Archive of Our Own

III.

“This changes nothing between us,” Judith said, walking half a step ahead of Coronabeth. It pained Corona to maintain this half-step gap, but she was nothing if not determined. Judith was using her crutches and walking painfully slow. To keep pace with her, Corona took a step, stopped, took a step, stopped. Anyone else and she would have flashed a smile, rushed off to complete some other essentially important task.

This wasn’t anyone else.

“Of course not,” Corona agreed dismissively. “How could it?”

This was Corona’s stone soldier. This was her everlasting fascination, her endless hope.

She could see the face Ianthe would make, hear the sounds of her disgust from galaxies away, and Corona wondered if, perhaps, Ianthe understood it all a little better now. Corona recognized it instantly at Canaan House—a spark of interest, a dash of jealousy, a touch of frustration. If the Ninth wasn’t so Ninth for all of those years, Corona suspected Ianthe might have been as consistent with her invitations as Corona had always been with hers. One guest to each party, Judith Deuteros for Coronabeth and Harrowhark Nonagesimus for Ianthe, each and every time.

And then Ianthe would see. She would understand.

Nothing ever changed between them. Twelve years of shared history and still considered an acquaintance. Nothing ever changed.

It was actually pretty funny if she thought about it.

She thought about it far too much and never seemed to laugh.

Judith was improving, in health if nothing else.

She seemed convinced that Corona placed herself in the position on purpose, that she used the relationships she’d fostered among the Edenites to seed the idea in their heads, and then she charmed them into agreement. She was convinced that Coronabeth was so desperate to be her cavalier that she’d come up with all of that. Corona hadn’t, though she would have if she’d thought of it first. It was all Judith’s doing really, though Judith would never see it that way.

How could the Edenites not step in, with Judith determined to incapacitate herself in the days leading up to their landmark Gorgon test run? When Judith failed to do the job herself, she begged Camilla Hect to do it for her. It was pathetic. It was sad. Judith had already tried that before, back when everything was worse, when she still couldn’t walk and had to shit into a bag. Camilla was unmoved the first time, even less so the second.

Of course Camilla was unmoved. She spent seven months meticulously working on the most pointless puzzle ever and had finally determined that she needed a bone adept to finish the job of piecing together her necromancer’s pulverized head. She knew of only one place she was likely to find one of those. Camilla needed Judith to complete the test run. She needed the Edenites to bring her along. She needed Corona to act as liaison.

Camilla could not help Judith, so Judith turned to Corona. Corona liked being needed. “I don’t know,” Corona said, carefully. “I’m still thinking about it.”

“Just get me a knife,” Judith snapped.

Corona sucked at her teeth and pressed a hand to her chest. She missed her rings. “You think the Edenites just leave those lying around? You think they’d just hand it over to me?”

“They put a gun in your hand, didn’t they?”

They did. They didn’t let her keep it, but she’d managed to swipe one and lock it away. Judith didn’t need to know that. She had Camilla’s knives too, and a knife she’d taken off an Edenite. Judith didn’t need to know that either.

“The Ninth’s rapier then,” Judith said, when Corona refused. “You still have that, don’t you?”

Ah, now Judith had an interest in Corona’s possession of the Ninth’s rapier. Corona considered informing Judith that she’d already offered her that rapier once and did not intend to be humiliated again. She did not inform her. That would require admitting the humiliation. She tapped her fingers against the small table between the two cots in their cell. “You’d really rather die?”

“What I’d rather do doesn’t matter.”

Yes, honor, duty, every single one of Judith’s middle names. Corona chewed at a dry spot at the corner of her thumb. The dead skin came off easily. She pressed it between her teeth as she considered Judith. She tucked it in beside her cheek and said: “If you die now, you’ll die without ever knowing the touch of a woman.”

Judith stilled, blinked. Her sclera was a little pinkish, had seemed a little red for months now. It always made her seem like she’d just finished crying, though Corona had a hard time imagining Judith crying at all. She’d done her share of crying in front of Jody, but never once did she see Jody shed a single tear. Now she said: “Why the hell would you say that?”

Corona swallowed the bit of skin and shrugged. “I read it in a book once. It’s something to live for though, isn’t it?”

Judith laughed, though it wasn’t genuine. Like unshed tears, Corona so rarely heard a genuine laugh from Judith Deuteros. This laugh was angry, bitter, rasping. “I’ve known the touch of a woman, Princess. I know that it’s no justification for turning my back on the Nine Houses.”

Corona hummed. “I don’t know about that. It just sounds like it was the wrong woman.” She leaned forward, conspiratorial. “Who was she?”

Judith looked up at that, all furrowed brow and dark red-rimmed eyes. “You don’t know her.”

So not Marta then. Corona had always wondered. Marta was so much older, always so impressive. She danced at the Third’s parties instead of standing stiff with her back to the wall. She pretended to have fun. Once she danced with Corona and her hands were dry and warm, confident, sure.

“I might,” Corona pressed. “I know a lot of people. Maybe we touched the same one. Wouldn’t that be something?”

“We haven’t.”

No. Of course, they haven’t. Corona sat back in her seat. “Too bad.”

Judith cleared her throat. She looked small sitting on the edge of their cot. She looked small in a way she’d never seemed before the arrival of the Edenites, before she got herself impaled by that weird old coot. “I’d like to be alone.”

Corona smiled. “Too bad.”

She was tasked with ensuring the asset remained an asset. That was how We Suffer put it, or at least that was how she put it before Corona demanded she say Judith’s name. They didn’t get to call Jody the asset and then expect Corona’s eager assistance.

Corona had stopped the Edenites from killing Judith Deuteros nine times in the last nine months. She did not plan to let her go now.

Judith didn’t ask Corona to help end her again after the test run. She did not ask Corona for a thing.

They’d broken her when they hooked her up to the Gorgon. Corona thought that, perhaps, she and Camilla had broken Judith even more on that same trip, when Corona forced her to come with them on the maintenance shuttle, just a short trip from moon to planet. The Edenites brought Camilla along because they thought they could control Judith by threatening to kill Camilla. They brought Corona because they thought Corona could control Judith without the threat. The Edenites believed that soon enough Corona would be one of them.

Maybe she would be. Unless they killed Judith, then all bets were off.

There was a moment in the shuttle, when Judith thought that perhaps this was it. Corona and Camilla had been planning it all along, and now here it was. While the Edenites were meeting with the Lyctor, Corona, Camilla, and Judith would slip off into the night. If they weren’t caught, the Edenites would be trapped.

Corona watched Judith’s gaunt face fall when she realized there was never any plan. They would go and they would come back and no one would ever know.

This was the closest Blood of Eden had ever made it to the Emperor. It was the closest Corona had been to Ianthe in nine months.

She hoped the ‘baby’ the Lyctor had referenced was Ianthe. She hoped Camilla was wrong. They sat in that maintenance shuttle, the three of them, and stared at the coordinates on the screen.

“Sextus respected her,” Judith said, notes short and clipped, familiar. Defeated. “I get that, but I still don’t see why you think she’d help you.”

She meant that she didn’t see why the Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House would help an obvious traitor to the Empire.

“You weren’t there at the end,” Camilla said. “She’ll help.”

“She’ll want Gideon’s body,” Corona reasoned, looking up from the map. She realized she’d been biting at her nail again and she pulled her thumb away from her mouth before she continued. “Is that it? We know where they’re keeping the body and we can use it as leverage with Harrowhark.”

“You tell her where they’re keeping that body,” Judith said, “and you’re more likely to start a war.” And then she stilled, as though realizing she might just like that idea.

Oh, Jody.

Camilla ignored Judith and said: “She’ll help without that, but yeah. She’ll want to know.” She shifted to sit in the seat beside Corona. She was close, the hair on her bare arm tickling against the hair on Corona’s bare arm. Sweat dripped down between Corona’s breasts. Judith was staring at it. Corona stared back. If she was lucky, later, she might find someone to press their tongue to it and savor the salt of her. She wouldn’t be lucky with Camilla later, and she wouldn’t let the Edenites do anything more than look, but she pushed the thought toward Judith anyway and smiled when Judith looked up and met her eyes.

Judith breathed hard out her nose, her nostrils flaring. Corona recognized it as victory. Judith, twice defeated, looked away.

She wasn’t a cavalier. There was no one flesh for Coronabeth. No one end. Instead she was a warden, a bodyguard, a jailer. In the afternoon she walked one half step behind Judith and at night she slept with her back pressed tight to Judith’s, or with her arm slung over Judith’s waist and her nose nestled into Judith’s braids.

It was the longest they’d ever spent in one another’s presence. It was the closest they’d ever been.

And nothing ever changed.

II.

