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Water ran in the black marble bathroom, instantly hot, another obscenity. He came back with a towel soaked warm and wrung out, and he cleaned me with it, slow passes over my stomach, between my thighs, along the crease where the boot met skin. He took one of the pillows and wedged it under the boot, lifting the leg, and then went over the seals along the casing with his thumb, one by one.

He came back from the bar with a liter of water and a heavy crystal glass holding two fingers of something amber.

“Drink,” he said, and watched me do it. Then he folded himself against the headboard and we passed the glass between us, one swallow at a time. It burned slow and tasted of smoke and oak, the first thing either of us had ever drunk that wasn’t issued.

I pulled the duvet up over us and Felix turned in my arms until his back rested against my chest, his legs threaded through mine, careful of the boot even half asleep, and I laid my hand flat over his heart. It beat slow and even, performing for no one.

We were in the belly of the beast. The Director was watching. Anatol was plotting. The season started in two days, and it was going to be a bloodbath.

But I knew one thing for sure. They could try to break us. They could try to kill us. But they were never going to separate us again.

In the boiler room I had held him and held the watch. There was no watch to keep tonight.

I closed my eyes and slept.

EPILOGUE

FELIX

When the season began, I had looked down at the Academy and seen a kingdom I had to conquer. Now I looked down and saw a graveyard I had barely survived.

I leaned against the glass panels of the penthouse balcony. The morning sun cut through the smog of the Capital, bathing the Spire in a harsh unforgiving light. Below, the training fields were empty green squares, silent, waiting for the next batch of recruits to be fed into the grinder.

I took a sip of black coffee. Real coffee, not the synthetic stimulant sludge from the dispensers. It tasted bitter and rich.

“You’re brooding,” a voice rumbled behind me.

Warm arms wrapped around my waist. Leander pulled me back against his chest, burying his face in the crook of my neck, smelling of sleep and the sandalwood soap he had used.

“I’m thinking,” I corrected him, leaning into his weight.

“Dangerous habit.” He kissed the sensitive skin under my ear, right over the fading bruise. “Come back to bed. We have the day off.”

“Tegula gave us a day off?”

“Tegula is terrified of us now,” Leander murmured, his hands sliding under my t-shirt to rest on my stomach. “He thinks if he pushes us too hard, we’ll start another riot.”

A smile cut across my mouth. The team slot was only part of it. The leverage was the real prize.

I looked down at the transport bay far below. A heavy armored truck idled at the gates, flanked by security droids.

“Look,” I said.

Leander rested his chin on my shoulder, following my gaze.

Two guards were dragging a man toward the truck. He was struggling, but the resistance was weak. He wasn’t wearing the neon green of a keeper anymore. He was wearing the gray rags of a prisoner.

“They’re moving Anatol,” Leander said. There was no pity in his voice. “The Holding Pen.”

“He lost his value,” I said. “He tried to play the game and he lost. Now he gets to rot with the Reserves until he claws his way back or dies trying.”

It was a grim reminder. We were safe in the penthouse today, but the drop to the bottom was always waiting.

A loud thump came from the balcony next door. I startled, spilling a drop of coffee on my hand.

The suites in the Spire were separated, but the balconies were open, divided only by a low railing.

A figure with pink hair sat on the rail, legs dangling over the dizzying drop to the street below. He wore the white and gold uniform but he customized it: the sleeves ripped off, a smiley face drawn on the knee of his shorts in black marker.