Guilt drove my gaze as far from my writing desk as possible. “I should see who the judges are.”

“Mycroft…”

“Did you see Heloïse’s report? Cook threw everything behind trying to get a Nurturist in the Cousin judging slot, and now it’ll come to nothing.”

“Mycroft…”

“MASON must have planned carefully too, so—Xiaoliu Guildbreaker!”

It was Xiaoliu who mounted the bench first, his jaw set, cheeks afire with passion, resolution, pride, the opposite of the leeching lifelessness that illness brings. When the athletes take the field in Esperanza, they will flush so.

What? No. Surely even thy incestuous government must acknowledge bias here. A judge who is married to the primary investigator, on whose word so much evidence relies?

Ah, but we need that bias, reader. This Masonic judge must face the Mycroft “Martin” Guildbreaker, Familiaris, Nepos, bearer of Imperium Vicarii, he who will be Emperor should the Addressee refuse. No Familiaris—indeed, no Mason—is better prepared to doubt Martin Guildbreaker’s word than the spouse who knows Martin’s weakness in the face of cauliflower, and watches his sleep-dazed shuffle as he hunts for his shoes in the morning. Besides, by this appointment clever MASON has snuck a child of the Chinese nation-strat onto the bench, doing what he can to give the three accused Hives some voice.

“Mycroft.” Apollo’s voice was gentle in my ear, like summer wind. Was he behind me now? “You have to tell the truth about me.”

I didn’t turn. “I don’t know this Graylaw. Sithembile Creswell-Stead. No famous cases. A merit appointment, then. How marvelously uncorrupt.”

“I know what you’re thinking. You want your history to tell the truth about the Mardi bash’ without telling anyone I set out to start my own war.”

“I should listen to the judges’ opening remarks.”

“You’re willing to hurt the Alien by telling the whole world that they think they are a God, but you’re not willing to tell the truth about me?”

What else could Apollo call Him, reader? Utopia’s title, the truest, noblest title any power ever gave: the Alien.

There was a taste in my mouth, a meat taste. “Apollo…”

“You think the truth will make people fear Utopia?”

“Xiaoliu’s talking about precedent, I want to listen.”

“You think it’ll make them blame Utopia?”

“This is important. The tone of the trial—”