“It’s not something you volunteer for,” Niko said. “And they don’t tell you much about it when you join the Hive Mind. People know what the original Hive Mind is—a collective created by ancient technology—so ancient we don’t even know whether it was science or magic, centuries ago, that was supposed to collect the greatest intellects and blend them, after death. At least in theory. I suspect that the first one simply was everyone caught in the vicinity at the time that it was activated. Since then, yes, they say that they select only the best and wisest, but when you look to see who is absorbed, it seems the pattern is different. It’s as though it’s the troublemakers getting absorbed. Or made quiet, at any rate.”

She shrugged. “But us, we move with purpose. And yours right now—”

“My fingers hurt,” Atlanta said quickly.

Niko said nothing, just looked at her silently. The look conveyed a great deal about the duties of an empress, or at least Atlanta could not help but read it that way. With a sigh, she sat down, waiting for the others to join her as Niko began the count.

18

They knew that the next time they saw Tubal Last, at least one of them would die, but they could not predict when.

Turo came and took Talon and Thorn. Less than an hour later, he returned a shaken Talon. Turo beckoned to Gio.

Niko said urgently, “Did he hurt you?”

Talon shuddered and shook himself the way he would have in lion form. His golden skin looked pale, washed out. “No,” he said faintly, “he didn’t hurt either of us, but he showed us how he intends to do it when the time comes.”

He told them how Tubal had taken them to the bed of knives and salt and laid some other slave down in it so both could witness what would happen to them. He did not say much beyond that, nor did they ask for details.

“But where is Thorn?” Dabry said.

Talon glanced around himself, as though noticing his twin’s absence for the first time. “I don’t know,” he stammered. He looked at Niko directly. “What does it mean?”

“We have no way of knowing,” she said gently, but her eyes, meeting Dabry’s, were troubled.

Turo returned Gio, who refused to answer the questions Talon hurled at him as he entered. The chimpanzee shook his head in answer when asked whether he’d seen the missing were-lion. He didn’t speak of what Tubal Last had shown him, but sat huddled in a corner of the room, flexing and unflexing his long-fingered hands as he stared down at them.

Skidoo offered him love. Last sneered and told her she would be stretched and dried on a rack over the course of months.