Yet the only guests of this makeshift celebration were five women with blood on their hands. Rhea, Ariadne, and Nyx hadn’t slept for close to two days, and they’d been running on little more than adrenaline and hope. They should be exhausted. They should be resting for their return, but none of them even spoke of sleeping.

After going over as many of the details of the mission as they could nail down before actually landing on Macella, everyone agreed to Rhea’s suggestion that they celebrate in case this mission was their last.

Rhea clutched her drink to her chest. Clo had found a hidden bottle of alcohol in the Legate’s quarters. Of course, the man who had set the rules had broken them himself. It was good, dark rum from Argos, and it burned going down. As much as Rhea wished to drink and drink—to forget her worries, to simply forget—she kept in control. Small sips. Watered down cocktails. Nothing more.

She never let herself drink too much—it lowered her defenses, and she always had to hold herself apart. The mask must never slip, not even there.

Rhea’s eyes followed Clo as she went around, topping up people’s drinks. She found the other woman fascinating. The shortness of her hair highlighted the almost fey tilt to her eyes, her high cheekbones and strong jaw. The small scars that nicked her long, thin fingers. The muscles beneath light brown skin. She had three little moles by her right eye, and Rhea found herself wanting to touch them with the tips of her fingers. It had been a long time since she’d found someone attractive, purely for their own sake. Purely for hers.

Clo looked up and their gazes collided. For a moment, Rhea thought the other woman would turn away, but Clo simply tilted her head as if coming to some decision. What was she thinking? Could she sense Rhea’s attraction?

Rhea drank more rum, lips tingling. Clo followed the movement, staring intently. When Rhea smiled, the other woman blushed and finally looked away.

Rhea’s smile widened.

“Turn up the music!” Ariadne crowed, banging on the table as if it were a drum.

Clo reached over and flipped up the volume.

Rhea didn’t recognize the music—so much was banned from the Tholosian citizenry, except that which was deemed acceptable by the Archon. These would be old songs Ariadne had access to from the Oracle’s history archives. Music from the Old World, and after, before the Empire became so powerful that it deemed its own art to be dangerous.

She wanted to laugh, to sing and raise her voice to the rafters. To scream with the knowledge that they had done it. They had finally escaped. After a year of planning, she was far from Damocles, from the Archon, from that horrible palace. She could listen to banned music. She could—