Judith woke to the creak of a cot. Corona was still warm behind her, her body pressed soft against Judith’s back, her arm an anchor over Judith’s waist. She tried to push Corona away the first few nights, offered to sleep on the side of the cot pressed up against the wall so that they could sleep with their backs to each other without concern that Judith might get up without Corona or Camilla waking. They often fell asleep that way, back to back. It didn’t matter. Judith still woke up like this, Corona pressed tight to her, as though desperate for warmth on this sweltering planet. She pressed her legs up against Judith’s legs, the skin of her thigh sticky against Judith’s thigh.

Corona’s breath came soft and even. She was not awake, had not moved, which meant—Judith opened her eyes just as Camilla Hect slipped from the room. Hect had done this every night since they returned to the base, every night for the past three weeks. It could mean many things, but given all events leading up to it, it seemed likely to mean only one: Camilla Hect was as compromised as Coronabeth.

The princess held Judith to the cot with her bodily cage, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Judith couldn’t follow Camilla even if she was free to move without waking the Third. Camilla was fast. Camilla seemed to know how to disable the security anklet now, though she claimed she did not when asked. Judith, on the other hand, was—compromised. She wasn’t sure she’d survive the electrical shock. Sometimes she contemplated finding out.

If she pushed everything else aside, she could admit that it was thrilling being hooked to that ship, feeling the reaction of the stele, feeling it flow through her, take from her, respond to each instructed touch of the Edenites’ fingers. She could not let it happen again. It was a violation. It was treason, no matter how the Third shrugged it off, no matter how the Sixth claimed it was a necessary means to an end.

It could never happen again.

Behind her, Corona shifted. She pulled Judith closer. Judith grunted against her grip. The Sixth would not return until morning. They were alone.

Judith stared at Camilla’s empty cot. She contemplated moving into it and sleeping there. Every night, after Camilla left, Judith stared at that cot and told herself to get up, to put space between herself and the princess. Every night she stayed exactly where she was, Corona’s hot breath hitting her ear, stale and sometimes sour. She stayed put with Corona’s arm heavy around her waist, anchoring her to the mattress. She stayed still with Corona’s breasts pressed up against her back, with Corona’s body curled behind hers, the front of Corona’s thighs pressed tight to the backs of Judith’s.

On the Twenty-eighth night, Corona shifted as Camilla left the room and Judith could tell by the rhythm of her breathing that she was awake this time too.

“Where does she go every night?” Judith asked, her voice low. She’d already asked Camilla, but she did not believe Camilla’s claim that she went for ‘a walk.’

Corona emitted a small creaking noise, almost akin to a half-asleep groan. “Camilla can take care of herself.”

“Unlike me,” Judith said, immediately. Corona was silent. Judith swore—Emperor’s End—low, under her breath. It was a common saying among the Cohort, but now it just felt like treason on her tongue. “Did you tell her to do that?”

Corona was fully awake now and she sat up and looked down at Judith. The tie that held her hair had come loose and it spilled golden over her shoulders like a lion’s mane. “Why would I tell her that?” Corona asked. She seemed genuinely confused by the question, and Judith felt strangely disappointed by her response. Corona continued: “I wish she would sleep. She’s awful to look at. All the color’s drained from her face. Have you noticed?”

Judith had not noticed.

“Even her eyes are washed out. You could hardly tell her apart from a necromancer; she looks just as bad.”

Judith was quiet beneath her, looking up at how the small amount of light that filtered in through the shuttered window still caught in Corona’s hair.

Corona stared back, and then she softened. The tension in her shoulders eased. She reached out to touch her fingers to Judith’s cheek. “Oh, Jody. Not you.”

“I didn’t think you meant me,” Judith says, stiffly. She knocked Corona’s hand away.

It was the truth. She hadn’t thought at all.

They moved the body back outdoors, this time directly into the oppressive heat. They weren’t on an empty planet anymore and as word got out, people arrived. They stood at the gates, trying to catch a glimpse. The Edenites kept the body shielded, away from the eyes of the gathering crowd. They didn’t try to stop their own, those inside, from getting close. It didn’t seem to matter what was done to the cavalier’s body. They’d done the tests: slice the arm and the skin would heal, break a finger and the bone would mend. The body inexplicably repaired itself of all wounds except those inflicted at Canaan House. The Edenites covered the hole in the chest, but it was still there, unchanged after all these months.

Corona was quiet behind Judith, a presence looming just past her shoulder. If Judith closed her eyes, she might imagine it was Marta, returned from the dead. She did not close her eyes. She stared down at the body instead. It remained unchanged.

“Sometimes I could swear I see her breathing,” Corona said.

Judith stared down at the chest. She saw nothing.

“Once I thought I saw her finger twitch, but it was back at the camp, when they had her out in the forest, down on the dirt. Real Courage took me to see her”—Corona loved to bring up Real Courage in front of Judith. She once told Judith that Real Courage really reminded Corona of Judith, except for Real Courage’s muscles and her hair (shorn short, close to her scalp), and the fact that Real Courage didn’t have to shit in a bag—”and I could have sworn—I don’t know. It must have been a bug, pushing up from the ground beneath her. Something.”

Judith hummed in response. Corona took a step forward, standing beside Judith instead of half a step behind. It was better. It felt normal.

“Maybe this is simply what happens,” Judith said, “when a cavalier leaves their own body behind and enters that of their necromancer. How could we know?” Judith wouldn’t know, because Judith never played the game at Canaan House, not even for a moment. Corona wouldn’t know, because Ianthe played the game without her; that much was clear.

“No,” Corona said. “The Lyctor said it had to be the conditions. This isn’t what happens.”

“Does the Lyctor tell Blood of Eden all of the Nine Houses secrets?” Judith asked, though who the fuck knew. She told them how to hook Judith up to a Gorgon, how to use her, how to force her to take them closer to the Emperor than they’d ever managed before. Maybe they really were doomed.

Corona was still chewing on the comment. She reached out and pressed her fingers to the back of the body’s hand, then grunted and pulled back. “She’s warm.” So was Judith. This planet had two suns. It was baking. “Do you think the body is in stasis as long as Harrowhark Nonagesimus lives?”

Judith shrugged, then let out a breath and shook her head. “No.”

She dreamt of the Gorgon again. They handcuffed her to the control seat, a restrained Camilla beside her, Corona standing tall, one step behind. Judith gritted her teeth and willed their efforts to fail, but the ship was designed well. It did not require anything from her. She sat in the chair, that was all. The Edenites input the coordinates. The Edenites pushed the dials and turned the levers. Judith sat, and then the stele used her, fingers of thanergy pulling at her, tendrils of thalergy twisting around her limbs. She was a necromancer and that was enough. Her presence was the activation. It was all that was required. It took and it gave and the Gorgon did what the Gorgon was designed to do once a necromancer was placed at the controls.

She was grateful for the handcuffs. She wasn’t sure she could have done anything even without them, not without getting Camilla killed, not without risking Corona, but their presence meant she didn’t have to find out. She’d disappointed herself enough these past months, it was something to be spared once more. Though it didn’t matter. She knew how it would have gone with the absence of the handcuffs. She wouldn’t have succeeded in changing a thing.

When she dreamed of the Gorgon, it wasn’t a nightmare. It was a beckoning; it was a love song, a siren’s call. The stele sang through her, the ship begged for her blood. No one said a word about another trip, not to her, and not to Corona (assuming Corona could be trusted to tell Judith the truth, which could not be assumed).

The thought of another trip left Judith aching with longing. She could not let it happen.

She comforted herself with the memory of Camilla’s eyes on the ship. The Sixth cavalier didn’t watch Judith’s treason or Corona play-acting as an unwanted cavalier. She watched the Edenites read their instructions, watched them press each button and push each lever. Judith could not see the princess during the trip—she counted this a blessing—but she hoped Corona was watching too, despite the way her neck occasionally prickled, despite the perceived heat of those violet eyes on her instead.

The Gorgon hummed beneath and around her, the stele sang, and Judith gave it all that it needed. She did not know how to refuse. In her dreams, the surrender was a comfort, the transfer of control a relief. In the dream, she offered and the ship accepted, and it felt a little like the love imagined by younger versions of herself. It felt like so many of her dreams.

A sound in the cell and Judith woke, her body strumming, longing, wanting, and the princess right there, so close, breath hot on the back of Judith’s neck. She was asleep, her arm heavy over Judith and the sound of her breathing long and even.

The other cot was empty. Camilla Hect, gone again.

There was a folded piece of paper on the small table between the beds, set closer to Camilla’s side. Judith shifted, reached for it. Could it be the note Camilla had mentioned back at Canaan House? The one that prompted Camilla to insist the cavalier’s body be kept? No, that note was surely on flimsy, not paper. If Camilla still had it, she would carry it in the bag with Sextus’s hand; the only thing she could be sure the Edenites would not make another attempt to take. Judith felt certain that whatever that note contained, it did not leave the First with them, except in Camilla’s memory.

