They seem to be watching us now as Jeran and I hide in silence within the enormous, arching ribs of the Seven Sisters. According to its plaque, this distinctive sculpture had once been part of the structural support of Senate Hill in Tanapeg’s capital. The shadows it casts are so wide that we are able to melt entirely into the darkness—but even then, I can almost feel the ragged breaths of this building fragment, the sound frothy with blood, mingling eventually with the awakened other voice in my mind.

In reality, Tanapeg’s collapse had been one of the most gruesome massacres in history. They don’t teach you that in school though. Your textbook had made it sound romantic, of their citizens waving Karensan flags from bridges as your soldiers marched through the gates of their capital. That is not what happened.

It is easy to bend the truth when you are the truth.

The bloody history of these sculptures stretches particularly long across the thoroughfare tonight. Even without the surge of Talin’s emotions, I would have known about today’s attempt on the Premier’s life. People flooded major intersections in the city. Jeran and I had been forced to lie low, hiding in alleys as extra troops flooded the streets to clear out the people. Even as a young soldier doing simple assignments throughout the city, I’d never seen unrest as sharp as that.

From where we hide, I can see the broken limbs. When Talin and I agreed to meet here, we had no idea the city would be thrown into this kind of chaos. A pang of worry pierces through me as I wonder if she can still show up.

I’ve almost given up on her appearing when I sense her coming down the thoroughfare. Her heartbeat pulsing through our bond strengthens, a gradual, familiar pattern that conjures in my mind the image of Talin’s figure.

Jeran is the first to signal. From his post high up on the sculpture, I see his silhouette ripple—almost invisible—within the ribs’ shadows. He straightens from his crouch and looks down at me, then lifts two fingers east.

I turn and see her coming.

Talin has always been graceful, in the deadly way that all Strikers I’ve known are, but now her movements have an eerie, superhuman quality to them. Her walk is just a little too fast to seem natural, and her gait is a little too smooth to match it. The way she watches the world around her is a little too keen. I stare at her as she cuts her way through the shadows darkening the thoroughfare, inconspicuous to anyone except those who know she’s coming.

The unsettling way she moves is like staring back at yourself. You’re the same kind of monster now.

Through our bond, the faint trickle of her emotions is tense, held so tightly around her that I can barely tell what they are.

It suddenly occurs to me that this must be how she’s been for the past six months—holding her emotions close in an attempt to keep Constantine from sensing them, hiding her feelings so that the Federation can’t use them against her, hiding herself from me in an attempt to protect us.