“You didn’t ask me to pledge to you,” Braids said.

“You’d have said no.”

Braids nodded once. “I would have.” He took Talon’s knife from his belt and held it out. “I’m guessing you want this back.”

Chapter 43 - Aria

Chapter 43

ARIA

Aria pulled her knees up. She’d woken hours ago in a cramped chamber, an acrid taste coating her tongue. A glove lay discarded in the corner. She’d watched the smudges of blood on the fingers fade from red to rust.

Her eye socket throbbed. They had taken her Smarteye while she was unconscious.

Aria didn’t care.

The wall in front of her had a thick black screen nearly as wide as the room itself. Aria waited for it to open. She knew who she’d see on the other side when it did, but she wasn’t afraid.

She’d survived the outside. She’d survived the Aether and cannibals and wolves. She knew how to love now, and how to let go. Whatever came next, she would survive it, too.

A soft crackling sound broke the room’s silence. Small speakers by the black screen buzzed softly. Aria shot to her feet, her hand aching for the weight of Talon’s knife. The screen parted, revealing a room behind thick glass. There were two men on the other side.

“Hello, Aria,” Consul Hess said, his small eyes pinching in amusement. “You can’t imagine how surprised I am to see you.” He dwarfed the chair on which he sat. Ward stood quiet and serious at his side, his brow wrinkled.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Consul Hess.

His words carried no tone of sympathy. She would never believe him anyway. He’d put her out to die.

“We viewed the ‘Songbird’ message from your mother,” he continued. He held her Smarteye in his palm. “You know, I was unaware of your unique genetic makeup when I put you outside? Lumina kept that hidden from all of us.”

Aria’s gaze snapped to the glass. She understood. They saw her as a diseased Savage. They didn’t want to breathe the same air she did.

“You have the Smarteye,” she said. “What do you want from me?”

Hess smiled. “I’ll get to that. You know what happened here in Bliss, don’t you? You saw it in your mother’s file.” He paused. “You had a taste of it yourself in Ag 6.”

She saw no point in lying. “An Aether strike and DLS,” she said.

“Yes, that’s right. A dual attack. External first. A storm weakens the Pod. Then internal, as the disease manifests. Your mother was among the first to study DLS. She was working toward a cure, along with many other scientists. But as you can see by what happened here, we don’t have an answer. And we may run out of time before we do.”