Judith shifted beneath Corona’s weight. She dislodged her arm and then waited, listening for a shift in Corona’s breathing, for a twitch of movement against Judith’s back. Eventually sure that Corona would not wake, Judith twisted, stretched her arm out, and plucked the paper from the edge of the table.

Corona made a soft sound and pulled her back in. “Go back to sleep, Jody.” Her words were muffled, mumbled in such a way that ‘Jody’ sounded too much like ‘baby.’ Judith stilled again. She waited until she felt Corona settle.

Judith was careful as she unfolded the paper, as she held it up in the dim light that slipped in past the window slats.

Written on the paper was a single question in Camilla’s hand, three short words:

Are you there?

VI.

Camilla opened her eyes.

Plaster tiles. Fluorescent lights.

She was lying in a pool of her own blood on the floor of an empty bathroom, which was…exactly where she would be. Exactly as expected. She reached up to touch the wound in her chest and her fingers found the place where the knife broke the skin. There was no wound. Her skin was sticky with her blood, but the wound itself was gone as though it had never been. She felt awful—sicker than she’d ever been. And at the same time, she felt amazing. She felt stronger than she’d ever been. She looked at her fingers. They were still hers.

She wasn’t sure why she expected to find his.

Camilla had removed her shirt first. The Edenites would have questions if she turned up the next morning in a blood-stained knife-torn shirt. She removed her shirt and then she stabbed herself with the blade she stole from Corona’s hidden stash, one of Camilla’s own that the princess thought she’d hidden so well. Camilla would probably return the knife before Corona noticed. Corona deserved that for figuring out how to disable Camilla’s security cuff, for teaching Cam the steps. She deserved it for stealing back Camilla’s knives, for smuggling them onto the Gorgon and presenting them to Camilla as soon as they weren’t being watched, for taking them back and keeping them safe.

And really, the last thing Camilla wanted was to be discovered with them, for the Edenites to try to take them away again. They wouldn’t have an easy time stealing them back a second time.

Camilla stood carefully. She felt taller, somehow, longer, though her legs were her legs and her arms were her arms. Her hands were her hands and she reached down and picked up her knife.

“Warden?” she asked, her voice low, surprisingly steady. “Still with me?”

Tomorrow you will become a Lyctor and finally go where I can’t follow.

She felt strange, still a little sick. Her vision blurred and then cleared. There was a mirror on the wall. Two steps and she’d be there. She could see what they’d done.

I want you to keep this letter—

She didn’t move. She wasn’t ready.

“Palamedes?” she asked again, and her stomach gurgled and her heart raced. Was that him? Was that the proof? She wasn’t a damn necromancer. She got the big picture, but the intricacies of the thing were above her paygrade. She had no idea how any of this was supposed to physically feel. Maybe it felt like nausea and indigestion.

The bones of his hand lay curled on the floor, the tips of the phalanges pressed into the pool of Cam’s blood. The hand was silent now, unmoving. Its stillness unnerved her.

I want you to keep these bones when you are far away and think of me and want me and can’t have me

There was a moment, right before her world went black, when he was there with her, her head cradled in his arms, his face looking down at hers. This was the way it was supposed to go, if it had to go one way, if it had to end. Seven months staring at the shards of his bones, arranging them, rearranging them. Seven months, sometimes by the light of a torch while the others slept. Corona procured the glue. Another reason Camilla should really return the knife.

She would probably keep the knife. She’d probably take the other one too.

Two steps to the mirror. Stop being a chickenshit, Camilla. Time to move.

She moved.

The first thing she saw was the mess on her chest, blood drying on her skin, tracks of it that spilled over, slipped beneath her breasts and down her sides to pool in the spot where she sank to the floor. Some of it went up to her neck and dripped into her hair, leaving it matted and sticky. She smelled it now, could taste it on her tongue. Her lips were smeared red and she remembered what Ianthe Tridentarius had said, all those months ago. Had Camilla done that? Consumed a bit of herself? Or had that been him?

One thing was clear: this was going to take the rest of the night to clean up.

and know that no matter how far you travel, nor how long the years feel, the one thing that never stays entombed is—

She rarely encountered anyone here, had been spending nights in this bathroom for weeks going over the process, discussing the details as well as one could expect when the half with all the details was confined to one skeletal hand. Edenites had come down this way twice over those weeks and each time Camilla had crouched on the toilet, her knife in one hand, the Warden gripped tight in the other.

They never found her. They put a cuff on her ankle, but as far as Camilla or the princess could tell, there were no alarms that sounded when it was disabled. The princess convinced the Edenites to put a security cuff on her own ankle (“For group morale,” she said.) and then she disabled it. She tried it several times before she walked Camilla through the steps. If there was an alarm, explaining the malfunction away would come far easier to Coronabeth. The Edenites might actually believe her.

Camilla was surprised that Coronabeth Tridentarius agreed to risk electrocution, though they both knew it would take a lot to make the Edenites electrocute her. It would undo all of their hard work.

That was then. Now Camilla stood in front of the mirror, looking everywhere else to avoid looking at herself.

Enough stalling.

She looked herself in the eye.

She looked herself in his eyes.

They’d prepared for everything, everything down to and including death, but there was no way she could have prepared for this. There was no way Cam could have prepared for looking in the mirror and seeing his eyes looking back. She blinked and they were hers again. Once more, back to his.

Tomorrow you will become a Lyctor and I will follow.

This time they stayed for a long time, his clear grey eyes in her face. She relaxed. She let out a breath. She turned on the tap.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

Camilla began the long process of cleaning up.

The changes, it seemed, came gradually. She felt almost normal in those first few hours, but by the following morning, she was disoriented, bombarded by sensory data, strangely aware of everyone in the base, and some of those that stood just beyond the fence. It was strange, like the way Dominicus reflected off the sea on a calm day at Canaan House, wavering bursts of light that she initially blamed on the Warden’s poor sight until the words suddenly formed on the tip of her tongue, until the pieces clicked and she realized exactly what she was seeing.

Thalergy. Each and every person there, bursting with thalergy.

And then Judith, Corona, the Gorgon ship, the stele. A different sort of flash, a ripple of increased thanergy. They stood out like cool blue beacons in a sea of green green green.

She went out into the yard and stood before Gideon’s body, hoping to find the answers that had eluded everyone thus far.

“What is this, Warden?” she asked the air. Whatever it was, it wasn’t obvious to the Emperor's Lyctors. Or, if it was, it wasn’t obvious in a way that provoked a reaction from them that they couldn’t swallow and contain in an instant, hide away for later.

No response from the Warden, not even indigestion.

She wasn’t prepared for the fact that it felt like another loss.

It was so difficult to confirm that he was still inside, still conscious. Still Palamedes.

How could she be certain that she hadn’t consumed him? Harrowhark messed with her own brain in an attempt to suspend the process and save her cavalier, but the Warden did not believe that was necessary. Of course, he couldn’t be sure. As far as he knew, no one had ever tried it quite like this, but he insisted that while Camilla was exceedingly capable at many many things, she was not capable of consuming his soul.

She didn’t think she was capable of literally seeing thalergy either, but here she was surrounded by it. She could hear the hum of it.

But nothing from the body of Gideon Nav. No thalergy, but no thanergy either. She appeared no different than the table on which she’d been placed.

In life Gideon had seemed—well, not normal, really. The avulsion trial was enough to prove that. Still. Camilla never would have guessed the Ninth cavalier capable of any of this.

Gideon had made the awful, inevitable choice. She ended her own life to save her necromancer’s. In doing so, she’d saved Camilla too. And Camilla had used that life to save the Warden. And Gideon—Gideon was with Harrow, or she wasn’t. She was a battery, or she wasn’t. She was dead on this table, and she wasn’t. Life flared up all around Camilla, pulsing, breathing, but the figure before her was still, unchanging, except—

Camilla blinked. She leaned closer. She closed her eyes to block out the interference, but it didn’t help. She wasn’t seeing the thalergenic signatures with her eyes, really. It was all still there in the dark. And Gideon—it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the sun on the sea or the blossoming of a flower. It wasn’t the flare of a fire, but there was a moment where she did see something. The glow of an ember, there and then gone, just a flicker before she faded away.

“I hope you saw that too,” Camilla said. She gripped her hand around the bag that still hung at her side. His hand no longer gripped hers back, but she found it a comfort anyway.

She turned and headed back toward their cell.

Captain Deuteros and Princess Coronabeth were arguing again. They had not yet noticed the Warden’s return (assuming, of course, that the Warden had entirely returned.) They had not yet noticed that anything had changed. They were so caught up in each other; she wondered how long it would take. She’d done a thorough job of cleaning up the mess.

