“I’m in the middle of a rescue, actually. While it is taking longer than expected, I’m optimistic with regards to its outcome.” I don’t laugh. “All right, I’m lying. They left some Black Owls on theArchimedesand now I have a black spot on my pride and a very black eye.” He winces. “The Owls are far better at sneaking than fighting Obsidians, I’ll tell you that.” He scratches his beard and ponders for a moment. “Are we all going to die?”
A cheer from the Daughters in the cavern rattles the cell.
“Yes,” Diomedes says.
“Probably,” I correct, annoyed at the man’s pessimism.
“You talked forever,” Diomedes mutters at me. “And looked weak.”
“You basically told them to slag off and shoot you,” I snap.
The Daughters cheer in the cavern again.
“Apparently you both were terrible.” Cassius leans back. “What a waste of talent. Honestly, it’s like a bad joke. We might be the best threerazormasters to share a room in the last sixty years, and it’s a prison!Andnot one of us was taken in a straight fight.” Diomedes and I look at each other, each wondering about the other’s claim to the title of master. “Oh, that’s right. You two haven’t seen each other fight—”
“Cassius?” I say.
He perks up. “Yes?”
“Shut up,” Diomedes says.
“My goodmen, it’s uncivilized to do anything but laugh in the face of death. Why do you think I’m always so jaunty these days?” Cassius grins when a third cheer comes, the loudest of all. “That must have been for my sentence.” I roll my eyes. “Come, come, Darrow, am I not allowed to be the best at anything?”
“Fine. You can be the most despised,” I say.
“Thank you, contrition at last.”
Even Cassius’s false bravado thins and he goes silent after a while. He doesn’t ask, but we all wonder what’s taking the Daughters so long.
It’s Diomedes who breaks the silence. “I did not need you to speak for me,” he says.
“What?”
“You impugned my honor,” he says.
I stare at him. After a moment of anger at the man’s unbelievable pride, I shake my head and look away. “Why did you?” he asks.
“Lives. Saved,” I reply, mocking his laconism.
Cassius snorts a laugh. Diomedes is not amused.
I take Pax’s key from under my shirt and hold it between my hands. “It’s not for the cell,” Cassius says when Diomedes perks up at the key. I close my eyes and send a prayer to Pax across the void. I’ll not get my book or letter, whatever it is, to him now. But maybe Sevro will, and maybe he’ll hear this prayer and know that I thought of him in the end.
“It was the Cestus,” Diomedes says. I look up from my prayer. He’s staring at the floor. “Kalyke.”
I sit straighter and glance at Cassius. “Go on,” Cassius says.
“Helios had only just returned from a scouting mission,” Diomedes says as if sharing the information is causing him physical pain. “He boarded and I transferred the Cestus to him. Only it was not Helios. It was an imposter with Helios’s limbs carved onto him. The imposter must have used the Cestus to fire on our own fleet.”
“An imposter?” I ask.
“Yes.” Diomedes’s eyes narrow, troubled by the memory. “His speech patterns and body mimicry were nearly perfect. Yet…I sensed something was amiss. The way he apportioned his weight as he walked…I could have stopped it. But I second-guessed myself. Was afraid I was wrong.” He snorts at himself. “That is why our armada is gone. I did not trust my instincts. You seem to have learned from your mistakes. So I will trust my instincts now.” He looks up with dark conviction. “I believe my uncle was that imposter. I believe Atlas au Raa is the Allfather of the Obsidians and that Fá is his creature. I believe this is repayment for our rebellion and that Atlas will not stop until all of the Rim is burning.” He considers. “Or starving.”
I stare at him.
Tension coils in my belly. It fits. It all fits. The unseen hand I felt. “Atlas was on the bridge of theDustmaker? In person? He’s in Ilium?”
Diomedes nods. “I did not see his face. I have no evidence. But yes.”
