Chapter One
Spectrum
Gentle waves washed over a beach of colorful glass pebbles. Impossible mountains rose across the bay, framing a golden sunrise. The prisoner stepped to the edge of the water and took a deep breath.
It was a beautiful execution chamber, illusions perfect and peaceful.
Nilah Brio had never been to a live execution before. She sat in the prison observation room alongside the crew of the Capricious, two GATO IGCC war crimes prosecutors, three Compass agents, and the crew’s handler, Special Agent Cedric Weathers. On the beach, prison staff waited just out of view of the imagers.
Nilah’s heart rested in her throat. She’d chased this monster across ten worlds before bringing her down. An execution seemed too simple an end.
The woman by the water nodded at her surroundings. “Pretty in here. It looks real.”
“We do try.” The chaplain walked into frame, rendered in precise detail for the offsite observers watching via projection. “Rebecca Grimsby, né Rebecca Fulsom, for your crimes against humanity, for aiding and abetting the Gods of the Harrow, you have been sentenced to death by spell. It will be instantaneous and painless. Your judgment has already been rendered; you may speak your mind without fear of reprisals. It now falls to you to say the things you need to say, so that you may pass into the next world unfettered by guilt.”
Nilah leaned forward to listen, trying to catch whatever Rebecca might reveal in her final moments. What excuse could she possibly give for the things she’d done? The chaplain gave Rebecca a kind smile and placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, dear. Go ahead.”
“I’ll tell my mother to kill you quickly when she gets here.” She placed her hand on him in return and mocked his sympathetic face. The guards were on them in an instant, pulling the chaplain away from her while she sneered.
“It’s the least I can do after you’ve been so sweet to me,” she added.
The chaplain smoothed away a strand of hair, which the guards had jostled loose. “Why don’t you decide how you’d like to make peace, barring a rescue?”
In the observation room, Nilah leaned over to Cedric and whispered, “We’re sure security is locked down tight, mate?”
“They always posture at the end.” Cedric crossed his arms and shook his head, features scarcely illuminated by the light of the projectors. “You’d have an easier time breaking into a bank vault.”
“We’ve broken into bank vaults,” said Nilah, “and the Masquerade. Look, this isn’t just some rando. This is Harriet Fulsom’s daughter.”
“It’ll be fine,” said Cedric. “Been to four of these since the Harrow, and it’s always a lot of bluster, followed by silence.”
“Four?” asked Nilah.
“You’re not the only one bringing down high-profile Children of the Singularity,” he said, glancing to the imager feeds to make sure he didn’t miss anything.
“I don’t think you’ve ever executed someone like her,” said Nilah, “the daughter of a god.”
Cedric smirked. “You’d be amazed.”
The woman on the imager took a deep breath and steadied herself.
“You have no idea how grateful you should all be to us. We sacrificed everything to give humans a future. But it’s fine. In a few minutes, this place will be a smoking ruin, and you’ll all be dead.” Rebecca let out a hissing breath through her teeth. “I can’t wait to see your faces when she gets here.”
As they watched the chaplain and guards walk off the wide-open beach, Orna Sokol’s fingers tangled up with Nilah’s and squeezed. Nilah stared down at the place where her dark skin met the lightness of her fiancée’s. They’d both gotten a bit weathered over the past two years fighting the Children of the Singularity, and watching executions scarcely lightened the load. Justice needed serving, but Orna’s look of dawning worry wasn’t soothing to Nilah’s heart.
She hadn’t wanted to see this, but Rebecca’s sentence—over a hundred counts including murder, racketeering, high treason, and currency manipulation—had been handed down by a secret court. That meant a group of state-selected witnesses had to attend, and Compass always nominated the arresting authority. Only one member of the Capricious was required, but everyone else came along for moral support.
The guards and chaplain pushed into the observation room through a side door, scooting around the gathered attendees to get to the back. They gave everyone solemn nods as they passed, and Nilah wondered how often they did this.
“Start the termination sequence,” said Agent Weathers, and the bailiff at the control console tapped a few buttons.
On the projections inside the execution chamber, the sun began to set, an orange burst on a purple sky. Lights swelled to life inside the smooth glass baubles composing the beach, and the clouds picked up their pace, vacating their perches for a mist of winking stars. Rebecca turned to look directly into the imager with anger in her eyes. “My mother is coming. Today is the last mistake of your short lives…”
Nilah glanced down the row of chairs in the observation room, taking in the expressions of her crewmates. The others were waiting for it, too—the sound of an alarm, a distant explosion, a flash of magic. If the Gods of the Harrow knew about the execution, surely they’d intervene.
Rebecca drew her limbs in close, shivering in her silky robes. “She’s coming for me. No prison can stop a teleporter like her.”
That was when Nilah knew nothing was coming to save Rebecca. It was an odd feeling, the pang of sympathy that rolled through her bones. Rebecca was a killer who had used slingers and starvation alike to destroy people on her mother’s behalf. She’d created untold loss, and would’ve gladly done so again, had the Capricious not taken her out of play.
To Nilah, though, she looked like someone’s scared little girl.
“She’ll be here.” Rebecca took a breath and nodded quickly. A tear rolled down one cheek. “Today was the day you almost executed—”
A loud, charging whine was the only warning before the prison chamber’s autoslingers pelted Rebecca Grimsby’s body with paralysis bolts and a sleep spell. She froze midsentence, mouth agape, eyes rolled back in her head. Then, she fell backward onto the glass beads, relaxation taking over stiff muscles.
They watched for long minutes, listening to the prison doctor calling off oxygenation levels. Eventually, she said, “Brain death. One twenty-four a.m.”
“Flip it,” said Agent Weathers.
The bailiff threw a switch, and the projection filled with fire, burning Rebecca’s body away to ash. They watched until the orange light faded, leaving only the glowing glass beads and carbon-crusted metal walls. The lights came on, and relief washed over Nilah. Grimsby was officially gone for good. Nilah stood, her joints sore from sitting in that chair for the past two hours. The exact time of Grimsby’s transfer to the execution chamber had been kept secret, since that knowledge could help a prison break.
“Meet you at the ship,” Cordell mumbled as he went for a side door. In years past, Armin Vandevere would’ve been hot on his heels to sneak a smoke, too. It hurt Nilah to see the empty space beside him. He and the first mate had been inseparable, and she’d never noticed before Armin’s death at the Masquerade.