Then again, if asked, they would almost certainly say the same of Camilla. It was difficult to focus when she was away from the work. She heard enough from Corona to know that Judith had rejected Corona’s offered sword. That was a long time ago now, before the test run, before she found Harrow. Corona had not been present when Judith told Camilla of the mistakes she made with Marta the Second, but Judith was nothing if not consistent. Camilla understood it all immediately. She stayed out of it. They’d get there eventually.

At night she listened to them shift in the other cot. She listened to them whisper to each other in the dark. She listened to them curse and shove.

The skeletal hand in the bed beside her was still. It no longer tapped messages out against her shoulder. Sometimes, in those hazy moments before she fell asleep, she thought she felt him beside her, his shoulder pressed warm beside hers. Sometimes she thought she could turn and throw an arm over him, anchor him down and make sure she never lost sight of him again. Sometimes she thought she heard him calling her name.

“What?” she asked the dark.

“I didn’t say anything,” Judith returned from the other side of the room.

Camilla turned onto her side and found Judith staring back. Corona snored softly behind Judith, her arm slung over Judith’s waist. Judith looked stiff and rigid, as though there was no way she’d ever be able to fall asleep beside the Third princess, though Camilla knew she did so every night, and sometimes did not wake until after Corona was already up and out of bed.

“Good night,” Camilla offered. They didn’t usually bother with such pleasantries.

“Good night,” Judith returned.

On her sixth day of Lyctorhood, Camilla tore off the corner of a sheet of paper. She wrote Are you there? and folded the paper in half. She set the folded note beneath the inert bones of her necromancer’s hand and fell asleep. It was still there the next morning when she woke up.

On the seventh day of Lyctorhood, Camilla waited until Corona and Judith fell asleep and set the note on the bedside table instead. In the morning she was certain it had been moved, but there was no response.

On the eighth day of Lyctorhood, she fell asleep with the note gripped tight in her hand. She woke up still holding the paper and felt disappointment settle in, until she saw the pen on the bedside table. It wasn’t where she’d left it.

Judith was sitting on the edge of her cot, brushing some imagined lint off the arms of her shirt.

“Were you writing last night?” Camilla asked. Judith, she knew, was keeping some sort of written record. A journal, perhaps, or an account from behind enemy lines.

Judith shook her head and did not look up from her task.

“Corona?”

“Why would I be writing in the middle of the night?” Corona returned, as though the question was completely ridiculous and she could not believe that Camilla had asked it. She nudged the Second. “Hurry up you two, I’m famished.”

Camilla waited as Corona helped Judith to her feet, as she pushed Judith’s cane into her hand. Corona held the door open for Judith and then followed Judith out into the hall. She paused to look back at Camilla, her eyebrows raised. “Are you coming?”

“I’ll catch up.”

Corona pulled the door shut behind her.

Alone in their cell, Camilla unfolded her fist and stared down at the crumpled paper held within. It felt damp. The paper had gone a bit limp in the night. She unfolded it. There were the words she’d written three nights prior, but the folds were different. Her letters were now displayed on the outside of the note. She turned the paper over. She took a deep breath.

The handwriting wasn’t quite hers and it wasn’t quite his. There was no question who had written it.

We did it, my darling girl.

My darling girl. Today you become a Lyctor and I will follow.

Camilla smiled, and for the first time in months, she felt almost like herself. She pressed her mouth into the palm of her hand. She kissed her skin, pressed against it with her teeth.

It was a little easier after that. It was easier to see his eyes in her face knowing for certain that the rest of him was in there too.

In the end, it wasn’t that different, really. She’d carried him around her neck for months, held tight to his bones. She carried his hand in the pocket of her cloak when she could get away with it, and she felt like she was missing a piece of herself when she couldn’t.

Nothing had really changed.

She carried him still.

III.

Corona stood beside Judith and looked down at the body of Gideon the Ninth. The air was so warm that it distorted the horizon, made it shake and shiver. Sweat beaded on Corona’s forehead in an instant, dripped down the back of her neck. Gideon the Ninth looked as though she was lying in the climate controlled staterooms of the Fifth.

“Nothing’s changed,” Judith said. She sounded as dry as Gideon’s face, completely unimpressed.

“No,” Corona agreed. She shifted her foot and stepped on a pebble. “Nothing ever changes, does it?” She kicked the pebble away, and readjusted her stance. This brought her closer to Judith, the bare skin of her arm brushing the bare skin of Judith’s arm. Judith did not flinch. She did not move away. Corona let their arms brush a second time.

“Coronabeth! Hey, Beth!”

It was Real Courage. Corona didn’t even need to look up to confirm that. Judith looked up for her and said, “It’s your soldier.”

They waited, side-by-side as Real Courage rushed toward them across the dry dirt of the yard, a hand raised in greeting. Corona liked Real Courage. She wasn’t ranked as highly as We Suffer, which made her easier to talk to, easier to get to know. Corona liked the woman’s name. She liked the woman’s arms and her dark eyes and the short crop of her hair. At the start she reminded Corona a little of Judith, except for the arms. Except that Real Courage could walk and always passed for human.

That wasn’t fair.

Judith could walk a little now too.

“Hey, let me see that,” Real Courage said, pointing down at Corona’s ankle.

Corona lifted her leg, rested her foot on a crate and turned her ankle out slightly to give Real Courage better access. This was why she maneuvered her way into a security anklet. Real Courage would check Corona before she touched Camilla or Judith. Everyone at the base would be less inclined to press the button on Corona than they were on the Wizard Shit, or a dead Wizard Shit’s thrall, no matter how much We Suffer had warmed to Camilla over the last several months. They weren’t ever going to forget how Camilla fought at the start, all over a few chips of wizard bone.

Corona knew how to pretend to be useless in a fight. She knew how to stand on the sidelines and watch it all unfold.

And she was incredibly careful. She never left a scratch on the device. Nothing that would show she tampered with it.

“Is something wrong?”

“I’m not sure,” Real Courage said. She did not offer more.

Corona watched Real Courage examine the anklet, then leaned forward, hands on her knee, so the next time she spoke, she was closer to Real Courage’s ear. She hummed, low, and Real Courage jumped, and then looked up, her fingers still on Corona’s ankle, her face right up beside Corona’s face.

Corona looked at her mouth, just for a second. “Sorry,” she said.

Real Courage cleared her throat and stood up. She brushed her hands against her trousers.

“Everything all right?” Corona asked.

“Yeah,” Real Courage said. She glanced past Corona, toward Judith, who was standing there, eyes dark and mouth tight. Real Courage looked past Judith and her eyes settled on Gideon’s body. She shivered. “That corpse gives me the heebie-jeebies,” she said. She nodded down at Corona’s ankle. “Seems to be working fine. Hey, I’ll catch you later, Beth, okay?” She waved at Judith and then rushed off.

Corona nodded toward the corpse. “She says that every time.” She smiled over at Judith. She made sure it was a slightly silly smile, as though she’d been left love-struck in the wake of Real Courage’s proximity.

Judith’s expression did not change.

Corona shrugged. She ignored the way Judith now stiffened when she stepped close. Once she was close enough that she could speak without being heard, she said: “We need to tell Camilla.”

“Need to tell Camilla what?”

It would all be fine.

Corona could handle Judith. She could handle Real Courage, but they should expect a response the next time the security cuffs lost their connection.

“It might be good for us,” Corona said, eyes on Judith’s face, on the curve of Judith’s cheek and the set of her eyebrows. It wasn’t the first time she’d brought this up, though it had been several months, just long enough that everyone might have forgotten the last time. It seemed pertinent again now, after the incident in the yard. “I think it might be good for us if I fuck her.”

Judith swallowed. She sat on her perch on the edge of their cot, her eyes on the wall, her back ramrod straight.

Corona turned toward the small desk in the corner where Camilla Hect sat. There was a stack of paper on the desk in front of her—it was the paper that Corona had obtained for Judith months ago, the paper that Judith had so ungratefully rejected in favor of flimsy. Camilla had taken to scribbling notes on it instead. She stuffed them under her pillow for safekeeping. Corona occasionally wondered what sorts of notes Camilla kept—probably just Judith’s vitals, maybe love letters to her necromancer’s skeletal hand, things of that sort—but she didn’t wonder enough to actually check.

“Don’t you think it might be good for us?” Corona asked Camilla.

“No,” Camilla said, immediately. She cleared her throat and pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, then let her hand drop back toward the desk. “Better not to.”

Corona settled back in her seat, crossed her right leg over her left, her calf resting on her knee, fingers curling around her ankle, just above the security anklet. She considered Camilla’s response. “You might be right. It might be better not to fuck her, just let her think that I might.”

Camilla shrugged. Judith snorted and looked away, toward a spot on the wall even further from Corona.

That was better.

“If we turn off the anklet and go about as normal, make sure we’re seen going about as normal, they may assume we don’t even realize the link has been severed,” Camilla suggested.

