.

“Hey, Alpha, you ready?”

August shut the case and swung it up onto his shoulder. “Yes.”

His team stood waiting, huddled in a patch of sun on the north side of the Seam—a three-story barricade that stretched like a dark horizon line between North and South City. Ani was drinking from a canteen, while Jackson studied the magazine on his gun, and Harris, was, well, he was being Harris, chewing gum and throwing knives at a wooden crate on which he’d drawn a very crude, very rude picture of a Malchai. He’d even named it Sloan.

It was a cool day, and they were dressed in full gear, but August wore only combat slacks and a black polo, his arms bare save for the rows of short black lines that circled his wrist like a cuff.

“Checkpoint One,” said a voice over the comm, “five minutes.”

August cringed at the volume, even though he’d pulled the comm piece out of his ear and let it hang around his neck. The voice belonged to Phillip, back at the Compound.

“Hey, Phil,” said Harris. “Tell me a joke.”

“That’s not what the comms are for.”

“How about this one?” offered Harris. “A Corsai, a Malchai, and a Sunai walk into a bar—”

Everyone groaned, including August. He didn’t really understand most of the FTF’s jokes, but he knew enough to recognize that Harris’s were awful.

“I hate waiting,” muttered Jackson, checking his watch. “Have I mentioned how much I hate waiting?”

“So much whining,” radioed their sniper, Rez, from a nearby roof.

“How’s it looking up there?” asked Ani.

“Perimeter’s clear. No trouble.”

“Too bad,” said Harris.

“Idiot,” radioed Phillip.

August ignored them all, staring across the street at the target.

The Porter Road Symphony Hall.

The building itself was embedded in the Seam, or rather, the Seam had been built up around the building. August squinted at the soldiers patrolling the barricade, and thought he spotted Soro’s lean form before remembering that Soro would be at the second checkpoint by now, half a mile east.

At his back, the usual argument was kicking off like clockwork.

“—don’t know why we bother, these people wouldn’t do the same for—”

“—not the point—”

“Isn’t it, though?”

“We do it, Jackson, because compassion must be louder than pride.”

The voice came through the comm set crisp and clear, and August instantly pictured the man it belonged to: Tall and slim with surgeon’s hands and tired eyes. Henry Flynn. The head of the FTF. August’s adopted father.

“Yes, sir,” said Jackson, sounding suitably chastised.

Ani stuck out her tongue. Jackson gave her the finger. Harris chuckled and began dislodging his knives.

A watch chirped.

“Showtime,” said Harris brightly.

There had always been two kinds of people in the FTF—those who fought because they believed in Flynn’s cause (Ani) and those for whom Flynn’s cause was a good excuse to fight (Harris).

Of course, these days there was a third kind: Conscripts. Refugees who’d crossed the Seam, not because they necessarily wanted to fight, but because the alternative of staying in North City was worse.

Jackson was one of those, a recruit who’d bartered service for safety and ended up as the squad’s medic.

He met August’s gaze. “After you, Alpha.”

The team had taken up their formal positions on either side, and August realized they were looking at him, looking to him, the way they must have looked to his older brother once. Before Leo was killed.