“You will be paired with 1,” Nashira said to me. “The two of you will go with Arcturus. Situla will take 30 and 12.”

David emerged from behind the drapes, wearing trousers, boots, and a lightweight vest of body armor. The sight of him made me start. He looked exactly like the Overseer on the night he shot me.

“Evening, 40,” he said.

I kept my mouth shut. David smiled and shook his head, as if I were an amusing child. An amaurotic approached me. “Your clothes.”

“Thank you.”

Without looking at David, I took my bundle to the drapes. Behind them was a tent, a dressing room of sorts. I shucked my uniform and donned the new one: first a long-sleeved red shirt, then the armor—marked with the red anchor, like the gilet—and a black jacket with a red band on one sleeve. Next came glovelettes and trousers, both made of a flexible black fabric, and my sturdy leather boots. I could run, climb, fight in this attire. There was a syringe of Adrenaline in the jacket—and a flux gun. For hunting voyants.

Once I was kitted out, I returned to where the other three humans had gathered. Carl gave me a smile.

“Hello, 40.”

“Carl,” I said.

“How are you finding your new tunic?”

“It fits, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, I mean, how are you finding being a red-jacket?”

All three of them were staring at me now. “Great,” I said, after a pause.

Carl nodded. “It is great. Maybe they were right to give you so many privileges.”

“Or maybe they were wrong,” 30 said, pulling her thick hair from her collar. She was taller than me, wide in the hips and shoulders. “We’ll find out on the streets.”

I took another look at 30. From her aura, I guessed she was probably a soothsayer—but a less common one, maybe a type of cleromancer. Not particularly rare. She must have clawed her way up the ranks.

“Yes,” I said. “We will.”

She sniffed.

Warden’s return had a stunning effect on 30’s demeanor. She bobbed a delicate little curtsy, murmuring “blood-consort.” At her side, Carl swept into a bow. I just stood there with my arms crossed. Warden glanced at his fan club, but didn’t acknowledge either of their tributes. Instead he looked across the room—at me. 30 looked chagrined. Poor old 30.

New clothes had transformed my keeper. In place of the old-fashioned Rephaite regalia, he wore the clothes of a wealthy Scion denizen, the sort no clever thief would try to fine-wire.

“You will be taken to I Cohort in two collection vehicles,” Nashira said. “Traffic will be cleared for you. You are expected to return here before the day-bell rings.”

We four humans nodded. Warden shrugged on his coat and turned toward the door. “XX-40, XX-1,” he called.