My stomach twists in knots. What does he mean? Wasn’t I just with him minutes ago in the Fate of Seas? How has he hurt me—and when? “How could you miss me? You just gave me a tour of your asylum.”
His bark of laughter makes my flesh crawl. “That was over a month ago, Roselle. But I’m told time is meaningless to Black-Os.”
“I’m not your drone!” I can’t help the harsh cadence of my speech. Fear suffocates me.
Shadows cast by the fire slither over his cheeks, hollowing them, but his lips curl with humor. “Ahh, but you are. You’re a Black-O, but ‘drone’ works as well. You do everything I tell you to, Roselle.”
I buck against the arms that imprison me, but on the inside I’m recoiling in horror. “Order me to do something!” I retort. “I promise you I won’t obey!”
Blue light strobes on his temple in a serpentine silhouette. I shrink away, expecting to feel something—the burn of high voltage, a hostile takeover of my brain, the vicious bite of snake venom—but seconds pass and I feel no different. His face strains. A vein pops out on his forehead; his face flushes. With a huffing pant, his fingers move to the device receiving messages from his brain. He tries to readjust it. He glares at me again until his eyes narrow and darken further.
“Something’s wrong with your device!” he bellows. “You’re supposed to integrate when I command it.” The blood, drying on his face, resembles an inkblot of a unicorn.
“Did you break your toy?” I ask, pushing out my bottom lip in a feigned pout. “You’re always the reason why we can’t have nice things, Kipson.” I use his first name to rile him, but my heart’s racing.
Has he made me one of his mind-controlled assassins?
“How is she resisting me? My implant should dominate hers.” He’s talking to himself.
What he’s saying spooks me. If I could raise my arms high enough, I’d search my scalp for scars or any other indication that they’ve tampered with my brain. My distress gains Agent Crow’s attention. His expression softens.
“Does that scare you?” he asks. “I’ve missed crushing your unfettered ego.” His palm lifts to my hair. He entwines his fingers in the thick, brown mass of it. Clenching his hand, the spiteful psychopath jerks my head back so that my face tilts upward. “I like that you’re awake. I can do whatever I want to you and you’ll feel it. No one will stop me. You’re going to take the pain I give you. Every time I awaken you, you’ll know there will be no mercy. Ever.”
In my need to avoid any contact with this monster, I jerk my face back from his, and my hair rips from my scalp. Movement over my shoulder captures his attention. His lip curls in anger. “The Stone is running off!” he barks. “Stop her!” His hand untwines from my hair and drops from me. The light on his temple blinks in rapid flashes.
Mags sprints across the lawn toward the burning house. Black-O soldiers chase after her. Some of the creatures drop to all four limbs and hurtle across the lawn like maginots. It’s frightening, especially because they appear mostly human, save some chrome embellishments. The genetically modified soldiers close in on Mags. She reaches the stone walls of the house and leaps through a broken window. Flames engulf her. Her agonizing screams are the music she dances to before the heat melts her body. She crumples and disappears in the smoke.
I hold my breath, desperate to keep my emotions in check. My throat aches from having been strangled and from the effort to restrain my tears. Several Black-Os follow Mags inside the inferno—whether ordered to or not, I don’t know—and like Mags they become part of the ferocious destruction. Mags killed herself to protect Reykin, and possibly everyone in the Gates of Dawn. I bite my lip to keep from sobbing.
A howl of frustration tears the air. Agent Crow seizes my jaw and squeezes it hard, forcing me to look at him. “Tell me where he is! Where’s Reykin Winterstrom?”
I swallow back my tears of anguish and force a hollow laugh instead. “If you need to ask, then you don’t know. If you don’t know where he is, it’s because you can’t see inside my mind. That means I’m not, nor have I ever been, one of your Black-Os.” He slaps my cheek hard enough to turn my face. My focus snaps back to him in defiance. He snarls and punches me this time. My skin burns. The inside of my cheek bashes against my teeth. Tasting blood, I manage to grin anyway. “What’s wrong? Too much wicked disobedience?” I mutter.
Agent Crow grabs my upper arms, even as I’m still held back by the dragon-scaled Cherno. “Tell me who Winterstrom’s allies are,” he demands. “Who would he run to? Where would he hide?”
Trying not to wince, I simply stare back at him.
Someone clears his throat behind Agent Crow, but he keeps well back from us. The Census agent straightens and whirls on the man. The dark-haired newcomer wears a uniform similar to my own, except with an iridescent pin on his chest, in the shape of a slim rectangle through a triangle. His silver shooting-star moniker indicates that he’s a secondborn from the Fate of Stars.
“Come!” Agent Crow orders.
I sense reluctance in the other man’s body language as he moves toward us. I study his face and swallow against the bile rising in my throat. I think for a moment that it’s Reykin himself, but then he enters the light from the fire, and I know it isn’t the firstborn Star, but his secondborn brother, Ransom.
A new burst of fear wends through me. My heart, aching from Mags’s suicide, now thrums harder. I wonder if Agent Crow will make the connection between Ransom and Reykin—or maybe he already knows? Agent Crow’s superpower is observation. He cannot possibly miss the resemblance between the brothers. It’s so obvious—at least, it is to me.
Ransom appears to be thinking the same thing. The lines around his mouth tighten. He watches Crow straighten, and his Adam’s apple bobs in a deep gulp. He bows his head in a show of respect to the menacing Census agent. “You wanted to see me, Your Grace?” Ransom asks.
“Your Grace?” I repeat with a snort. “Is that what you make them call you?” My reaction is as much a distraction to divert Agent Crow’s attention from the newcomer’s face as it is a jab at his arrogance.
Agent Crow tenses. “As you can see, Roselle St. Sismode has awakened from our control. I’ve told you before that her implant is an utter failure. I still cannot access all her memories or one single relevant image from her dreams!”
A knot coils in my belly when I realize that there truly is something installed in my brain, and Ransom Winterstrom put it there. The betrayal I feel at the hands of Reykin’s brother is almost as bad as the heavy dread of knowing my body has been infiltrated. The only solace is that, for some reason, the technology malfunctioned. Agent Crow may be searching for Reykin Winterstrom, but it isn’t because he found out anything from me. Maybe he’s looking for Reykin because the firstborn Star was part of Grisholm’s advisory council? Or because Reykin managed to escape from the massacre at the Silver Halo? Whatever the case, I haven’t betrayed him . . . yet.
“You can’t pry your way into my memories,” I gloat, interrupting Agent Crow’s interrogation.
His mouth spreads in a grim line. “I don’t need to access your mind, Roselle, to know what you’ve been up to. You’re quite the little Fate traitor, aren’t you? At least, that’s what Hawthorne thinks of you.”