MASON: “This technology, there’s no denying it was designed for killing?”

Voltaire: “Among other things, Caesar.”

MASON: “Killing people.”

Voltaire: “It has lethal and nonlethal applications, Caesar.”

MASON: “And it’s not just one person’s work, there was industry behind this, science, many planners.”

Voltaire: “Yes, Caesar.”

MASON: “Many people were involved. A large conspiracy.”

Voltaire: “It is a prototype, Caesar. Most likely never intended for field use.”

MASON: “The theft was thirteen years ago—it’s held up well for a prototype.”

Voltaire: “It was made well.”

MASON: “Were others made?”

Voltaire: “If so, they have not been used.”

MASON: “You’re sure?”

Voltaire: “Yes, Caesar.”

MASON: “You know that, if it came out that a Hive had developed technology like this, the public backlash would be incalculable.”

Voltaire: “Likely so, Caesar.”

MASON: “Deadly technology.”

Voltaire: “Yes, Caesar.”

MASON: “Just like the Canner Device.”

Voltaire: “… The public might react similarly to the two, yes.”

MASON: “The two have the same purpose.”

Voltaire: “Likely not, Caesar. I only recovered the Traceshifter Artifact an hour ago, but it is already clear its powers are not intended for combat. It may be an assassin’s tool, or forged for some larger cursecraft: espionage, mass-scrying, surveillance.”

MASON: “This is worse than the Canner Device, then. This is for killing.”

Voltaire: “For war, Caesar. Offense and defense. If the Canner Device is an assassin’s tool, a saboteur’s, this is a soldier’s.”

“Give it back!” I screamed across the chamber. “Give it back! You don’t need it! The Utopians have already surrendered! They’ve given you two of their best as hostages! They won’t resist you, they can’t! Whatever you’ve asked of them they’ve given. You don’t need blackmail!”

Madame’s smile was enough to make Saladin shudder, but MASON was worse, storming toward us from the far side of the room with the coat in his arms, so the program in its Griffincloth transformed the Emperor’s gray Eighteenth-Century uniform to a different uniform, sleek modern panels of black and gray, with the Masonic sigil on the breast in porphyry purple, like old blood. “This was Apollo’s coat!” He thrust it forward, the computers making his hard hands bloodstained. “I’d know it anywhere.”

“Yes, Caesar, it’s Apollo’s.”

“You said you didn’t have it!” His limp was back, that limp that stays only in Caesar’s mind, and worse than I had ever seen.

“I didn’t have it, Caesar. Saladin di—”

His fist slammed my cheek against the bars hard enough to splash blood on Saladin’s cheek. “What was Apollo doing? There are more than twenty weapons inside this, a third of them lethal!” He let the coat fall open, so all could see the pockets and slots within, the glint of handles. “Do you have any idea how devastating this could be if it fell into the wrong hands? Did Apollo?”

I licked my blood from Saladin’s cheek without thinking. “Of course we did.”

Caesar was shaking. “I couldn’t protect the Utopians if this came out. No one could! Why? Why did Apollo make it?”