Rhea raised her eyebrows. “As you wish.” With a last pet, she turned off the bird. Its head twisted, burrowing into its neck as though asleep. She set it back in its cage.

Nyx waited for Rhea to tell her why she was here.

“How long have you hated the Empire?” Rhea asked.

Nyx felt her neck stiffen. So far, she hadn’t said anything treasonous. Was this the trap? To trick her into giving voice to her doubt, to admit that when she sacrificed to the God of Death, she felt a little more of her soul die each time.

“I’m loyal.” Her voice didn’t tremble.

“Are you?” Rhea said it almost mockingly. “I’ve watched you guard Damocles for months, and I’m not so sure.”

No, Nyx couldn’t have been so obvious. Damocles would have ended her by now. How did this woman know her secret, then?

Nyx narrowed her eyes. “What about you?”

She looked over at the empty place on the bed next to her. “Every time I’m next to Damocles, I think about how easy it would be to murder him in his sleep.” A sigh. “But then they’d just make more Heirs, wouldn’t they? The games would begin again, the new cohort just like the old. Nothing changes.”

Nyx glanced around the room. “You shouldn’t be saying any of this aloud. Seven devils, you shouldn’t even be thinking it.”

Rhea blinked. “You wouldn’t turn me in. You’d worry they’d look closer at you.”

“My programming, at least, is still intact.” Nyx studied the courtesan, who even now, looked all too calm for treasonous talk. “Is yours fucking glitching, or what?”

A flicker in the other woman’s gaze, one Nyx didn’t understand. “I was bred to be a listener and advisor in this Garden,” the woman said dismissively. “A few of us are not programmed or chipped. That’s why they keep the walls so high and never let us leave.”

Nyx had the distinct feeling that was either a lie or not the whole truth, but she barely knew this woman. They were not at any stage of trust.

“Then you’re not Novantae,” Nyx said, hating how her voice had dropped to a whisper.

“No. But I need to find them.” She looked over at Nyx then. “I brought you here to ask for your help.”

“My help?”

“Yes.” She seemed so calm, so serene, but her fingers fiddled with the coverlet. “At the banquet all those months ago, you didn’t eat from me. Why?”

Nyx pressed her lips together. “Wasn’t hungry.”

“Lie.” The other woman’s voice was soft, crafted in this garden to tell and keep secrets. “They kept you marching for hours in those streets, planet to planet. I know what you must have seen. Done. Now tell me the truth.”