Valentino gred at her. "Ensuring His Excellency's safety is my duty. I daresay I can perform it better than any of you, and in any location."

  "Ah, but you don't understand how dangerous those people are."

  "I understand you haven't been able to conclusively deal with this rabble in—how many weeks? And now His Excellency is forced to deal with your poor results."

  "Hey, you're welcome to deal with the rabble yourself."

  "Do you suggest I leave His Excellency alone?"

  I stopped hearing what they said after that. See, I knew perfectly well our surroundings had been designed to have a certain effect in the prisoners’s minds—to cow them into compliance. But knowing it doesn't protect you against that effect, even if you’re not supposed to be technically a prisoner. The unpainted grey stone walls are just as harsh, the guards’s booted steps echo with the same deafening noise, the hallways are still endless. And, if you made the mistake of breathing deep enough, you'd catch the rank scent of human fear and old sweat no amount of chlorine could wash out for good.

  It goes without saying that looking into any cell's window is a terrible idea, and at least I managed to steer my eyes toward the drab yellow floor tiles. They looked as if they were covered with a thin film of dried vomit, but at least I managed to convince myself the underground cells were empty. And you know, they might've been. Not saying it was a good thing, as guards had likely gotten to killing strikers on sight by that point. If they were even capable of it. I wanted to cling to that.

  Besides, Valentino was still with me. They wouldn't touch me, not right in front of someone who reported to the Megarchon. They just wanted to scare me into admitting something they could use against me—and someone else, too. Because I wasn’t a big enough deal to justify all that trouble.

  We were led to an interrogation room, where I took seat on a chair so skinny you'd think it was made of wood shavings. It didn't feel any more comfortable than it looked. All the guards short of the leader, who left immediately, crowded across an equally cheap table. The youngest one, who looked barely old enough to have left the Academy, took notes. He was carefully clean-shaved and that made him look a lot like a clerk. Maybe he really was a clerk. I didn't know much of the inner workings of guards.

  Valentino stood behind me, and though I couldn't see him, his presence was a much appreciated conterweight to the bleached wall of hate before me. The small light globe made all of us look either sickly green or muddy grey, and you know it was intentional, too.

  All the clerk did at first was pushing his pencil around.

  "Please write my decration down," I said. "Today—no, yesterday Sunday morning, Sergeant First Css Vargas and I woke up in the outskirts of High Tomenedra—"

  The clerk made a cutting gesture with his pencil. "What were you doing in the industrial district that afternoon?"

  I frowned at him. "Perhaps I'd feel in a more helpful mood if you used my title, as is only proper."

  A couple of the others gred at me, but I ignored them. The clerk stabbed his pencil in the air. "The industrial district, this past afternoon?"

  I told the truth whenever possible, and other times, such as when he asked what we knew about the strikes and riots, I insisted in my ignorance. The air felt uncomfortably stuffy and uncomfortably cold at the same time, like an abandoned celr even rats refused to touch. Obviously it was meant to make you want to get outta there as soon as possible, but I wondered how hard it was on the guards, too. They couldn't enjoy them any more than I did. Could I outst their discomfort?

  "You cim," the clerk tapped his pencil on a bnk notepad, "you dined in the city and then returned to your hotel room. What exactly took you so long?"

  I was going to fall asleep soon. Even worse, I might end up doing exactly as the guards wanted and say something they could use against me. And I wasn't going to find anything from these nobodies.

  On the good side, I'd figured something up on my way there. Or rather, I'd made a decent guess. Hopefully it was a decent one. During my report, I didn't mention the snake bracelet, or how I'd shown it to that other guard to prove I was a big deal. The clerk didn't bring it up. But it had to mean something. Few people could gift a bracelet like that one, and everybody who did had money and resources to spare. The kind of person who could very well afford to fund the strikers.

  I didn't have anything else, but that’d expin why the guards suspected me. And if they were so sure I was part of the plot against Cassel, well—that might be something I could use in my favor.

  Maybe.

