I wanted him dead. I should want him dead. I had the power, at my fingertips, to deny him the thing he needed most; to make him watch his own people die, helpless, the way I’d watched mine. Benny had been right; to destroy this Philosopher Stone would be justice. The ghost of Mara Zhu would be satisfied; even Indigo would accept it as his due, though he might kill me for it after.

Probably that was why he was telling me this now: to give me that choice.

My fingers relaxed on either side of the computer. I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d been gripping it until I’d let it go.

“There’s at least one Kystrene left,” I said, and turned around so that I could look at Indigo. I tried smiling at him; I could not quite manage it, not now, not after all this, but I tried. And it must have worked, at least a little bit, because something lightened around those dark-water eyes.

Metal sizzled and cracked. Beyond Indigo’s shoulder, at the far wall, I watched a glowing blade push itself through the wall.

Indigo was suddenly in front of me, crowding me back. He drew his own borrowed long knife, placing it and himself between me and the Philosopher Stone.

The glowing knife stuck through the wall curved as it carved, acrid metal sizzling. I watched a circle cut in the wall, edges glowing, and then that circle was kicked out to land solidly in the middle of the room, the wind of its landing blowing the dust aside to the far corners.

Number One stepped through the hole in the wall, collar-light blazing black, furious.

CHAPTER EIGHTY THREE:

Center of the Compass

One didn’t even spare me a glance, all of her thousand-year attention on Indigo. “Have you come to your senses yet, Shay?”

Indigo freed one hand from the hilt of his sword to tap out a response on his collar-light quickly, in ultraviolet.

“Speak aloud,” One said, grimly. She held only one of her two swords, and it was still glowing with heat. “I want the Kystrene to hear.” She did look at me, then, and her glance was venomous.

“Hey,” I said, “I understand more of the Light language than you think.”

“Sean, be quiet,” Indigo said.

“Did you teach him our language?” One asked. “Why; because he is Kystrene? I knew you were compromised on Kystrom and I hid it from the Ministerial Council for you. These things can take time to process. But here you are, compromised by a Kystrene boy.”

“I am helping our people,” Indigo said. “I will make sure they get the data.”

“And what is the cost?” One demanded, taking one step closer, her blade still glowing, her collar-light still brilliant black. “Don’t tell me this boy doesn’t demand a cost.”

Oh, don’t tell her, Indigo, I thought, but Indigo said, “The Republic gets a copy of the data as well.”

She shut her eyes for a moment. She was less terrifying with them closed, more human, tired. “This is your last chance, Shay,” she said. Shay, I realized: the transcription of the slow blossoming light and the dual throb like a heartbeat. Indigo’s real name. “I came alone because I wanted to persuade you back. We have known each other for hundreds of years; I trained you, I raised you.”