I must move quickly. I don’t know what will happen if my House’s standard and castle are taken even though I have my independent army. I could technically lose.
Lucian’s friends are tired, so I give them leave to go try to find beds. They won’t be a problem. Lucian stays to talk. I invite him over to the warroom table. As Lucian’s friends file out, I hear Mustang in the hall. She waltzes into the room. Thunder rolls outside. Her hair is damp and matted, wolfcloak soaked, boots tracking mud.
Her face is a model of confusion when she sees me with Lucian.
“Mustang, darling!” I cry. “I fear you’re too late. Went straight through Bacchus’s stores already!” I gesture to my snoring army and wink. Maybe fifty remain, sprawled out and in various states of sleep across the large warroom. All drunk as Narol on Yuletide.
“Getting shitfaced seems a prime idea at a time like this,” she says strangely. She looks back to Lucian, then to me. She doesn’t like something. I introduce her to Lucian. He mumbles how nice it is to meet her. She snorts a laugh.
“How did he convince you not to make him a slave, Darrow?”
I don’t know if she understands what game I’m playing.
“He gave me his fortress!” I wave my clumsy hand to the half-destroyed stone map on the wall. Mustang says that she will join us. She begins to call some of her men in from the hall, but I cut her off. “No, no. Me and Lucian here were becoming prime friends. No girls. Take your men and go find Pax.”
“But …”
“Go find Pax,” I command.
I know she’s confused, but she trusts me. She murmurs goodbye to me and Lucian and closes the door. The sound of her bootheels slowly fades.
“Thought she’d never leave!” I laugh to Lucian. He leans back in his chair. He really is very slim, nothing excess to him at all. His blond hair is clipped plainly. His hands thin and useful. He reminds me of someone.
“Most people don’t want pretty girls to leave,” Lucian says, smiling sincerely. He even blushes a little when I ask if he really thinks Mustang is pretty.
We talk for nearly an hour. Gradually, he lets himself relax. He lets his confidence grow and soon he is telling me of his childhood, of a demanding father, of family expectations. But he’s not pitiful when he does this. He is realistic, a trait I admire. It’s no longer necessary for him to avoid my eyes when we talk. His shoulders don’t hunch quite so much, and he becomes pleasant, even funny. I laugh loudly half a dozen times. The night grows late, but still we talk and joke. He laughs at the boots I wear, which are swaddled in animal furs for warmth. They are hot now that the snows melt, but I need to wear the pelts.
“But what of you, Darrow? We gab and gab over me. I think it’s your turn. So tell me, what is it that’s taken you here? What pushes you? I don’t think I’ve heard of your family …”
“Not people you would care to hear about, to tell it true. But I think it comes down to a girl, that’s all. I am simple. So are my reasons.”
“The pretty one?” Lucian blushes. “Mustang? She hardly seems simple.”
I shrug.
“I told you everything!” Lucian protests. “Don’t be a vague Purple on me. Cut to it, man!” He raps the table impatiently.
“Fine. Fine. The whole story.” I sigh. “See that pack beside you? There’s a bag inside it. Reach and grab it for me, will you?”
Lucian pulls the bag out and tosses it to me. It clinks on the table.
“Let me see your hand.”
“My hand?” he asks with a laugh.
“Right, just put it out, please.” I pat the table. He doesn’t react. “Come on, man. There’s this theory I’ve been working on.” I pat the table impatiently. He puts his hand out.
“How does this tell your story or theory?” His smile is still on.
“It’s a complicated one. Better to show you.”
“Fair enough.”
I open the bag and dump out its contents. A score of golden sigil rings roll across the table. Lucian watches them roll.
“These all come from the dead kids. The kids the medBots couldn’t save. Let’s see.” I shuffle through the pile of rings. “We have Jupiter, Venus, Neptune, Bacchus, Juno, Mercury, Diana, Ceres … and we have a Minerva right here.” I frown and rummage around. “Hmm. Odd. I can’t find a Pluto.”
I look up at him. His eyes are different. Dead. Quiet.
“Oh, there’s one.”
41
THE JACKAL
He jerks back his hand. He is fast.
I am faster.
I bury my dagger through his hand, pinning it to the table.
His mouth gasps open at the pain. Some weird sort of feral exhalation hisses from his mouth as he jerks at the dagger. But I am bigger than him and I drove the dagger four inches into the table. I hammer it down with a flagon. He can’t pull it out. I lean back and watch him try. There’s something primal to his initial frenzied panic. Then something decidedly human in his recovery, which seems more brutally cold than my act of violence. He calms himself faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. It takes a breath, maybe three, and he leans back in his chair as though we were at drinks.
“Well, shit,” he says tightly.
“I thought we should become better acquainted,” I say. I point to myself. “Jackal, I am Reaper.”
“You’ve the better name,” he replies. He takes a breath. Another. “How long have you known?”
“That you were the Jackal? A hopeful guess. That you were up to no good? Before I entered the castle. No one surrenders without a fight. One of your rings didn’t fit. And hide your hands next time. Insecure sobs always hide or fiddle with their hands. But really you had no chance. The Proctors knew I was coming here. They thought to make it a trap to ruin me by telling you I was coming. So you would sneak in here, try to catch me with my pants down. Their mistake. Your mistake.”
He watches me, wincing as he turns to look at my sober-as-day soldiers rising from the ground. Nearly fifty of them. I wanted them to see the ruse.
“Ah.” The Jackal sighs as he realizes how futile his trap has become. “My soldiers?”
“Which ones? The ones that were with you or the ones you hid in the castle? Maybe in the cellars? Maybe beneath the floor in a tunnel? I don’t wager they’re smiles and giggles right now, man. Pax is a beast and Mustang will be helping him just in case.”
“So that’s why you sent her away.”
And so she wouldn’t accidentally ask why we were pretending to be drunk on grape juice.
Pax will have found their hiding place. Thunder still rolls. I hope the Jackal sank a large size of his force into this ambush. If he didn’t, it’ll be a hassle, because if he has Jupiter’s castle, he probably has Jupiter’s army, which has Juno and much of Vulcan, and soon Mars’s. But I have him here.
The Jackal is pinned, bleeding, and surrounded by my army. His ambush undone. He has lost, but he is not helpless. He is no longer Lucian. It’s almost like his hand isn’t impaled. His voice doesn’t waver. He is not angry, just pissinyourboots scary. He reminds me of me before I go into a rage. Quiet. Unhurried. I wanted my soldiers to see him squirm. He doesn’t, so I tell them to leave. Only the ten Howlers, old and new, stay.
“If we’re to have a conversation, please take this dagger out of my hand,” the Jackal says to me. “Believe it or not, it hurts.” He is not as playful as his words suggest. Despite his resolve, his face is pale and his body has begun to tremble from shock.
I smile. “Where is the rest of your army? Where is that girl, Lilath? She owes my friend an eye.”
“Let me go and I will give you her head on a platter, if you want. If you lend me an apple, I’ll even put that in her mouth so she looks like a pig at feast. Your choice.”