Her voice is cool and controlled. Emotionless. But the pitch of it is different. She has an accent. Italian? So, she was hiding that too.

“Ya gotta be kiddin me!” Vidhan roars. “You speak?”

“Never heard of subterfuge?” she says. “Misdirection?”

I stare at her in mounting anger and Gabe’s words come crashing back: These are dark times….There are spies everywhere….The Collective has been infiltrated in almost every part of every world.

I know what this is. I know what it means.

Betrayal.

I open my mouth to speak, but I can’t. I feel like throwing up. Vidhan stands clumsily, holding his side.

“But Kuji…” His voice is breaking. He glares at Akuji, who watches him warily, but I can see she’s reached the same conclusion I have: he won’t be able to muster any of his usual speed. And when I see Vidhan’s short-blade knife tucked into her belt alongside the fighting sticks, I realise what happened.

“You did this,” I say. “You ambushed Vidhan.”

She looks at me evenly. She says nothing.

“You sold us out!” Vidhan cries. “You’re a bloody spy.” His voice is hoarse, thick with pain. “Chrissakes, Kuji. We’re mates.”

“Nothing personal, Vidhan,” she says. “That is how it goes in the multiverse. Some will survive. Others…they will not.”

And I think: If she’s capable of this, what else has she done? I remember his voice, trying to reach me across the ether. Then fading away.

“Where is he?” I demand. “Where’s Malik?”

“Dead,” Akuji says.

Vidhan makes a choking sound in his throat. I feel cold. Numb.

“No. You’re lying,” I tell her.

“Am I?”

“I’d know if he was dead. I’d feel it.”

“Do not overplay your hand, Ana Moon. Sword or no sword, you are not born of any noble blood. You are nothing. A nobody. What have you done, what one thing, to earn such prominence?”

“Guess we’ll have to wait and see,” I curtly reply.

“We have seen already, no?” She looks at Graziani. “Rodolfo has pointed this out. How easily I routed you on that mountain in Tir.”

“But you saved me. Why not just kill me then?”

“Because, Ana Moon, you are no good to me dead. Not yet.”

“How could you do this?” I demand, feeling a rage build inside me. “Why?”

“My name,” Akuji says, watching us, “is Mara Graziani. You already know my brother, Rodolfo Graziani, the Marchese di Jöve.”

He smiles and tilts his head. “A pleasure,” he says.

“But,” Vidhan says. “Akuji…it’s—”