48. FORTY-EIGHT #2
“Didn’t you just say you weren’t interested?” Mitek asked.
“I said I was wary.”
Suddenly jolly, he kicked his boot under the board, sending pieces flying in every direction, and cleared his throat. “We’ll call it a draw, then?”
Fankalo sighed, staring at the ruined stackers board. “Mitek, I need your counsel further.”
She could see the hope in his eyes, and it made her sick to her stomach.
“Always. Your quarters?”
“Wait,” Cam interjected. “Are you tellin’ me that all this time, ‘counsel’ has been code for…”
Mitek groaned. Nalil and Samal excused themselves and shuffled from the room.
Fankalo gave Cam a withering look before addressing Mitek. “Let’s move to the upper deck.”
Two minutes later, they stood alone at the starboard rail, with Cam stationed just beyond them on deck to guard for eavesdroppers.
“Roskaad Thyatira: what do we do about him?”
Mitek’s words came with a quickness that made it evident he’d been chewing on them for some time. “He would be an invaluable ally. If I’m honest, not taking him up on his offer a month ago was the only foolish decision I’ve ever seen you make.”
She crossed her arms, biting her tongue to prevent herself from speaking the wrong words.
“Not that anything you’ve ever done has been foolhardy.” Buttery-fucking-liar. “But if we have Aethertech’s plate-shield plans, we will have instant demand.”
The scheme was simple. Replicate Aethertech Mechanic’s newest creation—one custom-ordered by the military.
Destroy Aetech’s shipment before the Red Wing went into what the oligarchy must expect to become a combat scenario.
Become a sudden supplier. The opportunity was so good it made her salivate, which made her suspect it. Nothing was that fated easy.
“The oligarchy will suspect it is contrived.”
“Of course the oligarchy will suspect it is contrived. That won’t detract from their need.
If their reliance on Aetech’s economy is enough for them to plot an attack against their own military, they’re sure as hell going to need something when the defense falls through.
We sell ours at a tenth of the price, save the day, pocket the change, make other distortion technology available to a wider populace, and maybe topple an unscrupulous monopoly while we’re at it.
” For once, Mitek’s logic was sound and his vocabulary…
not abysmal. “Thyatira is giving us the superior end of a deal here,” he continued.
“You said yourself, your Luck shows mixed outcomes either way you flip it. What could you possibly be holding back for?”
Fankalo stared out over the ocean, its winds tousling her loose hair with salt and spray, and considered the dangers of sharing Calver’s vulnerabilities with the person who hated him most. The waves rolled, violent and unforgiving.
Cold and deep. But Mitek’s presence was warm as always.
His Lucky confidence an unparalleled safebox.
“Thyatira cut out my brother’s tongue when he was a child. Poisoned him with moss. Left him to die as a science experiment. That leaves one to believe that it may be hard to trust him.”
Mitek’s brown eyes widened. Then narrowed. Then filled with sorrow. “I didn’t know.”
“It wasn’t my story to tell. I know it’s hard to believe, but Calver was… normal, once. Sane. Predictable.”
Her mind flashed to the beach in Yalusa. How her brother’s blade had flashed once. How it hadn’t stopped.
“Forgive me if I have trouble imagining.”
She snorted without mirth. “Even I have trouble imagining, and I have living memory of him reading me bedtime stories. Cul’Mon may have been the one that broke him, but whatever sparked his decline started with Thyatira.
Had I agreed to Thyatira’s messenger in Calver’s presence… who knows what he would have done.”
“Brat, Calver is gone. He’s no longer our problem. And after the Coronation… I’m telling you, it’s for the best. Is bad blood worth risking a partnership that could make or break our victory? The lives that depend on it?”
She shrugged bitterly. “Is it worth breaking my trust with the most dangerous man in greater Kath? It’s more about the principle of the matter.
If I betray my brother for the sake of victory, have I not encouraged betrayal of my worth?
” Not that her worth wasn’t already wobbly.
Calver had played executioner to squadrons of the men who had entrusted their lives to her.
She’d let him off: pushed his actions under the rug and defended him when they called for his blood.
“I know you hate me for my decisions. But sometimes, when I look at him, I feel like he’s still like he used to be.
Like nothing’s ever changed.” Her voice shook.
“And other times, I’ve felt the only thing that held his hand from my throat was cracked glass. ”
Mitek frowned, but he put an arm around her. She leaned in. She couldn’t help it.
“Is it possible to love a person but hate everything they’ve become?”
“I think—” Mitek paused to chew at his cheek. “Real love is a bit like the tides. Sometimes they disappear for a little while, but… the ocean always comes back. For better or worse.”
She filled her lungs with the air off the sea and gripped at the rail. “Do me a favor.”
“Anything you ask.”
“Today, I want you to be the Hand.” Mitek or Drogus often stood in for her, parading as the Shadewalker’s Hand to those they were not yet allied with.
“We’re not going to ally ourselves with Thyatira just yet.
But maybe you can make Thyatira think he’s in on our game.
Go forward with the arrangement. Convince him he’s one of the Ghosts by feeding him our least confidential intelligence, until the time comes to ditch him. ”
Mitek removed his arm from her shoulders. “That’s dishonest.”
“Everything we’ve done has been dishonest.”
“Except for the right people. For the good guys. For the people who fight for freedom.” He shook his head. “You’re not going to accept the proposal? Why did you even ask me up here?”
She’d needed to verbalize her thoughts to someone. It had helped to solidify her decision. “This all started because I wanted to save him.”
“Calver again?”
“Now I’m sentencing him to exile, just until I force him to martyr himself.” The words sounded even worse coming from her mouth than they had in her mind. How had she fallen so far astray? “I’m not going to go right into allying myself with his enemies.”
Stillness settled between them. Mitek’s nose wrinkled, and his hands tightened on the rail. “Sometimes when all the world’s on fire, you have to let go of the things you want and focus on the things you don’t want to lose… and what you’re willing to sacrifice to keep them.”
She nearly opened her mouth to tell him that was why empires fell, that was how good men abandoned their principles. But a thrum of bad Luck stilled her tongue and threw her stomach. It was gone in a flash, but Mitek had never felt like bad Luck before. Mitek had only ever…
She realized then that he hadn’t been speaking to her. He’d been speaking for himself.
“What—what do you want, Mitek?”
He wanted this. He wanted the freedom and power she’d handed to him without reservation.
Didn’t he?
Mitek was still for a moment, then turned for the hatch. “It doesn’t really matter.”