"Don't wear it if you don't want to," Marcus says.He sounds almost as frustrated as I feel.We're both tiptoeing around one another, because how can I trust that Marcus doesn't have some cruel plan for me?
“Marcus, you’re working with Selene,” I point out.“I had to kneel beside you yesterday while she sat next to you and we watched Domitian die.If you’re standing beside her,workingbeside her, then all I can ever be to you is your prisoner.I’m just the gift she gave you for being on her side.”
Marcus looks exasperated.“You really think I’m on Selene’s side?You think I want her to win in all of this?”
“I think you’re setting yourself up to profit no matter who wins,” I guess, because that’s what Marcusdoes.He arranges for himself to be on the winning side.He joined the Republic when it rose, because that let him rise to a position of power as a senator.He sided with Domitian but then betrayed him, and maybe that was because he wanted to stop the return of the empire or maybe it was just because he thought it was obvious Domitian wouldn’t win.Then he started to run death matches below the city streets, fueling the corruption of the city even as he took control of more of it.
“Is that really what you think of me?”Marcus says.
“You’ve supported the violence of the games,” I reply.“You’ve built up the corruption of the city.You voted for my guilt in my trial!”
Marcus hesitates and then stands with a sigh."Come with me, Lyra."
I frown, "Why.Where are-"
“Just come with me.Trust me for once, Lyra.”
I don't really have a choice, even after all the times Marcus has betrayed me.I'm his prisoner, after all.I stand and follow Marcus through his villa, as he leads the way down into a basement, to a door that's both solid-looking and securely locked.
He takes out a key, unlocking it with a sharp click.My worries are only growing as he does it, because I don’t know what this is.For all I know, it could be a cell he’s had built to keep me in if I don’t cooperate.It could be a space for him to punish me until I’m broken and compliant.
Instead, though, it’s a space where papers are piled high on a marble table, and where scrolls are set in niches around the walls.
Marcus carefully shuts the door behind us.“I’m fitting in with Selene’s schemes because it’s the best way I can think of to stop her.”
He’s used that argument with me before.
“You’re only involved in the corruption of the city so you can bring it down in the future?”I say, because that’s what Marcus has told me, again and again.But after being told it so many times, how can I believe it.
“I’m working to take power away from Selenenow,” Marcus counters.He gestures to the papers.“Read them.See it for yourself.In the last few months, I’ve taken control of gangs that would otherwise have gone over to Selene.I’ve bribed officials who would otherwise have been corrupted by her.Selene has been trying to take absolute power in Aetheria.I’ve made sure that at leastsomeof the others here will be on my side.Ourside.”
I start to read, seeing Marcus’ careful records of bribes and secrets.They’re the kind of thing I’ve seen before, but now I can read his notes as well, marginalia that show more of his thought process.
Threatening to reveal Alvis’s secrets will stop him from supplying Selene’s guards with armor.
This makes three units of guards we can trust.
Which gladiators will fight on our side?
The notes reveal Marcus’ thinking in a way that was clearly never intended for anyone else to read.These seem to be his private thoughts, something I can trust far more than words that might just be intended to convince me.
I stare at Marcus, barely able to believe the confusing mix of emotions running through me.I’m still hurt by some of the things he’s done, but I feel a wave of relief, a hint of shame that I’ve mistrusted Marcus so thoroughly, a lingering sense that this might still be a trick and a deep pain that things ever got so bad between us.
“You’re really on the same side as me?”I ask.That’s the one thing I need to know, need to be able to trust.“But you let them throw me into the prison!”
“I couldn’t stop it,” Marcus says.“If I’d stood up to argue for you, you would still have lost, and I would have forfeited my position close to Selene.”
He moves around the table, putting his arms around me in a gesture of comfort that feels as though it has so much more emotion lurking within it.There has been so much between us in the past, and things are still so complicated.
“Do you know what it’s like, trying to fool a psychomancer?”Marcus says.“I have protections against her powers, but she can pick up the thoughts of anyone around me.Just by telling you all of this, I’m taking the risk that she’ll read my intentions from you.She’ll know now that I’m not her ally after all.”
I understand some of Marcus’ secrecy now.He’s been a double agent, all this time, so convincingly that he was prepared to see me imprisoned rather than let his deception slip.
“So all this time you’ve been preparing for the moment when she decides to declare herself empress?”I say.
Marcus nods.“And when she does, I’ll have everything we need in place to stop her, once and for all.Selene Ravenscroft isnotgoing to steal Aetheria.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