  "Ohhh, I get it now." I raised a finger in the air, as if I'd just figured something out. That was a gesture I'd seen a couple of stuck-up people from the capital make. "You think I might've met someone who is behind the strike. Well, why didn't you say so? You ask if I know about the riots, and then expect me to go on about my shopping and my dinner, and I don't even know what you're trying to get at!" I sighed. "Well, never mind. I won't tell a mere guard."

  "I've been assigned to—"

  "No, that won't do. You haven't even taken any notes. I won't share my decration with an untrustworthy flunkie. I demand to talk with the highest ranked person avaible."

  The clerk looked to the others, but no help was forthcoming. Any other time, I would've gotten beaten up right then. Well, I would've gotten beaten up much earlier. Looked like the guards were lost without this favorite resource of theirs.

  Finally, the clerk stood up and left. For a while, the only sound were his steps rushing down the hallway, and then nothing. I waited with open impatience, tapping a finger on my arm. Hopefully I'd look more irritated than worried. My water bottle was empty, but I refused to refill it in that pce.

  A few moments ter, I remembered to check my pocket watch. It was nearly nine o'clock. No wonder I felt so sleepy. I’d been awake for over twenty-four hours.

  "Nobody has offered me breakfast," I compined.

  "Not even after making Your Excellency talk for so long," Valentino added.

  I stretched my legs as far as I could without touching the guards, which wasn't very far. And my legs aren't very long. "We should go elsewhere and have a coffee and something to eat, maybe a sandwich, before I continue."

  The guards didn't react at all. Irritating!

  At least it didn't took much longer for the clerk to return, and he came accompanied by his leader.

  "I was telling Sergeant Vargas we should make a breakfast stop," I said.

  The leader barely gnced at me. "There's no time for that right now."

  I stood up. "Very well, but I expect to be invited to breakfast after my side of the story is heard. By way of apology."

  We returned to the cart and set off in the same direction we'd come from—but a couple of blocks ter, the cart swerved further east. Toward the city’s center.

  Well, our destination couldn’t be worse than the pce we’d just left. Other than that, all I could do was wait and see.

  I was sitting on the ground, in the darkness. Long woolen strings fell from above, coiling all around me. There were knots all over them, in the style used by the old imperial scribes. I couldn't read them. Very few people could anymore. Letheia I had burned all the scribe-centers; history books expined this as an attempt to prevent treason and the formation of a new empire.

  "Yet we still remember," someone said. I knew that voice from somewhere, but couldn't pce it.

  Curiosity was stronger than fear. I pushed some of the strings aside.

  That woman from the clinic, Nina, was sitting before me.

  "You don't want to be in my dreams," I said. "They're real unpleasant these days."

  "I care about that as much as I care about any guards."

  I pushed my head and shoulders out; the strings coiled around me. "Yeah, because you're a dream. I don't believe you're a real person."

  "Why not?"

  "Because if you hopped into people's dreams, Vanth would find you. He's the King of the Dying Sun, you know."

  She propped up her head on a fist. "How do you know he doesn't know me?"

  That stumped me, but only for a moment. "Because he couldn't allow a dream-hopper to live."

  "What he does is no concern of mine."

  "It's not his choice, though. It's—" I didn't really want to bring that woman up, especially not there, among the knotted strings I couldn't even read. "Never mind. I can't argue with a dream right now. I should be waking up before something bad happens."

  I disliked dragging myself into the waking world. Even if I hadn't been seriously sleep-deprived, guards and their bullshit weren't much better than nightmares and creatures from the Underworld. The penal cart was still unpleasant, too. You could tell I was tired as fuck, because I'd managed to fall asleep in that aggressively uncomfortable seat. Twice. And I don't know if that wasn't worse than not falling asleep at all. My mouth felt as if I'd gargled with cleaning oil.

  Never mind that. Grandma Alba said dreams are your mind's way of telling you something, even if it's just "stop eating picarones right before bed". Unfortunately, I was still getting my bearings when we arrived to our destination. My dreams would have to wait.

