“So, this is what you do all day,” Sevro says.
“Ah, nothing like sarcasm from uninvited guests,” Quick replies. “You know, with that beard you truly do look like your father, Sevro. For your own safety, please refrain from any sort of violence. I didn’t have to let you two aboard. Remember that.”
“I’m sure you’ll remind us a few more times,” Sevro says. “When you come down from the cross.”
Matteo and I share a smile. Sevro and Quick have always been bastards to one another, but Quick puts up with Sevro like he’s his black sheep son. He knew Fitchner since Sevro was a baby, and watched him grow up from afar. Sevro’s always carried a chip on his shoulder for the Silver. Like he thinks it’s unfair that the money lived and the man who did all the work, his father, died.
He’s not wrong, but I think he fails to notice how no one else gets away with talking to Quicksilver quite like he does.
Quicksilver speeds up the scene, bored. The mob flows past and then the streets and people and their song dissolve into digital smoke. His slippers dim and he descends to the floor.
Quick’s study is expansive but lightly furnished. The floor is green stone. A nearly opaque window looks out at a garden. The rest of the walls are filled with screens relaying raw data. Except for one behind the desk. That wall is filled with relics of the past. Amidst ancient spears and tablets are a few items I recognize, including a black helmet with a starburst crest.
Quicksilver rubs his mysterious ring with its Gold eyeball at its center, the one he’s worn since I first met him. I let him look me over.
If Sevro’s his black sheep, I’m his golden son.
“Darrow.” He reaches up and grips both my arms. “My boy. Gods. Mercury.” He breathes out. “I’m sorry about your troops. They were patriots, all. Heroes. The mob doesn’t deserve their sacrifice. But where have you been?”
Matteo clarifies. “We’ve watched theArchimedesapproach since you entered the Belt.” I turn. They must have very long eyes. “And we know Kavax sent Cassius with that fresh hull to help you escape Mercury, but where have you been in the time between?”
“I was marooned on one of the Marchers,” I say.
“Icarus Base?” Quicksilver guffaws. “Really? Gods, makes me nostalgic. Remember when we sent teams to build the damn thing, Matteo?”
“How could I not? You’d rove the penthouse at all hours raving that Fitchner was too bold. That the Votum would see the construction skiffs and rat us out to the Praetorians.”
“Ah, the old days.” Quicksilver’s eyes twinkle. “That was truly a thrill. Spartan base, though. Couldn’t have been pleasant.”
“It was…educational,” I say.
“And what is it that you learned?”
“Perspective.”
“Perspective, eh? You know, I once overheard Magnus au Grimmus tell your old companion Roque that losing an army will either make a man a philosopher or a suicide. Glad you chose differently than Fabii.”
“After that it was the Dockyards of Venus.”
Quicksilver and Matteo look at each other and laugh. “That was you?”
“Technically, it was him.” I nod to Sevro.
They frown. So, they don’t know about the auction. Sevro looks at me, and it’s clear he doesn’t want them to. He’s embarrassed. “If you knew we were coming, then you probably know why we’re here. Virginia did send five other ships. Did any of them make it?”
“No. But your wife’s agent has been very clear with Matteo. She thinks the Republic’s salvation lies here with us,” Quicksilver says.
“Does it?” I look around the room. The data might as well be streaming by in ancient Mandarin. Can’t make heads or tails out of it, but the length of our journey with Matteo on the lift to Quicksilver’s study was long enough for me to guess he’s hollowed out the entirety of the asteroid. A herculean effort. Maybe Virginia was right after all, and the asteroid is filled with dockyards and new warships. Yet a feeling is telling me it’s housing something else. But what?
“Come,” Quicksilver says. “Let’s sit if we’re going to get mad at each other.”
He takes us to a sunken sitting room with cushions arrayed on the floor and, dripping from the ceiling, a Neptunian rain column. It is shaped like a teardrop made from the diamonds that rain down on that distant sphere. Sevro doesn’t sit on the cushions with the rest of us. He perches on the rim of the sitting room and keeps watch.
“Sevro, come sit with us,” says Quicksilver. “Whatever happened to you on Luna wasn’t my fault. You know that. We’re friends, you and I. Let’s sit and talk like it.” Sevro gives him the crux. Quick shoots me a look of concern. “Right. Well. You’ve had a hard run, lad. A hard run. Act as you like. You’re entitled to it.” Mischief enters his eyes. “That’s the way in Virginia’s Republic, is it not?”
“If anything, she’s shown restraint,” I say. “Especially with you.”
“Please. If she listened to me, the Vox would have been smashed years ago. Had she treated them with as firm a hand as she dealt with my Silvers, well the Society would be ashes. And she wouldn’t have had to send her husband here to drag me back to the slaughterhouse.”
