I wasn’t scared. I mean, I was reasonably concerned. Not so much about Cassel though. As long as he needed a human barrier to throw between himself and Vanth, he wouldn’t kill me. So I didn’t have to worry about staying alive—only about finding a way to use this situation against Cassel. Which is actually harder.

  I let the guards drag me inside, tripping over the front steps. The st thing I saw outside was the sky half-covered by storm clouds.

  As expected, Cassel’s forces had entrenched themselves in the Big Project; a whole lot of guards milled around the foyer, making it look less empty. Guess they were locals and also the ones Cassel had brought from Vorsa. The greensuits were there too, as much as I’d rather ignore that, standing apart and standing out among the sea of white-and-gold, drab as their green rubber suits looked. I didn’t feel better knowing not even the guards seemed to enjoy their company.

  Of course the Snakes had tried to draw Cassel out of the Big Project, and of course he hadn’t taken the bait—if its barrier spells were powered by the mountain itself, and he had no reason to lie about that, it was the safest pce in the city. As long as Tipilej Awki didn’t free itself. In that case, the Big Project would soon become the unsafest pce in—well, the entire province. At a conservative guess.

  So naturally, freeing Tipilej Awki was what the Snakes intended. And I was inside the Big Project.

  One thing at a time, or I’d go crazy.

  Cassel signaled to the greensuits. Two of them stepped forward and repced the guards at my sides. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t help shrinking down like a scared turtle. The greensuits didn’t need to touch me. Which was just as well—I didn’t want to think about them touching me. I didn’t even want to brush against their rubber sleeves.

  There was an advantage hidden here, though, if I could grab a hold of it. If I looked scared, I’d be more easily dismissed, and I might use that in my favor. So I let myself shrink down and avoid eye contact.

  Cassel turned away. Fine, he looked like he was dismissing me. That hurt my self-esteem, but whatever worked worked. Now I needed to listen in on him without being distracted by the stream of conversation coming from the guards. Too bad the greensuits wouldn’t let me follow him around. Even worse, they herded me closer to the wall. Out of the way, and also out of anything worth hearing.

  I was lucky this time: a guard hurried to Cassel’s side before he could move very far away. Middle-aged and portly, but carrying himself with authority, though I couldn’t see any badges or anything from my position. He had the tan and the accent of a local. I sharpened my ears and paid attention.

  “Governor, I just got word from the detachments. They’ve suffered great losses and dispersed.”

  “How great are those losses?”

  “Impossible to know for sure at this point.”

  “I see.” And Cassel wasn’t surprised by the failure of his attempt. Just as the Snakes had tried to draw him out without too many hopes of succeeding, that’s how Cassel must’ve felt about trying to crush them. You just had to give it a try, even if you didn’t succeed. How many people had this try killed? “We move on to the next step.” He looked over his shoulder at me, briefly. “Luckily, we have attained something he wants.”

  The guard winced, looking very much as if he was trying way too hard to hold his tongue. “Is this about His Illustrious Highness?”

  Cassel whipped around. Looked like his patience was pretty damn threadbare. “Feel free to use his surname. Umbra is a traitor.”

  “It’s not that.” And as for the guard, he sounded like he was about to start yelling at his governor. “Umbra—“ he pronounced this name a bit lower, as if he feared Vanth was going to hear, “—isn’t the only one behind it.”

  The other guards seemed to be as interested as me in hearing what these two said, because they slowly went silent. That suited me just fine, as long as Cassel didn’t decide to take his conversation elsewhere!

  However, right now he was too wrapped up in arguing to care about anybody else. “Don’t be ridiculous. You people don’t know half of it. What happens in the capital decides everything. These people—“

  “And you don’t know what’s happening here. Umbra wasn’t the one who butchered the dog squad. Didn’t he take an oath against it?”

  “I saw him, Delgado. It’s as if he grabbed spells right off of the air, and also sent them back to whoever had cast them.”

  “But that’s not what happened that time! It was them. The Rainbow Snakes.”

  Though the foyer was crowded with human warmth in the most literal sense possible, I shuddered. I’d come searching for the Snakes, sure. In my opinion, I’d come as close to finding them as I’d ever get. But hearing someone else mention the Snakes, someone who didn’t even want to believe in them—that gave me an eerie feeling. Like when you first see a ghost, and before you remember that’s also a person like you, all you can think is that this is a disembodied spirit wandering the world of the living, and that shouldn’t happen.