  You couldn't see much through the one narrow window, but that emerald and turquoise spire was unmistakable, even to me, who'd barely seen it before. The Big Project.

  Despite everything, I was curious. I'd never gotten to find out what was so Big about this Project. Surely there was more to it than a huge building?

  A simple gnce showed nothing more a huge building, but an impressive one to be sure. It was almost too much to take on up close: the walls nearly glowed with texture and depth, the carvings and baustrades painstakingly detailed. A jewel from another age, when Megarchons leveled mountains with the Imperium and the entire world first bent the knee to the banner of the winged tiger.

  I should've hated it, don't you think? But I don't think it was for me to hate. I hadn't suffered and bled to raise its stones. And the people who did were still getting the st word—the unfinished dome screamed for them.

  That's all I got to see before Valentino and me were ushered up the pink marble staircases and past the burnished teak doors. The inside was even more unfinished. Too bad, because you could get an idea of how good it'd look once the walls weren't bare of everything, including paint. Some mosaics and stained gss windows were already taking shape, and I could've stopped for a closer look if I'd been allowed to. But for the most part, the Big Project was barely more than an exquisite eggshell.

  The elevator at least functioned properly. And it wouldn't drop like a stone for no good reason. Really.

  My stomach still contracted when we went up. Did I hear a rattling coming from the ceiling? Was that normal? It had to be.

  Despite all odds, we reached the fifth floor in one piece. Up there, most of the walls and almost all of the roof were missing: this was the unfinished part. The view from there was also pretty good, but offered no protection from the elements and the southwestern wind was blowing right in our direction. Good thing I'd brought my jacket.

  You'd think there was a better pce to hold a meeting even in that half-constructed building, but a small group already awaited us there, just standing around doing nothing.

  The people in green rubber suits stood at the back, so I didn't see them immediately, but when I did, I couldn't give another step.

  no no not the greensuits who'd let them come why were they here why the greensuits who let them here

  "Your Excellency?" Valentino touched my shoulder, very lightly, as if he thought I was going to start screaming or something.

  "I'm fine." That was an obvious lie. I might as well have taken root on the floor. A drop of sweat fell down my back, but I wanted to wrap my jacket tighter around me. "This wind is really bothering me."

  The quiet understanding in Valentino's eyes didn't comfort me. I hated being so transparent. Now everybody knew how I felt about the greensuits, everybody, and they could easily figure out why.

  "Maybe Your Excellency should sit down for a while. Your Excellency absolutely shouldn't have been forced to skipped breakfast."

  If only everyone would believe an empty stomach was the only reason why I'd reacted like that. The greensuits wouldn't be fooled. Hells, Valentino probably wasn't fooled, he was just being polite. I wanted to throw up.

  Something else was wrong, though. What? Something I shouldn’t ignore.

  Oh.

  See, Vanth said that as long as I carried the locket with his spell, he'd somehow appear whenever I felt in danger. He'd done that when I'd been afraid of Valentino in El Meandro, and when the sniffers had searched for me, and in the Underworld. Just now, however, I'd been more afraid than all those other times, and Vanth was nowhere to be seen.

  What was going on?

  "Thank you, but if I sit down, I don't think I'll ever get up again." I took a slow, deep, long breath. "Let's get this over with."

  Of course, the four greensuits weren't the only people awaiting us. Two guards in their white-and-gold uniforms fnked a man with steel-grey hair. He wore a perfectly cut ivory suit with a waistcoat embroidered in scarlet and sapphire and a freshly pressed cravat, matching hat in his hand. The man by his side could've been mistaken by a secretary who took good care with his outfits, but he looked too much like a brown-haired and less-wrinkled version of the other. The real secretary had to be the one standing behind, leafing through a sheaf of papers as he tried not to drop any.

  "Let's get this over with," I told myself.

  Before anybody could stop me, I strode confidently up to the older man. He frowned. I stopped at a polite distance and stretched my neck like Vanth did when he wanted to show respect.

  "Governor Cassel. I deeply appreciate you finding the time to come greet me."

  broccolifloret