“I suppose that could work,” Corona agreed.

“Does going about as normal mean that the Sixth will continue to spend entire nights wandering the base?” Judith asked. She sounded angry, which was—well, entirely normal, really.

Camilla considered the question. “I haven’t done that recently, but sure, I could use some sleep.”

“You could,” Corona agreed, immediately, at the same time Judith said, “Recently? You leave every damn night.”

Camilla, frankly, looked like absolute shit. She looked like she’d stopped eating, sleeping, and developed an aptitude for necromancy all at the same time.

Judith wasn’t finished. It shouldn’t be possible, but somehow she sat up even straighter and continued: “I can’t help but observe that no one has ever offered to disable my ankle. Until today’s Real Courage incident, no one in this room would even willingly admit to me that they were disabling their own.”

“Judith. You know as well as we do that if your ankle stopped transmitting, they’d be on us in no time.”

“I don’t see why?” Judith asked. She looked at Corona, finally. Finally. “Don’t they trust you to safeguard me? That’s what you’ve signed up for, isn’t it? You aren’t my cavalier, Corona, so what are you, if not my jailer? What have you promised them when it comes to me?”

“I’ve saved your life.”

“I hope you don’t expect my thanks.”

Corona wanted to slap Judith. She’d done it before—just the once—and now she wanted to do it again. She wanted to slap Judith, kiss Judith, then slap her again. She wanted to ruin Judith’s posture, make her stretch and shake and slump down onto the bed. She wanted to press her teeth to Judith’s jaw and growl against her skin.

If only Judith weren’t so Judith all the damn time.

Corona realized she was biting her lip, her teeth pressed so tight to the skin she could almost taste blood. She sat back in her chair, her hands tight on her ankle and calf. She let her head fall back and glared down her nose toward Judith. “You know, I think I should fuck Real Courage after all.”

“It’ll get messy,” said Camilla, without looking up.

“I’m surprised you haven’t already,” snapped Judith, leaning toward Corona, one hand propped on the bed. Corona felt a flash of triumph. At least she could still make Judith bend. “You’ve touched so many women, after all.”

Corona blew air through her teeth. “Don’t be such a stick, Jody. I said I knew many women. You’re the one insisting you’d touched them.”

“Okay, I’m going out.” Camilla stood up and left the room without another word.

Corona lifted an arm to gesture after Camilla. “You’ve driven her away again.”

Judith snorted, pushed herself back into position, back straight, knees parallel. “Yes, I’m sure it was me driving her away. It seems far more likely that it’s your lewd discussions and late night snoring that sends her running.”

“Nice try, Judith, but everyone knows that I’ve never snored.”

Judith simply raised her eyebrows and turned away.

That evening, Corona disabled her security anklet just before she crawled into the cot behind Judith. Judith was on her side, with her back toward Corona, just as she was every night, except now Judith was stiff as a board, stiff as she’d been at the start of all this. Corona ignored it. She settled, made sure her limbs were touching Judith just enough to be annoying, but not nearly enough to provide any sort of weight or comfort. Judith was mistaken if she thought she’d ever win this game with Corona. Corona was sharp and Corona was ready.

“What are you doing,” Judith said, immediately falling for the bait. She turned her head back toward Corona. “Stop that.”

“Stop what, Judith?” Corona kept her voice light, unaffected. When she spoke again, it was for the entire room. “I disabled my anklet. If we’re correct, we should expect a visit within the hour.”

Camilla looked up from the stack of notes she was reading through. She blinked once, then again, and then carefully slid her notes beneath the cot. She shut off the light.

Corona blew on the back of Judith’s neck. Judith twisted around and elbowed her in the side.

Look at that. Judith Deuteros demonstrating a spark of life.

Corona settled back. She stared at the back of Judith’s head and contemplated pinning Judith onto her back, pressing her down into the mattress and kissing her until that spark of life caught, ignited and unfurled.

It was another twenty minutes before there was a knock at the door. The knock confirmed it was Real Courage, coming to check. The knock confirmed that Real Courage was handling this herself and was not yet willing to send it up the chain of command. The knock confirmed for everyone what Coronabeth already knew.

Real Courage was hers for the taking.

The door clicked open.

“Everybody decent?”

Camilla switched on the light. Corona pushed herself up on her elbow, rubbed her hand over her eyes. “Real Courage?”

“Just me,” Real Courage confirmed.

“It’s late.”

“Yeah,” Real Courage agreed, her voice soft and apologetic. “I need to check the security cuffs again.”

Judith silently sat up and placed both of her feet on the floor, her eyes forward. Corona stayed as she was, lounged along the length of the cot. She pulled up the thin blanket to expose her bare feet and cuffed ankle. Real Courage sat down at the base of the cot and lifted Corona’s foot, setting it in her lap. She frowned at the cuff, then pulled a small tablet from her pocket—the very same model Corona had swiped and hidden away shortly after they electrocuted Camilla—and began tapping away.

Corona wiggled her toes until Real Courage set an absent hand on Corona’s foot to still them.

Across the room, Camilla looked like she’d be rolling her eyes if she was even just slightly less disciplined. Judith did not move.

“Has anyone put in a request for a third cot?” Real Courage asked, conversationally. She tapped at the security cuff and went back to her tablet.

“We like this space,” Corona said, immediately. Real Courage had suggested once before that she could put in a formal request, that the Edenites were likely to approve such an innocuous request. Corona shrugged it off then and did not mention the discussion to the others.

Now Judith rolled her shoulders and said, “How does one go about making a formal request for additional furniture?”

Real Courage looked up, surprised to hear Judith speak. It happened so rarely in her company.

“Well, generally it would go through Melting Heavens. There’s a form they’ll need to sign. The Commander will need to sign off as well. There are a lot of cots in storage though, so it shouldn’t be difficult to get the request approved.”

Judith turned to look at her. She looked down at Real Courage’s hand on Corona’s foot, then up at Real Courage’s face. Corona could see Judith’s profile, no more. Some of Judith’s hair had come loose from her braids and it curled in wisps at her temples. She wasn’t smiling.

“May I request permission to speak, Officer?” Judith asked.

Real Courage nodded. “Go ahead.”

“With all due respect, an internal request may be better received.”

Real Courage began to shrug off Judith’s question. “I don’t know. It should really come from—”

“I believe that if I ask, they will turn me down,” Judith cut in. This was unlike Judith. She apparently felt so strongly about getting Corona out of her bed, she was willing to throw protocol aside and speak out of turn. “You are right. It’s difficult to sleep together on one cot. Coronabeth is up most of the night just trying to get comfortable.”

“No,” Corona said. She saw what Judith was doing. She heard the way that Judith settled her voice into the same rhythms and light tones that Corona favored. “It’s all right, really. We’re all very comfortable.”

Real Courage squeezed her foot gently in reassurance. “I guess it can’t hurt. I’ll bring it up. I’ll talk to Melting Heavens and see what I can do.”

Judith nodded and tilted her head back toward the floor tiles. “Thank you.”

Eventually, satisfied with Corona’s ankle, Real Courage stood and moved to Judith. She crouched down beside Judith to check out the cuff, which didn’t take long, because Judith’s cuff was remarkably reliable. Never a single glitch. From Judith, she moved to Camilla. Camilla’s cuff was currently working, nothing to see there.

“Everything seems fine here,” Real Courage concluded. “Get some rest. Don’t forget we have target practice tomorrow.”

Corona waved. “I won’t forget.”

Real Courage let herself out with and shut the door with a click.

The room was silent for several seconds and then Judith sighed and said, “Target practice. I can’t wait for that.”

“Not impressed by a good shot?” Camilla asked.

“If they’d just stick with shooting, maybe.”

Corona poked Judith’s shoulder. “You had fun last time. You almost smiled.”

Camilla shifted. “I still say better not to.” She shut off the light.

“I don’t know,” Corona said, to the dark. “I think you might be wrong on that. Judith? Thoughts?”

Judith offered no response. She pulled up her feet and curled back on her side. Twelve long years, half of them spent planning to fuck Judith, letting Judith think she never ever would.

Not in this life or in any other.

Until she offered Judith her sword, Corona never considered that Judith might actually turn her down.

Corona’s fourth shot hit right on the mark. She threw her head back and shouted up at the wide expanse of blue sky, then she turned back to share her triumph.

“Did you see that, Jody?”

“I saw,” Judith said. She was sitting on a sagging bench, her cane pressed tight against her hands. She had her party face on, the face that made it clear she’d rather be absolutely anywhere else than on Ida, watching Coronabeth Tridentarius dance with Judith’s cavalier.

“Nice shot, Beth,” Real Courage said, brightly. She slapped Corona on the back in congratulations. Corona smiled at Judith once more, before she turned back. Shooting beside Real Courage was a little like the time she danced with Marta, wasn’t it? Judith couldn’t seem to look away.