  For a moment, I actually thought Cassel was going to grab Delgado by the throat. Delgado also must’ve thought it, because he stepped back. Cassel managed to restrain himself, though.

  “Oh? I suppose there’s exactly seven of these Snakes, and they all wear a different color of the rainbow! Will you cim the Boogeyman is on Umbra’s payroll next?”

  “I never cimed the Snakes worked for Umbra.” If I was in Delgado’s pce, I would’ve tried to sound a bit less smug—then again, maybe he did try and couldn’t quite pull it. “They’re the ones trying to destroy you. They’re the ones who wiped out those detachments. Soon, the survivors will reach the center, and they’ll tell you exactly how that happened. And, Governor, the Snakes will come here next.”

  Cassel scoffed. “If you know so much, tell me what is it these Snakes want. Well, man? Didn’t you just say they were trying to destroy me? Then why?”

  So far, Delgado had looked pleased with himself, but right then he looked away. “They heard about the workers’s protests, it seems.”

  “Umbra arranged that.”

  “No, Governor. This started in your parent’s time. Surely you must know? That was before my time, of course, but I know there were strikes back then too.”

  “And she dealt with them.” This time, it was Cassel that didn’t sound too convinced.

  “Yes, but I can guarantee you the survivors didn’t forget. All along they’ve been wondering, what if they held on just a while longer? Maybe this wouldn’t be happening now.”

  “This, what?”

  “Well, the—hmm—the power source.” Delgado hurried through the st couple of words real fast, as if they tasted bad. Don’t know if Cassel noticed. “They believe it shouldn’t have happened.”

  “Oh, really? They believe that? It would seem they’re not the only ones.”

  Delgado flinched.

  “That’s a living being, you know,” said a reedy voice from a corner. “Your power source.”

  The guards moved aside so that Cassel could see. I think he’d forgotten everybody was listening in on his conversation, the way he looked at them. Probably made him even less pleased with the person who’d spoken.

  It was the secretary, sitting on the floor at the questionable shelter of a pilr. He shrunk even more when everybody turned in his direction, but didn’t look away.

  “Well, it’s true and you know it!” He looked around, as if at the st moment he’d decided to pretend he was addressing everyone and not just Cassel. Personally, I didn’t think it’d make a huge difference, not with Cassel’s current mood, but I had to respect the attempt. “And you can’t expect living things to work for your benefit just because. You can’t.”

  “Oh, really? Because that’s what I’ve been doing for years.”

  “It’s angry,” the secretary insisted. “It’s rising against you.”

  “And yet, it’s still trapped. If it could free itself, it would’ve done that already.”

  The secretary opened his mouth—I’m pretty sure he wasn’t convinced, because I wasn’t convinced either. Tipilej Awki hadn’t freed itself yet, but that didn’t mean it never would. And Cassel wanted to keep this operation going for decades, if not centuries. Sooner or ter, something would get fucked up, and Tipilej Awki would take that chance before anybody could stop it. Cassel wasn’t done, though, and he didn’t even care about the mountain anymore.

  “Did you truly forget whose benefit this is for?” Cassel crossed his arms. I think he was pleased to have someone weaker to pick on again. And the secretary had made it easier for him by shrinking himself down, too. “We’re here in Her Magnificence’s name. If you have an issue with that, bring it to her.”

  The secretary hunched down even tighter.

  It was a pretty fucked-up situation. Ages ago, the Megarchon had wiped a city bigger than this one—and a mountain bigger than this one—from existence. This wasn’t something you could repeat forever: in the end, you’d have nowhere to live in. The problem is nobody wanted their city to be next. That’s how the Protectorate had come to be. And that’s why it still existed.

  But, if the Megarchon was really dying without a successor that could quicken the Imperium—

  —if that was really a thing—

  —then the Protectorate would fall.

  And if the Rainbow Snakes knew it, just as they’d known I’d been summoned to Vorsa, that expined why they’d made their move.

  I clung on to that small hope, though the implications ran too far and it scared me to even think about it.

