I swallow hard and hope he doesn’t notice. My fear for him cannot be construed as anything but professional. “Then we’ll execute you first, say you ran off and got shot for deserting. Eastree can falsify the documents like she does with other assets. And besides, it’s high time we moved you anyways.”

“Do you have any idea where that might be?”

“You’ll be going to Trial, across the border. That shouldn’t be too difficult for someone with your skills.”

“I’m not invincible. I can’t jump hundreds of miles, or even, well, navigate myself that far. Can you?” he mumbles.

I have to smile. Crance should work. “I think I can secure you a map and a guide.”

“You’re not coming?” I tell myself I’m imagining the disappointment in his voice.

“I have other business to handle first. Careful,” I add, noting a cluster of officers up ahead. Shade’s arm tightens on mine, pulling me closer. He’ll jump if he has to, and I’ll get sick all over my boots again.

“Try not to make me sick this time,” I grumble, drawing his crooked grin.

But there’s no need for his trepidation. The officers are focused elsewhere, on a cracked video screen, likely the only one in the Red market. Used for official broadcasts, but there isn’t anything official about what they’re watching.

“Forgot Queenstrial was today,” one of them says, leaning forward to squint at the picture. It blurs occasionally. “Couldn’t get a better set for us, eh, Marcos?”

Marcos flushes gray, annoyed. “This is Red sector, what did you expect? You’re welcome to go back to rounds if this doesn’t satisfy!”

Queenstrial. I remember something about the word. In the briefing on Norta, the packet of cobbled-together information the Colonel made me read before I was sent here. Something about princes—choosing brides, maybe. I wrinkle my nose at the idea, but somehow I can’t tear my eyes away from the screen as we get closer and closer.

On it, a girl in black leather demonstrates her storied abilities. Magnetron, I realize as she manipulates the metal of whatever arena she’s been dropped into.

Then a flash of red drops across the screen, landing hard against the electric shield separating the magnetron girl from the rest of the Silver elite watching her display.

The officers gasp in unison. One of them even turns away. “I don’t want to see this,” he groans, as if he’s about to be sick.

Shade is rooted to the spot, his eyes hard on the screen, watching the red blotch. His grip tightens on me, forcing me to look. The blotch has a face. His sister.

Mare Barrow.

He goes cold against me as the lightning swallows her whole.

“It should have killed her.”

Shade’s hands are shaking and he has to crouch in the alley to keep the rest from following suit. I drop to my knees next to him, one hand on his shivering arm.

“It should have killed her,” he says again, his eyes wide and hollow.