Judith watched as Corona took the ammunition that Real Courage pressed into her palm. She watched as Corona reloaded the rifle and steadied her shot. Later she watched as Corona swiped sweat from Real Courage’s brow with the pad of her thumb, as she wiped the thumb on her trousers, then pressed it to her mouth to sample the salt.

Judith couldn’t look at her anymore after that, and when they were once again alone, Judith said, quietly: “They won’t make you feel whole.”

“I don’t expect her to,” Corona countered, angry that Judith would even suggest such a thing. “I’m expecting a good fuck and some continued leeway, nothing more.”

“I didn’t mean Real Courage,” Judith corrected.

Corona scoffed. She laughed. As though the Nine Houses ever once made Corona feel whole. She was always half empty. She spent so much time making sure no one realized, and for what? To make it all the way to the brink of Lyctorhood, to bare her chest for her necromancer, offer herself freely, and then watch Ianthe stab Babs in the back instead?

She was rejected by Ianthe, rejected by Judith of all people. She known all her life that nothing added up. One half and one half and Until Blood of Eden, no one would even entertain her questions about the economics of the thing, about the endless war, the shepherd planets. Thousands of soldiers lost on both sides, the very week they gathered at Canaan House.

And she wasn’t the only one. No, even the Emperor’s Fists, the Emperor’s Gestures—even they smelled the rot. That was the reason for the Canaan House slaughter. That was the reason the Edenites were able to keep Judith alive.

No, it wouldn’t make Corona feel whole. There wasn’t much that had ever been able to do that.

Corona walked half a step behind Judith. A step, and then pause. A step, and then pause. Judith’s pace was improving, but it was still painfully slow. If it was Babs, Corona might have pushed him to the ground by now. If it was Babs, she would have stolen his cane.

But this was Judith. This was Judith, who hated parties but rushed to Corona’s side when she pretended to fall. This was Judith, who never smiled, but under the cover of darkness she sometimes shivered at the touch of Corona’s hand. Once, Corona woke in the night to find Judith’s hand settled over her own, Judith’s fingers warm on hers, Judith’s palm pressed tight. Corona didn’t dare move. She didn’t dare break the spell of the moment. She lay perfectly still, listening to Judith’s labored breaths.

Now she said: “Have I told you that Real Courage once suggested I kill you?”

Judith sighed. She rubbed two fingers at her temple. She said: “Yes, kill a wizard and graduate to the special operation units. Wasn’t that it?”

Corona wanted nothing more than to pull Judith’s fingers away from her weary face, to press the pads of Judith’s fingertips against her teeth. She imagined pulling the Ninth’s rapier from its hiding place, pointing it at Judith’s neck and watching Judith swallow against its point. She pressed her own fingers against her teeth instead.

“I’m going to get some air,” Corona announced. She paused at the door, turned back to look at Judith. “Don’t kill yourself while I’m gone. I’d rather not have to go looking for another wizard.”

Judith opened her hands, palms up, as if to say, How could I manage it?

It was late and the yard was quiet. They’d moved the body further out into the wasteland, over a rise of rocky sand, through a stand of dry prickly trees. Corona crossed the yard toward the path. There were a few people pressed up against the fence, hoping to catch a glimpse of a body in stasis.

There was no one on the path. The body was stretched out on the table, alone beneath the stars.

Corona stood over Gideon the Ninth and considered the Lyctor created from her ruin. She expected the combination of Harrowhark and Gideon to be a marvel, really something to behold, but when they found Harrow, she could barely hold her sword. Despite the displays of extraordinary necromantic ability, Harrow seemed pathetic, not the caliber her cavalier suggested at all.

Is that how it would have been if Ianthe had chosen her? An eternal embarrassment?

Corona tried not to consider Ianthe as downright pathetic as Harrowhark seemed. If she imagined it, she was afraid of what she might do. Would she cry? Would she laugh outright?

“I was better than Babs, you know,” Corona said to the shell of the cavalier. “I bested him in more duels than I can count.”

She studied the set of the cavalier’s face and couldn’t help but recall the portraits scattered throughout the Edenites camps and shuttles, portraits of the great Commander, Awake Remembrance. In some respects, the similarity was uncanny. It was the brow ridge, mostly. It was the angle of her nose. It was, of course, the color of her hair. Corona once speculated that Gideon Nav’s ancestors might have been from outside of the Nine Houses, but Judith brushed the thought aside, unconsidered. After all, Corona claimed Judith looked oh-so-much like Real Courage, but no relation was possible there. When Corona mentioned the resemblance to Camilla, she suggested that perhaps Gideon Nav was an Edenite plant all along and that was why her necromancer seemed so debilitated now.

Camilla rejected the theory immediately, with a crisp, “No, that’s not it.”

Now, Corona’s blood still simmered from her exchange with Judith. She looked down at the Ninth cavalier and her fingers twitched. She gripped the hilt of the rapier she’d pulled from its hiding place as soon as she left Judith behind.

“I wonder if I could have bested you, given the chance.”

Naberius won his duel with the Ninth back at Canaan House, but there was no question that the Ninth was the better fighter. Babs would have lost in an actual fight. Would Corona? She’d never seen the Ninth really fight, but she’d have a better understanding than Babs. Corona knew how it felt to really want the sword in her hand, to feel it as an extension of herself.

She pressed her fingers to the Ninth’s neck, checking for a pulse. She did this occasionally, ever since she thought she saw the Ninth breathing in the forest outside the camp. There was no pulse. Corona leaned down toward the Ninth’s face. The body had a mildly antiseptic odor, probably a remnant of one of the Edenite experiments. Corona turned her face so that her cheek hovered just above the Ninth’s nose, above her slightly parted lips.

She reminded Corona of a story Corona once read—a sleeping princess who could only be woken by true love’s kiss. She would suggest it to Judith tomorrow. Perhaps she would pretend to try it, lean forward until Judith intervened and pulled her back.

For now, Corona held her position, waited, felt nothing. No breeze, no puff of breath.

Gideon was gone. Empty.

Corona sympathized. She knew how it felt, and she reached out, pressed a hand tight to the Ninth cavalier’s shoulder, in a show of support, an act of camaraderie.

Eventually, tired of talking to herself, Corona turned and started back across the yard, toward the cells and her waiting stone soldier. When she paused at the door and looked back, she saw movement at the edge of the path, a cloaked figure stepping out from the shadows. As Corona watched, the figure turned and disappeared down the path that led to the body of the Ninth.

Corona checked her security cuff—disabled. She set a hand on the hilt of her rapier and moved back across the yard, staying close to the edges, keeping still within the shadows. She moved quietly down the path, over the rise of rocky sand, past the stand of parched and prickly trees.

There was the body, just as Corona had left her, and there was the figure of Camilla Hect, her ear low over Gideon’s slack mouth.

Camilla did not move as Corona came to stand beside her, probably knew Corona was there all along. She glanced up at Corona from her bent position over the cavalier.

“Did you really see her breathing?”

“I thought I did,” Corona said. “The once.” Or was it twice? “But I checked just moments ago, exactly as you’re doing now, and there was nothing. I check often, and there’s never any change. A trick of the light, maybe.”

“I don’t think so,” Camilla said, in a way that seemed quite unlike Camilla. She stood and pressed her thumb and her forefinger to her chin, a gesture which made her look like she was doing an impersonation of her necromancer. Corona looked around for Camilla’s bag of bones, for her necromancer’s hand. It hung from Camilla’s waist, just as it always did.

“Are you all right?” Corona asked.

“More than all right,” Camilla confirmed. She took a step back to get a better look at the whole of Gideon. “Her soul was never fully absorbed—Harrow made sure of that. A bit desperately, but it worked—and if my current theory is correct, the soul was never fully severed either. There are still a few strings, like a bubble in the river. The Lyctoral process was never finished. The body has not been destroyed, nor has it decayed. The megatheorem can still be completed, correctly this time.”

“What are you talking about?”

Camilla tilted her head, as though considering what she’d just said. “Of course, it would all be much easier if the Reverend Daughter was here.”

Corona studied the way Camilla stood, the set of her arms and the expression on her face. She narrowed her eyes. “Sextus?”

“Yes.” He looked down at himself. “We wondered how long it would take you both to figure that out. Extraordinary, isn’t it? Not ideal, of course, but we made the best of a bad situation. You can only achieve so much with one body and a few fragments of bone.”

Corona drew the Ninth’s rapier. “Where’s Camilla?”

The Sixth ignored the weapon.

“Still here.” He gestured toward Camilla’s body. “In here. There must be a way to both be present at the same time, the back and forth is damn inconvenient. There’s some sort of barrier, but that’s an issue for another day. We’ll work through it with time.”

“You’re a Lyctor.”

