Augustine lifted his head, and he said hoarsely, “Gideon?”

The woman I was pretty sure was actually my mother—wearing the body of a woman I’d had a crush on, who in turn had been wearing the identity of a woman she’d murdered, until I fell on a spike so that my boss could kill her—craned her head around in her bonds.

Harrow, I will never forget the look on her face as long as I live, or as long as I die. For the first time, she smiled—a small, dusty, crooked smile that was totally alien to Cytherea’s mouth, which had smiled at me often but never like that. It was the smile for your old cellmate who’d just landed back in prison, the one that told them at least you were in it together—or more correctly, the smile of someone stepping out of jail after serving a very long sentence, having seen someone there waiting for her. Someone whose presence meant total reprieve, someone she hadn’t expected. It was a little bit mocking. It was deeply relieved. It was a smile that said: You came back for me?

The Lyctor who’d taken my shades pulled the gun out of his belt before anyone could stop him. He briskly closed the distance, pressed the barrel up to the base of Cytherea’s skull, and he pulled the trigger. There was a wet sound. The body jerked and its head lolled out of sight.

God exploded, “Gideon!”

“Wake,” said Gideon II—I?—as though that explained everything.

There was movement. Then God said sadly, “Damn it, Gideon, her ghost’s completely gone,” and Gideon said, “Good.”

Augustine said urgently, “Number Seven—”

“Got away.”

“What—what, it ran? You got it to run?” When this was not met with details, Augustine said, “But—you lived?”

Mercymorn said, “That’s not important right now! I don’t care about Number Seven! I want Gideon to hear this too. I want him to know what Pyrrha died for.”

Now, finally, the Emperor came into view. He calmly sat down on the chair that Mercy had vacated, in front of the head-shot corpse that was still tied up, opposite. He looked like anybody. His hair was cut short, dark brown, with no different highlights in it. His face was long and square and ordinary. And his eyes were just absolutely, insanely fucked up: deep black wells, this unreflective flat black. Even from where I was, I could see the white light that circled the irises: a cold, flickering perimeter. At the moment, he had his chin rested on his balled-together fists, his elbows set on his knees, and those whites had lighted on Mercy.