“There’s one problem,” I sign to Raina. “You can break down my link to Constantine all you want—but if Constantine has my mother under his control, I won’t make a move against him. I can’t.” I glance at the mayor. “Can you get to her? Can you hide her away on your estate?”

The mayor tightens her lips. “I can’t do that, I’m afraid,” she replies. “All our plans work under the assumption that Constantine trusts Raina and me. He’s known me all his life, and sees me as something of an aunt. Raina de Balman has overseen his entire scientific campaign for his military conquests. We are two of his closest advisors. But if I suddenly request to keep your mother on my estate, he will immediately suspect us. We can’t risk it. I can’t keep your mother longer than Constantine wants her there.”

I narrow my eyes at them. “If you don’t help her, I won’t help you.”

“All of us have something significant to lose in this,” the mayor tells me, her gaze piercing mine.

Raina holds up her hands. “We didn’t say we wouldn’t help her.” Then she leans over the table and touches one of my hands with hers.

The walls in me go up, hiding my emotions behind their steel, and I pull my hand firmly away.

Raina fixes a steady gaze on me, unfazed. “I know how you feel. My husband and son need to escape the capital before Constantine’s toppling too. I give you my word, Talin Kanami—if you promise to aid us in this, I promise we will get your mother to safety.”

“Swear it,” I sign, my movements slow and deliberate.

“I swear it.”

My eyes go to the mayor. She nods once at me, and I recall the sympathy she’d had in her eyes when she’d told me to go see my mother yesterday morning.

“I swear it,” the mayor repeats.

Something is shifting under the sands of the Federation, weakening its foundations, and when it falls, it might take us all down with it. It’s likely that none of us will survive any of this. It’s even likely that somehow, in spite of Raina’s best efforts, Constantine has sensed the lurch of my feelings during this meeting and has already sent guards for me. We will be operating under constant fear of discovery. Of death.

And yet, here we are. We may all have something to lose, but we have everything to gain. For Raina, it’s freedom for herself and her family. For Mayor Elland, perhaps it’s revenge for the loss of a love.

And for me? Justice. For Basea, for Mara, for my mother. For myself.

I find myself looking back and forth between these two powerful women, united in spite of the tensions between them, in spite of everything they could lose.

And I find myself nodding at them.

17

RED

The celebrations in the city go late, but some hours after midnight, everything finally settles down, and Jeran and I find ourselves squeezing into a space under a bridge not far from the arena. Along the horizon, I can see a little sliver of the National Museum’s silhouette, stark and abrupt against the sky.