“Yes, obviously.”

“How long?”

“Long enough,” Palamedes said. “Three weeks now, I think.”

Corona took a deep breath. All right. Fine. If this change wasn’t obvious to Corona, and it wasn’t obvious to a necromancer such as Judith, then it wouldn’t be obvious to the Edenites either. The Lyctor impersonating Dulcinea Septimus was with them for weeks, with no one the wiser. Perhaps this even improved their situation. Judith was nearly useless on every planet the Edenites chose, but a Lyctor. The Sixth carried their thanergy with them. The Sixth couldn’t easily be brought down—unless it became necessary, in which case, Corona was well aware of the weapons the Edenites kept ready and the damage that they could deal. But for now—for now, no one needed to know.

Corona nodded at Gideon the Ninth. “Do you have a plan? Or do we simply wait for her eventual return?”

Sextus shook Camilla’s head. “They’ve done it. I do believe they finished it, albeit through unconventional means. I saw her and she was very nearly whole. If Harrow knew that her cavalier’s body was here and still viable—” He stepped toward the body. “Will you help me, Princess?”

Corona took a cautious step forward. “Help how?”

He reached for her rapier, and though she did not let him take it, she did set it down when he asked, propped against the edge of the table. She let him set her hands on Gideon’s sternum, one hand over the other. She watched as resumed his position over Gideon, Camilla’s hands on either side of Gideon’s face.

“Chest compressions,” Palamedes said, from within Camilla Hect.

When Corona’s fingers touched the ragged edge of the wound hidden beneath Gideon’s shirt, she drew her hands away. “She’s torn open.”

“Not for long,” Palamedes mumbled. “Yes, I know. I know her sternum’s shattered. Ignore it. We need that heart pumping. On my mark.”

Corona steadied her hands.

Once it was done, once Gideon was sitting up, panting for breath with her head propped against Camilla’s shoulder, Palamedes said: “You have a decision to make, Princess, and you must make it fast. I’m taking her now and I’m leaving. We’ll fight you if we must, but you will lose.”

Corona bristled at that. It was likely true—She’d seen Camilla fight Marta, and that was before. They were a Lyctor now, weren’t they? A Lyctor of a sort. She remembered what it was like, watching Ianthe demolish the Eighth.

“I won’t go back to the Nine Houses,” Corona said, immediately. She lifted the Ninth’s rapier. The Ninth looked at it—those remarkable eyes—but did not comment on Corona’s possession of her blade. She did not acknowledge it at all, seemingly to have reverted back to the days of the silent cavalier, shrouded in mystery.

Either that or it was brain damage.

Corona tightened her grip. “I won’t go back.”

“Neither will we,” Palamedes said, “but we can’t stay here now. Come with us or don’t. If you’re coming, I suggest you round up the Captain before anyone realizes there’s been a change—the security here is very lax, but I’d hate to have to kill your officer friend.”

II.

Judith looked up from her flimsy at the rattle of the doorknob. The door opened; Corona returned. The princess hadn’t been gone long, not even an hour of peace, and she’d returned carrying the Ninth’s rapier. Judith set down the flimsy and struggled to her feet. She didn’t really believe that Corona intended to kill her in order to join the Edenites’ special operations unit, but if they had, in fact, come to that, Judith would not accept Corona’s blade sitting down.

She waited as Corona carefully and quietly shut the door, and then Corona burst into action. She tossed her rapier onto the cot and fell to her knees at the cot’s base. Judith stumbled back, startled.

“Gather your things,” Corona ordered. “We don’t have much time.”

She pried something loose from the frame of the bed and began unscrewing the bolts from an air vent set close to the floor.

Judith fumbled for her cane. “What’s happened?”

“Sextus is back. We revived some semblance of the Ninth. The Sixth are taking her and going on the run. If you want to leave with them, we need to move now.”

Judith opened her mouth. She closed it. How—? She opened her mouth again and said: “You’ve only been gone thirty minutes!”

“They were already there.”

“They? What do you mean, some semblance of the Ninth?”

“I mean, if she’s Gideon the Ninth, she hasn’t said.” She reached up and pushed a knife into Judith’s hand. “Colum the Eighth left and something else returned in his place. We can’t assume Sextus hasn’t brought back a monster.” Judith looked down at the knife. When she looked up again, it was just in time to see Corona slip a pistol into the waistband of her trousers.

Judith had not handled many pistols in the Cohort, but she knew enough to know that shoving the end of one into your pants was not safe handling.

Corona bent low to check the vent. When she stood, she retrieved the Ninth’s black rapier from where she’d discarded it on the mattress. It wasn’t the first time Judith had seen Corona with the rapier. She’d brought it with her on the Gorgon test run. And Camilla had—”Camilla already has her knives.”

Judith’s face felt hot. Her fingers itched. She tightened her hand around the short knife. She could tell by the handle that it wasn’t Cohort. It wasn’t from the Nine Houses at all. Eden-issue. She’d suffered so many betrayals these past months, at the hands of the Edenites, the Emperor’s Lyctors, Camilla the Sixth and Coronabeth. And now—She held tight to the knife. “You never said.”

Corona looked down at Judith with big sad eyes. “Of course not, Jody. I know what you would have tried to do. I couldn’t let you go through with it.”

“Why?”

Corona blinked. She shrugged. “Camilla isn’t as fun to rile up.”

“Fine,” Judith said, “then promise me this. Promise me that this won’t be a repeat of the last time. This time you’re really intending to leave.”

Corona crouched down beside Judith. She took a small tablet from her pocket and began pressing buttons. “The Sixth is adamant. What will the Edenites do with her?”

Judith wasn’t sure if it was a genuine question, or if Corona was proving a point. The Edenites would find a way to use the Ninth, just as they’ve used Judith. Just as they’ve used Corona.

That was it then. Had Coronabeth Tridentarius chosen her side?

Corona tapped her right foot. “You’re all set,” she said. Judith wanted to bend down, take Corona’s face in her hands. She wanted to pull the princess up to her feet and into a celebratory kiss. She could feel the blood pumping through her veins, could feel her heart come alive. Judith turned back toward the bed, and grabbed the flimsy. She’d started writing another report, more to pass the time than anything else. She could not leave it here. She shoved the flimsy into the pocket of her trousers.

“We should take the Gorgon.”

Coronabeth paused at that. “No,” she said. “No, we should leave the ship.”

“We can’t leave them with that ship. We have to take it. The stele will respond as soon as I’m in the chair. Camilla knows the controls.”

Corona shook her head. She took Judith’s arm and propped it over her shoulder, pulled Judith in close against her side. “The ship stays,” she said, and she led them from the room.

At first glance, the yard was nearly empty. There were two Edenite soldiers talking near the gate, but they didn’t look up when Coronabeth and Judith burst through the doors. Judith saw no sign of the Sixth, nor the supposedly resurrected Ninth cavalier. Her heart dropped.

“You made it all up to fuck with me,” Judith said, her voice low.

Corona ignored her. She turned toward the back of the yard. “This way.”

They found the Sixth with the Ninth cavalier draped over Camilla’s shoulder, much like Judith was being supported by Corona.

“Captain Deuteros,” Camilla said, rather formally.

“Welcome back, Sextus. Ninth.”

The cavalier looked at Judith and said nothing, but when the Sixth began to move, Gideon the Ninth stumbled along with them.

“There’s an unwatched gate in the back, past the shooting range,” Corona said. She began to lead the group in that direction, but Sextus caught her arm.

“We won’t get far that way.”

“The Gorgon,” Judith repeated. “The Edenites have a Gorgon-class.”

Sextus nodded. “My thoughts exactly, Captain.”

“Put me in the control chair. Your cavalier knows how to navigate it.”

Corona, now outnumbered, did not protest. She merely said: “It won’t be easy. You may need to use those knives.”

Sextus glanced back at the knives on his cavalier’s back. “Ah. We’re still working out some kinks in this department. Let me see if I can rearrange some furniture. Ninth, hold onto that tree for a moment. I need to sit down for this.”

The aim was to disable, not to kill. To stick to the shadows and engage only if necessary. There were four of them, but the Ninth held her rapier as though she’d never used it before, and Corona could not be trusted to hold fast, not to change her mind and turn her pistol on her own instead. Camilla discreetly disabled five officers, quick, efficient, deadly.

They made it to the Gorgon and the Sixth rushed inside with the Ninth in tow. Corona and Judith followed.

And then Corona stopped. She released Judith and backed away.

“What are you doing?” Judith asked, Corona’s knife held tight in her hand.

“I’m staying.”

Judith shook her head. No, she’d already chosen. “Corona.”

Corona said nothing. She stood there looking resplendent and resolved. She stood there looking like the king she was and always had been.

