Stumbling into my bedroom, my timing is off and I don’t make it to my bed. My cheek hits the soft carpet and it rattles my head. Something attempts to keep me here even as I slip away. I blink and see the outline of Nezra, who crouches down on the carpet by me to smile as my vision fades. The curl of wintry breath passes through my parted lips.
I leave my body, but Nezra’s heavy gravity holds me just above it. She fights me, trying not to let me go. “Kricket,” she says in a singsong voice, “I can’t wait to see you burn for what you’ve stolen from me!”
I bury her in the night as the stars rip me away and I drift in time. I follow the events as they happen in the future. Strikers arrive to take me to Freming House, the gilded cage where they keep their priestesses hostage. It’s not all they do there. It’s a lab, as well—a testing ground for more new genetic mutations. It’s a house of horrors. The things they’ll do to me border on the depraved. I can’t stay and watch it very long—it’s too brutal, and I’ll get the chance to experience it firsthand soon enough.
I turn in time and shift to another destination, one that I’ve promised to go to with a plan for Excelsior’s death. I have that plan now; it’s just unfortunate that I won’t survive to see it come to fruition. At least I get to die knowing he’ll follow me soon.
Touching down outside the crumbling governor’s mansion in New Amster, I find Giffen and Pan speaking together in low voices by the giant sentinel statues that preside over the manor. Giffen feels my presence immediately when I near him. He looks in my direction. He pushes his energy toward me, and I become a golden silhouette of billowing stardust and light walking out of the night. I keep my attention on Giffen, ignoring the man who was only my father for a brief time. There’s nothing really to say to him, anyway. He walked away.
“You’d better have a plan, like we discussed, Kricket, or bad things are going to happen to—”
“I do,” I interrupt. “We’re creating a Trojan horse for Excelsior. It’s something that he won’t be able to resist. He’ll be dead in two days.”
“What is this Trojan horse?” Giffen asks.
“I’d rather not say. It’ll ruin the surprise, and I don’t really think I can trust you to keep a secret.”
“If he’s not dead by then, we’ll turn your Rafe friends’ families over to the Alameeda.”
“Is that what you told Trey?”
“He didn’t tell you?” Pan asks beside me.
“No. He never told me about your threat. He just asked me to do it for him—for his family.”
“And you agreed?” Pan asks, like what I’ve said doesn’t compute.
I ignore him. He gets nothing more from me. Instead, I say to Giffen, “Will you tell Trey something for me?”
“Depends on what it is.” Giffen replies honestly.
“Tell him that I said I never loved him, that I was just using him.” I turn to leave, but then I think of something and add, “Oh, and don’t forget to watch the show, Giffen. You earned it.”
“What show?” he calls as I fade to go back in time.
“My execution.”
I slam back into my body in a rush. The frigidity of it lets me know I stayed away just enough to feel like I’m dead, but not to actually be dead. It occurs to me that being dead is the preferable choice in this situation, now that I know what will happen to me. The bad part would be that if I die here, there might be no vengeance against Excelsior and that’s all I have left.
“Oscil!” I pant, when I return to my body. “Oscil!” I call for the automated intelligence that is always available, but I get no response. I knew there wouldn’t be, but for some reason I had to try.
I struggle to get up from my floor. When I did this moments ago, in the future, I moved as fast as my numb legs would carry me to the balcony. But because I just lived it, I know without looking that the river outside is solid in several places. Strikers run over the surface of it with frestons strapped to them. A handful of Strikers are on the side of the house. They’re rising on clear disks that act as lifts, bringing them up toward my balcony.
Instead of having them arrest me out there on the balcony, I turn and run to the lavare. Moving to the counter, I splay my hand over it. Toiletries of every type rise from the surface. Selecting a fat, sticky lip liner, I write on the mirror:
Kyon—
Stay away. Nothing you can do. They’ll kill you. I’ve got this. Finish my crown for me.
—Kricket
It’s a lie. I don’t really have this. They’re going to eviscerate me in the most painful way possible, but there’s really no reason for Kyon to die too. It would only serve to give Excelsior more pleasure, and I really don’t think that’s fair. I just need Kyon to get the crown to Excelsior. He can do that without dying. And a part of me very much wants him to live so that he can have the kind of vengeance he’s dreamed about his entire life. It frightens me that I want that too.