The papers fell from Sereva’s hand; her dark face grew darker with disbelief. “He what?”

“To make everything fair. To give them power over us like we have over them. To make sure no one else does what Cerisa has done. But he—but he—he gave the virus to Jex Zanlan, or one of his friends—”

“But Jex Zanlan will instantly use such a weapon!” Sereva cried.

Kit nodded. She was exhausted, empty, dull with terror. And these were the two men she had loved most in the world. “I know,” she whispered. “I know.”

*   *   *

The city was in a frenzy for the next seven days. Sirens split the air with warning; loudspeakers broadcast unintelligible updates; quarantine made the streets ghostly during what should have been the busiest hours. Schools were shut down, houses were shuttered against airborne germs, and only those who absolutely had to venture out could be found hurrying fearfully down the deserted sidewalks.

But they had to have news. The media, both indigo and gulden, had expanded their broadcasts and set up remote communal monitors in neighborhoods where the residents could not afford to buy their own screens. The wealthy homeowners had their own screens and could watch the stories unfold from the safety of their fortresses, but the poor and the transient collected in small uneasy groups on the sidewalks of their neighborhoods to follow the progress of the crisis.

Ariana Bayless and Cerisa Daylen had committed a double suicide in the mayor’s home. Their bodies were discovered shortly after the indigo media translated the gulden news item and incorporated it into their noon coverage. They were dead; their offices were in utter disarray; and Nolan Adelpho was nowhere to be found.

At the Biolab where he had worked, however, the activity was at a fever pitch. De facto laboratory head Pakt Shoiklin gave terse interviews that boiled down to: “We are aware of the problem, and we are working on it.” Indigo journalists wanted to know how they could trust a gulden to find a cure for a blueskin disease, and the man smiled.

“A blueskin infected the gulden, and a blueskin found the antidote,” he said. “Why shouldn’t a guldman find the cure for the blueskin poison? Thus each race will have cause to be grateful to the other.”

“You would save the indigo?” a blueskin reporter asked with obvious skepticism.

The man named Pakt smiled somewhat menacingly. “Even if I would not,” he said, “I have biologists on my staff who would. Does that satisfy you?”