“A brilliant man would have tried to break the codes, would have attempted escape. And you are a brilliant man, Quinten Case.”
“What I am,” Quinten said, “is a man who refuses to wear anyone’s leash. And what you are is a man who put his life in my hands. That was a very foolish decision.”
“A calculated risk,” Slater said. “I don’t fear you, Mr. Case.” He stood off the table, one hand still gripping the edge of it for balance. This body was shorter, but much, much stronger than Slater had ever been in his life.
“I am not done with you yet,” Slater said. “I know you have been scouring the Houses, looking for information on the Wings of Mercury, that lost experiment from more than two centuries ago. And I know you have found most of it. Most. There is more, a book of drawings and notes that once belonged to your grandmother, Lara Unger Case. The key to time.”
Quinten Case tried not to let his surprise show.
“Yes,” Slater said. “I know about the experiment. I know that in 1910, a scientist by the name of Case tried to stop time. I know the experiment failed and that it killed everyone within a fifty-mile radius. Except for twelve”—he tipped his head—“thirteen people, who fell into comas. Those thirteen survived the break in time and went on to become the galvanized. Immortal.”
“And I know you, Mr. Case, are unnaturally curious about what happened that day. What I do not know is why.”
“You will never know why if you don’t release me.”
“That is not possible,” Slater said. “We could both gain by helping each other.”
Quinten tightened his grip on the saw. “Only one of us will live long enough to gain anything from that experiment.”
“The galvanized do not die.”
“Not yet,” Quinten said. “But time will collect its due sooner than you think.” He tipped the syringe, thumb on the plunger. “Release me. Now.”
Slater Orange spoke one word:“Shandian.”
Electricity cut through the room in lightning strikes. It knocked out Quinten, who crumpled to the floor, twitching, and then lay still.
Fast, brutal, effective, and gone without a trace. It left Slater undamaged. Electricity could not harm galvanized. It was in their lifeblood. It, or some dark form of it, had given the galvanized life and reawakened them from their state of nonliving.
Slater made his way carefully over to the table where his old body lay. He considered it for a moment or two. He was surprised to feel anger at no longer owning it, anger at having been diminished in power even as he had gained physical prowess.
Galvanized were not human. But he refused to be thought of as property.
First, the body of Slater Orange must be transferred to a private, secure room, and left there to die. He had already taken care of the paperwork and contracts that would leave him, now Robert Twelfth, in charge of House Orange.
Slater walked to the door, gaining balance and confidence with each step. He would wash and dress and prepare himself to become the first immortal to rule.
20
When the Houses discovered the undead soldiers’ secret meetings, they were punished and tortured for treason and collusion. That was the last mistake the world made.—2099
—from the journals of L.U.C.
That man standing in front of me, the head of House Black, was the man who had sent people to murder my parents.
He might be the one who was holding my brother. Which meant he might be here to release him. Or to try to take me.
“Matilda Case.” Oscar motioned for me to step out of the elevator, which I did. “May I introduce to you John Black, head of House Black?”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Case.” John Black said with an accent that made me think of warmer climate.
He was taller than Oscar, built like a bulldog, and appeared to be in his early sixties. His brown hair was dusted with gray, cut short, and receding at the temples. A mustache curved downward to the edges of his mouth beneath a nose that looked like it’d been on the wrong side of a fist more than once.
The lines on his face and the hound-weary set of his eyes gave him the look of a man who drank his pain.
“Morning,” I said.
I glanced at Oscar for a clue. Was House Black here to negotiate my brother’s release? Or was this about my morning coffee and bone breaking?
