Hesod was just looking at her. Desperate, Crier reached out but was stopped by her father, who gripped her wrist so hard it felt like he might break it. “What are you doing?” she said, struggling against his hold. “Father, please listen to me, Kinok is planning—”

“To destroy the Iron Heart,” said Hesod. “Foolish girl. You think I didn’t know?”

She froze.

“Foolish girl,” he said again. “I Designed you with intelligence, but all you’ve ever used it for is reading books. You have no understanding of this world. Do you truly believe I don’t know what darkness is stirring in my own country, in my own palace? Not all of us are like you, daughter.” He squeezed her wrist and she had to bite back a cry of pain. “Why do you think you’re marrying him?”

“To . . . ,” she whispered. “To . . . bridge the differences between . . . Traditionalism and the Anti-Reliance Movement. To foster an . . . alliance.”

“I expected you to see beneath the surface of this union,” said Hesod, “but I suppose that was too much to ask. In the past I have overestimated you, daughter; I will not make that mistake again. You are marrying Scyre Kinok because he is a both a threat and a boon. I cannot kill him. If he dies, he becomes a martyr. His followers would rise up against me; half the Red Council would turn. And . . . I no longer want to kill him. His work could benefit me—could benefit all of us—if it’s successful.”

Tourmaline. He had to be talking about the search for Tourmaline. He just didn’t know that Crier knew.

Did her father crave immortality too?

Had he, like Rosi with her Nightshade, fallen for Kinok’s lies?

Father, she thought. What did he promise you?

“So he cannot die,” said Hesod. “But make no mistake: I do not trust him. I want to know what he’s doing, now and always. Keep your enemies close, as the humans say. Clever little things, they have a saying for everything.” He finally let go of her wrist. “That is why you are marrying him, daughter. That is why you were created—you, the chess piece, the offering, the sacrifice I am willing to make. I have been playing this game a long time. I always knew there would someday be an enemy I could not kill.”

“You knew about his plans,” Crier said hollowly. She couldn’t even think about the rest of what he was saying. “He wants to rule us all, and you knew, and—what of the humans?”

What would Kinok, all-powerful, do to humankind?

“Do wolves concern themselves with the slaughter of sheep?” said Hesod.

Crier took one step back, and then another.

She looked at Hesod, really looked at him, and tried to reconcile the Automa standing before her with the one who had raised her. The one who had let her sit with him in his study throughout the night, reading books, helping with his correspondences, sometimes even talking politics. The one who had . . . let her do those things, only to smile condescendingly and brush her off when she presented any belief that didn’t align with his own. The one who knew how badly she’d wanted a spot on the Red Council, how badly she’d wanted to follow in his footsteps, and had never once, not even for a moment, taken her seriously. The one who thought she was stupid and naive for—for not wanting to be a monster anymore.