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Chapter 58: Spoils
The whole front room of Wren & Sons had turned black and gold.The Magpie's letters were everywhere, on the walls and over the coffins and burning across the air between Leo and the old man kneeling on the floor, so bright that they threw shadows. The gold panels that should have opened for the kneel hung half-formed behind them, flickering, as if the system itself couldn't decide what to do.[Constellation 'Gilded Magpie' says: That Loupe was Bram's. That Loupe was MINE. I gave it to an undertaker to put you on your knees, and you will not pick it off him as if you were a thief at a fair.]"The rules say I can," Leo said.[Constellation 'Gilded Magpie' says: I don't care what the rules say.]"I do."The voice that answered wasn't the Magpie's. It came from everywhere at once, from the walls and the floor and the inside of Leo's own skull, and the room went cold enough that his breath clouded in front of him."Little bird," the Sovereign said. "You put a knife to a child's throat to w
Chapter 57: Wren & Sons
Leo went to Rowan Lane at half past two in the morning, because Leverage came back at three minutes past two and he wasn't walking into that building without it.Kira picked him up on her bike. She was in black leather from her boots to her throat, with her hair braided down her back and the chain wrapped twice round her right forearm, the steel hook resting against her knuckles, and as she pulled up at the kerb she looked him over with her head on one side."You look like shit," she said."Thanks.""I mean it nicely." She handed him the spare helmet. "Eleven players, Leo. I watched them all evening. Five of them are nothing, kids with one buff and a lot of nerve. Four are mid-table. Two of them are proper." She kicked the bike off its stand. "There's a man in there called Garrick with Strength III and a world rank in the low two thousands, and he's been sitting on Tomasz's front step all night cracking walnuts in one hand.""How much do you think Tomasz is paying them?"Kira laughed.
Chapter 56: The Cheapest Kneel
The message from the unknown number had arrived at a quarter to midnight, and Leo had read it so many times that he could see it with his eyes shut.Hello, Leo. Last place suits you.He hadn't needed Eye of Truth to know who had sent it. He had called the hospital at once, and the guard on Mia's door had told him she was fine, she'd been up late with a hot chocolate and was sleeping now. He'd made the man go in and check her breathing anyway.So he was still awake, sitting in the dark of the suite with his back to the wall and his eyes on the door, when the lift chimed down the corridor at two minutes to two.He checked his skills one last time.[Sovereign's Decree: Ready.][Leverage: Cooldown. 00:04:51.]The Decree was ready, and it was useless. It only worked on players ranked below him, and tonight there was nobody below him in the whole group.The lock clicked. The door swung open, and Priya Malhotra stepped inside and shut it quietly behind her.She was smaller than her photograp
Chapter 55: Hello, Leo
Darius visited his parents every night at eleven, because it was the only hour the ward was quiet.They were on the third floor of the city hospital now, in a long room with soft walls and twelve beds, where the nurses spoke in gentle voices and nobody was allowed to have shoelaces. Most of the beds held people the news had started calling the Walkers, men and women who had been found wandering through the city on the night of the deadline with nobody left behind their eyes. His mother sat in the chair by the window with a paper cup of orange juice in both hands, drinking it in tiny sips, and smiled at him the way she smiled at everybody."Hello," she said brightly. "Are you the doctor?""No, Mum," Darius said. "It's me."She nodded as though that made perfect sense, and went back to her juice.His father was asleep. He slept a great deal now, curled up on his side with his knees pulled up, and sometimes in his sleep he said Mr. Krell in a small, frightened voice. Darius sat between t
Chapter 54: Stay Down
Leo got Isla home to Eastgate in a cab without either of them saying a word.She had a thin red line along the side of her throat where the scalpel had rested, and she kept touching it with her fingertips as though she couldn't believe it was still there. At her door she turned round and looked at him for a long moment."You knelt," she said. "For me. In front of everybody.""Yes.""My dad used to say the only thing a man really owns is his knees." Her voice shook, and she took a breath before she went on. "He said you can tell who someone is by what they'll get down on them for." She reached up and touched his face, very lightly, the way she'd touched the cut. "Thank you, Leo."She went inside. He stood on the landing listening to her lock the door, and then he walked down the stairs and out into the evening, and he still couldn't get the cold of the concrete out of his knees.* * *The Grand Palace suite was dark when he let himself in. He didn't turn the lights on. He sat down on t
Chapter 53
Bram didn't know her.He was sitting by the window of his room on the third floor, in hospital pyjamas with his hair combed flat by some kind nurse, turning a silver ring over and over in the light and humming to himself. When Isla came in, he looked up with polite, cheerful interest, the way you'd look at a stranger on a bus."Hello," he said. "You're a pretty lady."Isla sat down on the edge of the bed. She had dressed carefully for this, in jeans and a soft grey jumper that clung to the full curve of her chest, with her dark-gold hair brushed out loose over her shoulders, and Leo understood that she had done it for her father, so that he'd see her looking nice."Hi, Dad," she said.Bram beamed at her and held out the ring. "Shiny," he said. "You can have it."She took it. She thanked him, and she let him show her how it caught the light, and she kept her voice bright and warm for twenty minutes, right up until they were back out in the corridor and the door had closed behind them.
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