They passed an eight-foot icon of him, gazing down his aquiline nose at his subjects as they scurried through the dusk. His eyes shone like coins. He was even paler than his sister, his skin cream against his platinum hair. If these icons had bothered with accuracy, his hands would be covered in blood rather than so white and clean.

He’d once tried and failed to murder Clo. The memories of Jurran swirled up like a murky whirlpool. Her throat closed. Dinnae think of Briggs. Dinnae think ’bout warm blood freezing on the hangar floor. Dinnae think of those months on Fortuna. No.

A few gerulae emerged from the buildings to scrub the already-spotless icon. Clo had only seen them from afar; they weren’t common on backwater planets. Gerulae were convicted criminals who had been reprogrammed so extensively by the Oracle that they no longer had thoughts of their own. They existed as drudges, performing menial work throughout the Tholosian empire.

There were other classes of cohorts; the aedifex were the architects and makers of the Empire. Opifex were the artisans and craftsmen, including courtesans. Militus were soldiers, commanders, killers. Servitors for servants. Clo had found it deeply unsettling when she’d first realized just how deeply the Empire engineered people down through their bones.

Tholosian propaganda claimed the gerulae class was a second chance for those convicted of the petty crime of acting against their initial birth programming. Sometimes, it was for something as little as refusing a superior, or stealing food when hungry. Clo was one of the few born without an implant. If she’d been caught thieving as a child, they’d likely have just killed her. Maybe that would have been a kinder fate.

“Clo.” Eris’s voice startled her. “Come on.”

Eris ignored the gerulae, as if they were no more interesting than the stone behind them. She wore a long hooded coat to cover her concealed weapons. It must have been boiling. Her hair stuck to her temples with sweat, but otherwise, she seemed unfazed by the planet and the Tholosian propaganda swirling around them in the haze.

Clo resisted the urge to take another second and spit at Damocles’s feet. She passed Eris, letting nothing show on her face.

“You all right?” Eris asked.

“Fine. Just some memories best left forgotten.”

“I have plenty of those.” Eris reached out, softly grasping Clo’s shoulder. “The sooner we’re done, the sooner we’re gone. I have a bottle of brandy back at base with our name on it.”

Clo nodded, one hand straying to the small of her back.

The factory wasn’t far from the city center. Plumes of blue smoke rose above the streets of Alina. They passed the market, and the air filled with the scent of ginger and other spices. Clo’s mouth watered. After a childhood of stolen scraps or bog berries foraged in the marshlands, she was always hungry.