  Cassel turned to the guards. “Well, why are you still standing there? Seal the perimeter!”

  Delgado rushed to his side. “The survivors will be arriving any time now!”

  “This is what we’ll do.” Cassel sure looked in a better mood after bullying his secretary. “The protestors will eventually make their way here. When they’re unable to break in, they’ll hopefully unleash their anger on the civilian popution. This is the best situation possible, as it’ll ensure they’re not supported by the bulk of the citizens anymore, but we can’t count on it. And once they’re unmotivated and disoriented, I’ll negotiate with Umbra.” Now he turned to me.

  A few of the guards had started casting a barrier spell all around the walls, working in groups of two: one pced the barrier spell and the other sealed it into inscriptions they made with a blowtorch. I assumed those blowtorches ran on the power they’d drawn from Tipilej Awki. Far stronger than a simple human spell!

  I only looked at them for a moment, though, because Delgado was now trying to choke Cassel for good, yelling something about his niece being out there—guess some of the local guards had joined the Vorsa detachments. Well, that expined how they’d contacted Cassel so fast.

  Two greensuits jumped Delgado in turn, and at that point I became very interested in the floor. I refused to pay attention to whatever was going on around me. I wondered what happened to Vanth—he wouldn’t go along with Cassel’s pns, that was for sure, and he’d come to help me—that was even more sure. I held his locket in my fist. It felt warm.

  When Vanth came, he needed to find a path open all the way to Cassel. I’d seen him shatter Grandma Cielo’s barrier spell like it was nothing, but my grandma was just a regur human.

  There was one obvious way to make sure that barrier wasn’t powered by Tipilej Awki, though.

  The screams ended just as fast as they’d started. Honestly, I wouldn’t have sted much longer otherwise. Delgado was sprawled on the floor—alive, of course. That’s the whole thing about greensuits. They don’t kill you.

  It all turned out in Cassel’s favor, because after that nobody else felt like arguing. He moved on to give the troops more orders. No point in following him.

  Delgado was sprawled on the floor.

  I looked at the mesh faces of my two greensuits. “I want to check on that man, and also move him out of the way so that nobody stomps on him. You better not argue.”

  They didn’t say anything, never mind show any kind of reaction. Typical greensuits.

  I crouched by Delgado’s side. Though he looked ashy, his breathing wasn’t obstructed and his pulse was regur.

  The secretary crawled my way. If he was doing that to avoid attracting any more attention, I have to say it wasn’t successful. But he did help me move Delgado next to the wall—the greensuits were naturally no help at all—and took off his jacket to use it as a makeshift pillow.

  I offered the secretary my hand. He accepted it, introducing himself as Evaldo Moreira. I didn’t think anybody had mentioned his name before, but it sounded vaguely familiar to me.

  We sat against the wall, next to Delgado. The floor was cold and not particurly comfortable, but at least we were out of the way.

  Now I had to move quick and use Moreira to my advantage. But I couldn’t let the greensuits figure out what I was doing. How to begin?

  “So you didn’t get in the pne?” I asked. “I remember you ran away with Cassel’s son. Did he kick you out of his flight?”

  Moreira chuckled. “No, it’s—it’s sillier than that. I got kinda lost.”

  How weird. Had he gotten lost in the streets and then returned to the Big Project? Guess that wasn’t impossible.

  But it didn’t have to be true. Moreira had just come from Vorsa with Cassel’s entourage. The Snakes knew what was going on in the capital.

  Could it be? Was it possible that Moreira was one of the Snakes?

  Hadn’t Amankay mentioned someone called Evaldo? I was sure of it. Then I remembered she’d said something about some álvaro not liking dog jerky. Not only had I remembered the wrong name, but someone who’d been in the capital all along wouldn’t have gotten to feast in dog jerky with the others.

  But wait! Maybe it wasn’t Moreira’s name I found vaguely familiar.

  I hadn’t gotten a real good look at Amankay—only in the moonslight and when she’d showed up in that water-shape of herself. I had a good look at Moreira now, though, and that was enough to realize they had practically the same profile. I hadn’t connected them before, because Amankay looked brown and Moreira looked white, but now I was pretty sure they were siblings.

  broccolifloret