“Nothing like putting on your holy best to order genocide,” Jax muttered.

Another man grunted a laugh. He looked like one of the dockworkers, metal toggles clasping the braids in his long peppery-brown beard. “Bet that sparkly robe of his costs more than I’d make in a lifetime.”

“It’s easy to be rich when you don’t pay your army,” replied a woman at the table. She was about Siege’s age, with long auburn hair and a cheek implant. “Those Messiers give me the chills, and he just keeps getting more of them.”

An older gentleman who reminded Robb of Wick, with a mechanical leg and a bad eye, shot down the rest of his whiskey before he said, “Rumor is he’s takin’ criminals he catches up to the dreadnought and changin’ them.”

“Come on, Mirek, you know those rumors are bullshit,” said the woman. She tapped her cards on the table.

“It’d be just punishment if it were true,” added a young man with shaggy brown hair and a scruffy beard. Van—or at least he looked like a Van. Robb hadn’t liked him since the beginning of the game. He hid cards under his patched-up brown leather coat, not that it had helped his losing hand. “I wonder what a star-kisser would look like as a Metal. Would you still sparkle?”

Star-kisser—slang for the Solani people like Jax. Robb squeezed his forearm tightly to keep his mechanical arm still. He wouldn’t mind punching this son of a bitch in the face one good time.

Jax fixed his expressive mouth into a thin, hard line. “I wouldn’t know. Though if he tried to come for me, I’d tell him where he could stick his punishment.”

No one knew that the Emperor used to be their friend—or even that he was a Metal, since he looked so human—and Robb wasn’t sure if Jax’s threat was real, or if he was just playing the part. Maybe a little of both. Jax had known D09 as long as he’d known Ana. Robb was sure there’d been a lot of history between them, but Jax had never grieved when Di was taken—not like Ana had. Did he just not care? He doubted that, and Jax did seem rather angry.

“You don’t like our Emperor, star-kisser?” taunted the man. “You know that’s treason.”

“And you clearly don’t understand what treason is,” Jax replied dryly, taking two sevens out of Robb’s hand and placing them facedown in the middle of the table. “Or how to play cards.”

“Two sevens,” Robb added for him, and the game went on.

The bearded man named Van tossed down two fives and asked, “Why don’t you like our Emperor?”

“Goddess.” Jax sighed, a muscle in his jaw feathering. “Can’t I just not like gingers?”

“You know what I meant,” the man spat.

“Maybe beat me in a card game and I’ll give you an answer,” Jax replied, grabbing the last two cards in Robb’s hand and sliding them down onto the table. “Two queens.”