If a Jackal is caught in a trap, it will chew off its own leg. Who told me that?
The fire crackles between us. I would have expected Mustang to shift uncomfortably, but instead what I see from her is anger as the details are relayed. Pure anger. Her jaw flexes and her face loses a shade. I grip her hand beneath the blanket, but it does not grip back.
“How did you find all that out?” Pax rumbles.
Sevro taps one of his curved knives with a fingernail, allowing a soft ding into the night air. It echoes into the woods, bouncing off trees and returning to our ears like a lost phrase. Then I can hear nothing from the woods, nothing beyond the fire. My heart leaps into my throat and I catch Sevro’s eye. He’ll have to find Tactus.
A jamField envelopes us.
“Hello, children,” a voice says from the darkness. “Such a bright fire is dangerous at night. And you’re like little puppies, all snuggled together; no, don’t get up.” This voice is melodious. Frivolous. Eerie to hear after so many months of hardship. No one’s voice sounds like that. He strolls in lightly and plops down beside Pax. Apollo. This time he brought no bear, only a grand spear that drips purple sparks along its business end.
“Proctor Apollo, welcome,” I say. Sentinels perch above us in the trees, their arrows pointed at the Proctor. I wave the trap away and ask the Proctor why he is here, as if we’ve never met. His presence sends a very simple message: my friends are in danger.
“To tell you to return home, my dear nomads.” He opens up a flagon of wine and passes it around. No one drinks, except Sevro. He holds on to the flagon.
“Proctors aren’t supposed to interfere with things. It is in the rules,” Pax says in confusion. “By what right do you come here? This is dirty play.”
Mustang seconds his question.
The Aureate sighs, but before he can say anything, Sevro stands and belches. He begins walking off.
“Where are you going?” Apollo snaps. “Don’t walk away from me.”
“Going to piss. Drank all your wine. Rather I piss here?” He cocks his head and touches his small stomach. “Maybe shit, too.”
Apollo wrinkles his nose and looks back to us, dismissing Sevro.
“Influencing is hardly dirty play, my giant friend,” he explains. “I merely care for your well-being. I am here, after all, to guide you in your studies. It would be best for you all to return to the North, that is all. Better strategy, let’s say. Finish your battle there, consolidate your power, then expand out. It is the rules of war: Do not expose yourself when weak. Do not push your enemy to fight when you are inferior. You have no cavalry. No shelter. Meager weapons. You are not learning as you ought.”
His grin is welcoming. It slashes through his beautiful face like a crescent moon as he twirls the rings on his finger, waiting for our response.
“It is kind of you to consider our well-being,” Mustang replies in mocking highLingo. “I do say, very kind! Warms my bones. Paying special attention, no less, to the fact that you’re from another House. But tell me, does my Proctor know you are here? Does Mars’s?” She nods over to silent Milia. “Does Juno’s? Are you doing a naughtynaughty, good sir? If you’re not, then why the jamField? Or do others watch?”
Apollo’s eyes harden, though his smile remains.
“To be quite frank, your Proctors don’t know what you children are playing at. You had your chance, Virginia. You lost. Don’t allow yourself to be bitter. Darrow here beat you fair and sound. Or did your winter together blind you to the fact that there can only be one winning House, only one victorious Primus? Were all of you truly so blinded? This … boy can give you nothing.”
He looks around at each of them.
“I shall repeat, since you are a rusty lot: Darrow’s win will not mean you win. No one will offer you an apprenticeship, because they see him being the key to your success. You merely follow—like General Ney or Ajax Minor, and who remembers them? This Reaper does not even have his own standard. He is using you. That is all. He is embarrassing you and ruining your chances for careers beyond this First Year.”
“You’re quite annoying, all due respect, Proctor,” Nyla says without her usual kindness.
“And you’re still a slave.” Apollo points to her mark. “Fit for all sorts of abuse.”
“Only till I earn the right to wear one of those.” Nyla gestures to Mustang’s wolfcloak.
“Your loyalty is touching, but—”
Pax interrupts. “Would you let me whip you bloody, Apollo? Darrow did. Let me whip you, and I’ll obey like a Pink. Promise on the graves of my ancestors, those of Telemanus and the—”
“You’re nothing more than a bureaucratic Pixie,” Milia hisses. “Do us a favor and piss off.”
My lieutenants are loyal, though I shudder to think what Tactus or Sevro would have said had they been around the fire with us. I lean forward to stare down Apollo. Still, I must provoke him.
“Do us solid, eh? Take your advice, shove it up your ass, and piss off.”
Someone laughs in the air above us, a woman’s laugh. Other Proctors watch from inside the jamField. I see silhouettes in the smoke. How many watch? Jupiter? Venus, maybe, by the laugh? That would be perfect.
The fire flickers over Apollo’s face. He is angry.
“Here is the logic I know. The winter could get colder, children. When it gets cold outside, things die. Like wolves. Like bears. Like mustangs.”
I have a reply and it is perfectly longwinded.
“I wonder, Apollo, what happens if the Drafters find out that you are arranging to have the ArchGovernor’s son win? If you were, say, rigging the game like a bazaar crime lord.”
Apollo freezes. I continue.
“When you tried killing me in the woods with that stupid bear, you failed. Now you come here like the desperate fool you are to threaten my friends when they do not slaver at the idea of betraying me. Will you really kill us all? I know you can edit what you like from the footage the Drafters see. But however will you explain to all our Drafters how we all died?”
My lieutenants feign their shock.
I go on.
“Say an Imperator of a fleet, say a Legate, say any of the Drafters of any of the other Houses, found out that the ArchGovernor was paying the Proctors to cheat, to eliminate the competition so that his son would win and their children would lose. Do you think there would be consequences for the Proctors being bribed? For the ArchGovernor? Do you think they might care that their children are dying in a rigged game? Or that you’re getting paid to ruin the meritocratic system? The best shall rise. Or is it the best connected?”
Apollo’s jaw tightens.
He looks up to the other Proctors. They wisely stay invisible. He must have drawn the short straw to come down here and be the face of their cheating. My lieutenants stay silent as he speaks.
“If they did find out, children, then there would be consequences for everyone,” Apollo threatens. “So feel free to guard your tongues while you have them.”
“Or what?” Mustang asks violently. “What do you think you’re going to do?”
“You of all people should know,” he says. I don’t understand his point, but this charade has run its course. I’ve counted the seconds since Sevro left. The Proctors have not. I turn to Mustang.
“How fast can Sevro run two kilometers?”
“A minute and a half, in this gravity, I do believe. Though he’s a little liar, so likely faster.”
“And how far is Apollo’s castle?”
“Oh, I’d say three kilometers, maybe a little more.”
Apollo jumps to his feet, looking around for Sevro.
“Splendid,” I say. “Say, Mustang, do you know what I like most about jamFields?”
“That no sound can get out?”
“No. That no sound can get in.”
Apollo disengages the jamField and we hear the howls. They come from the distance, two miles away. From ramparts. From Apollo’s castle. MedBots wail toward the cries, streaking across the distant sky.