“I told you that I was still deciding,” Corona said, voice sure and unwavering. “I told you to wait and see. Now, here we are, and I’ve decided. Go, Jody. I need you to live.”

Save me, Jody

What throne might she mount?

“We can’t wait,” Camilla shouted from further within the Gorgon. Judith bristled at that, as though the cavalier was still piloted by Palamedes Sextus, once again telling her how to do her job. Still. Camilla was right.

“Then get your necromancer into that chair and prepare to leave without us,” Judith said. She turned back to Corona. She wasn’t going to let Coronabeth go without saying her truth. She could no longer swallow it down.

“When I told you I’d never accept you as my cavalier, I meant it. Not in this life or in any other. I do not want to bind you down. I will not bind you to me. I cannot.”

Corona stood before her, stiff as stone, Eden-issue pistol ready in her hands. She looked at Judith with the hard gemstone eyes of her mother. She said, “I know, Jody. Please don’t be tedious now. I don’t need the reminder.”

Judith shook her head. “This isn’t a lesson. It’s a confession, Princess. Let me say it.”

“Fine. Confess if you must, but do it quickly. I won’t fight them off if they find us here.”

Judith swallowed. She grabbed a hold of her metaphorical ribs and she ripped them open. She exposed her still-beating heart. Look. Watch it come to life for you, watch it beat faster. Look at what you do to me.

Judith was seventeen years old and kneeling before her cavalier, holding her cavalier’s hands.

“I want more from you than your sword,” Judith said. It wasn’t the right wording. What she wanted wasn’t more than what she had with Marta; it was simply different. She shut her eyes and saw the look on Marta’s face as she turned Judith down, as she released Judith’s hands and broke Judith’s heart. Marta had been right to do it, but Judith did not accept Coronabeth Tridentarius’s sword. She would not accept it, in this life or in any other. What happened now would not change that.

Judith opened her eyes and prepared for that look from all those years ago, this time on the face of Coronabeth.

“I’ve wanted you for as long as I can remember,” Judith admitted. “I cannot accept your sword when what I really desire is you. I’ve made that mistake before. I won’t do it again.”

Corona stood there like the pre-resurrection lion, her hair falling free from where she’d tied it back, curling around her neck and shoulders. She gripped her pistol tight in her hand, and when she rushed Judith, for a moment Judith took it as anger. She took it as an answer and an end.

It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t an answer (it was) and it wasn’t an end. Corona took Judith’s face in one hand, her palm hot against Judith’s jaw, thumb tracing over Judith’s cheeks. She was so close, violet eyes wide and watching.

“Say it again.”

Judith tried to shake her head, but Corona’s grip was strong and tight. If Corona adjusted her grip, Judith really believed that Corona could end it all right there with a snap of Judith’s neck.

Judith did not want to say it again, could not with Corona so close. Her heart raced and her skin burned, and then she opened her mouth to speak.

“Beth!”

It was Real Courage. It was always Real Courage.

Corona did not blink. She did not flinch. She had eyes for Judith and Judith alone. “Say it again.”

Real Courage burst forth with, “What the hell are you doing? The Commander will be here any minute. Fuck, Beth, fuck!”

Corona said, “I’ve never much liked that nickname.”

Judith said, “I know.”

And then the sound of a gun firing. Judith flinched. Corona did not.

“It’s just a warning,” Corona said. “Come on, Jody. I need to hear you say it again.”

The words were different this time, but Judith heard them, loud and clear. Save me, Jody.

“I want you.”

Corona nodded. She turned and with the hand that still held her pistol, she shot twice. The first shot knocked the gun from Real Courage’s hand. The next landed in Real Courage’s thigh and sent her to the ground.

“Thank you for the lessons,” Corona said, and then she turned back and she kissed Judith full on the mouth. The press of Corona’s lips—after all of this time—shocked Judith, thrilled her. The sound of Corona’s gun was ringing in her ears and the taste of Corona’s kiss rearranged her. It felt like a promise, like a pledge. It felt like the siren song of the stele, the pull and the hum of it, like treason, like danger.

And then it was over.

Corona pulled Judith into the Gorgon and hit the lever to shut the door.

Judith gripped tight to the arms of the chair as the stele hummed through her, as Gideon the Ninth sat silently staring and Camilla the Sixth pressed buttons and turned levers on the navigation board. The Edenties tried to follow. They tried to shoot down the ship with the very weapons Judith had always feared, blasts that made a necromancer lose her shit, even if she wasn’t directly hit. The Gorgon protected them. The stele made sure they could not be caught.

Emperor’s End, it was a beautiful old ship.

She felt Corona’s presence behind her sometime before Corona leaned over her shoulder, her mouth pressed close to Judith’s ear.

“You’re such a silly fool,” Corona said, her voice low, as though they might be able to keep this to themselves. As though a Lyctor’s ears might not be able to hear. (Judith knew very little about a Lyctor’s hearing. Perhaps there was no difference at all). Corona’s lips brushed the shell of Judith’s ear. Judith shivered as Corona continued: “I’ve been waiting for you all these years and this is what it took?”

Judith swallowed. She focused on the stele and tried not to think about how it felt like Corona on her skin now, how it tasted like Corona on her tongue.

Eventually, Sextus relieved Judith from the Gorgon’s controls. They thought it best to spend a few nights on the ship, well out of reach of the Edenites. From there, they’d decide where to go. Judith did not try to pull rank. She was grateful to have another there to share the task. Sextus held Camilla’s breath as he sat down in the chair, unsure if the stele would recognize his cavalier’s body as a necromancer at all.

The stele recognized the change instantly and latched on. “Okay,” Sextus said, surprised.

He sounded very much like Camilla.

“What are your plans with me now?” Judith asked once she was alone with Corona in the back of the ship. Gideon shook her head when they asked if she wanted to get some rest. She chose to stay in the control room with the Sixth. Sextus nodded to assure everyone that they would be fine.

The Ninth still wasn’t speaking.

Corona laughed. “My plans with you? Jody.” The name was said as an admonishment. Corona tapped her chin as she considered the question, and when she looked back at Judith, Judith could not take the heat in her eyes. She had to look away. “I plan to fuck you, for a start. Would you like that?”

Judith let out a breath. She wasn’t sure how to do this. Twelve years building up walls, making sure they were thick and strong. Twelve years barricading the door, adding locks and then locking those locks with more locks, until they built up into a great tangle, a mass of metal, slabs of concrete, all of it weighing her down. Twelve years pretending she was unaffected by Coronabeth, immune to her charisma, blind to her beauty.

Why was the truth so hard? It was one simple word. She’d already confessed. She’d exposed herself in front of the Sixth, in front of Real Courage and whatever stranger resided within the Ninth. She tore her chest open and offered Coronabeth Tridentarius her heart, as she’d done with Marta all those years ago. Coronabeth had not yet handed it back.

The rest should come so easy. Judith was not laid out on a surgical table beneath a Lyctor’s fingers. Her torn-open chest should not be able to seal so fast.

“Don’t think about it too hard now,” Corona said, but she was still smiling. Judith’s hesitation hadn’t changed that. Corona tilted her head toward one of the ship’s bunks. “Come on, we can save it for later, if that’s what you want. Let’s get some rest.”

Corona moved toward a bunk and Judith followed. Corona took the lower berth. Judith paused. She considered the upper, but wasn’t sure she could manage to get in. She turned toward the bunks on the other side of the wall, but Corona reached out to stop her.

“Now you’re just being ridiculous. You’ve slept beside me every night for months.”

Judith conceded. She sat down on the edge of the bed and let Corona pull her in. It did not feel safe, not even after all this time, but it felt familiar. She curled onto her side, and Corona drew her close, her body folding behind Judith, arm over waist, thigh pressed tight to thigh.

“They are right, you know,” Corona said. “About the Empire.”

Judith did not want to argue about that.

“You were right too. They won’t make me whole.”

Judith turned, shifted in Corona’s arms until they were lying together, face to face. “Neither will this,” she said, though she was certain that saying it was the last thing she should do.

Corona sucked her teeth, disappointed in Judith’s response. “Yes, Jody, I know. One half plus one half. I’ve always understood the math.”

Judith reached up and traced Corona’s eyebrows with the tips of her fingers, touched Corona’s cheek to make sure she was real. Corona might still change her mind. She might still break Judith’s heart. She could not expect this to make her whole.

One half plus one half is only ever half.

Judith was willing to take that chance. She leaned in and pressed her mouth to Corona’s in a kiss. She kissed Corona like she’d imagined kissing Corona at each and every awful party, in so many of her dreams.

“I almost can’t believe it,” Corona said, her forehead pressed to Judith’s, her arm tight around Judith’s waist. She shifted and ducked down to press teeth to Judith’s shoulder, to nip at Judith’s neck.

“Can’t believe what?” Judith managed to get out.

“There’s blood running through those veins after all.”