“You can run from it, still,” Luga said, “if you want to force my Wolf to be the one to bear this weight.” It was choked, near the end, his face even more pale.

He stabbed himself again, up through the lung. He choked, blood on his mouth, blood over the black paint on his face, and then he twisted the blade.

Luga fell forward, falling against her. Orfeus stepped back sickened, and he dropped to the ground dead weight.

She stood staring down at him. Blood welled out of his wounds, and there was blood all down her and on her hands.

She had no Blood to heal him. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to call for Mordrai.

But a living Luga could even more convincingly carry on his lies. A living Luga could enact revenge on everyone here and everyone she cared about, set contracts on Linden, Bright, Em, everyone she’d ever met.

“Things are going to be different,” Orfeus told him. “I’m bringing you people out of the industrial ages. We’re going to make this place better.”

Of course, now, he said nothing.

She could imagine what he’d say, though. With the same bloody weapons?, a cruel smile ghosting on his face.

Orfeus knelt and pulled the sword out of him. His eyes were glassy and lifeless. She dropped it to the ground with a clatter, let it lie wherever it lay, and stood up, and wiped off her hands.

He was right: she could still run. Then Faolan would lead, and turn out much like Luga had, any of his new softness burned away. Never the chance to grow into someone better.

“The problem is power,” Orfeus said. Her words rung out oddly in the empty room. Just her in here. “No one should be in power at all, when it can be abused so easily. Until then…” She adjusted her knives, so they sat better at her belt. She picked up her baton and tucked it away. “There’s me.”

She stood there a while. She didn’t notice Boarhound behind her until ve stepped forward and up, staring at the corpse on the ground. Orfeus jolted back.

She shouldn’t show weakness, especially right now, bloodstained and culpable. Dormarch looked away from the corpse and levelly into Orfeus’s face.

Boarhound, who carried no weapons that Orfeus had ever seen. A drunkard, kind and discerning.

Luga’s second in command, in this place where nothing was won without blood. Ve could not be discounted as a threat.

“He wanted—” Orfeus said, and was appalled to find that she stammered it. Which would you lose first, clever tongue or clever hands?

“I know,” Boarhound said, coldly. Ve looked at Luga again and shook ver head. Dormarch stooped and lifted him, hefting the corpse undignified over ver shoulder. Ve was much shorter than Luga had been, but bore the weight easily.