It was Ariadne who had given One the ability to speak, and with it, lost one of the few things that had belonged to her alone.

Ariadne had never spoken directly to another human as herself. Never brushed her hand against anyone else’s. When she slept at night, she wrapped her arms tight around her middle—an embrace that she pretended was comfort offered by someone else.

Loneliness had made Ariadne desperate.

In an effort to soothe One’s despondent child, the Oracle had let Ariadne watch several wallscreen vids two years before—but Ariadne found ways around the Oracle’s monitoring. Sometimes, when she was bored, she listened to others within the palace.

That was how she had found Rhea and Nyx.

The women had met many times. Different hours and days, but Ariadne watched them each time. They were good at covering their tracks, but the Oracle’s logs would eventually begin to render a pattern. Human behavior was never as spontaneous as people assumed.

Ariadne erased every trace from the Oracle’s records, but she didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to cover for them. If they did something to bring the Oracle’s attention, the women would never be able to escape Tholos.

She’d calculated their chances at finding freedom as less than two percent. And that was being generous.

But if Ariadne helped? Well, seven point five percent was still abysmal. But it was better.

Ariadne chewed her lip as she watched the bird’s cameras on her small, contraband tablet. She needed to talk to them tonight, if she was ever going to do this. But they would be the first people she’d spoken to. She’d say the wrong thing. Her conversational skills were nothing but cobbled-together references from vids filmed in the last one hundred years. The odds that she’d make an ass of herself were high.

Nyx and Rhea were sitting together on the bed, sketching out possible escape routes. They’d narrowed down a list of ships, but they were hoping to stow away in the hold and escape when they landed on a planet like Myndalia or Tiryns for fueling.

“Here goes,” Ariadne whispered before opening the comms of the bird. In its cage, the red bird awoke, ruffling its feathers.

Nyx and Rhea froze.

“Don’t freak out,” she said, her voice coming through the tiny speakers in the red bird. “But that plan won’t work. You’ll get scanned with a heat signature in the hold and they’ll suck out all the oxygen.”

“Shit—” Nyx jumped up from the bed, making for the hidden camera.

“Don’t destroy the bird!” Ariadne said, frantic. “It’s the only way I can contact you.”

“Who—” She glared at the courtesan. “Rhea, you told me there was no camera in that stupid thing.”