I do. The wording slightly different, the intent the same. It elicits an identical response. Kiya just stands there absently, staring down into the mirror of the iunctus, arms hanging loosely by her sides. Netiqret is next to her. Holding her hand. Smoothing her braids out of her face. “Again.”
“Netiqret—”
“Again, Siamun. Word it differently. Tell it to reverse the effects, this time.”
I do, to the same response. I gaze at the boy sadly. Breath short as I battle to maintain the connection. Through the chaos of his thoughts—if that’s what they can even be called—I canfeelhis profound, unending exhaustion.
And then the iunctus to the right—a girl, maybe eight or nine years old—opens her eyes and stares at the roof.
“Netiqret. It’s not working. We have to go.” I focus again on the boy. “Forget every question I’ve asked here. Forget our presence.”
“No.No. They said it wouldwork,” she counters in soft, disbelieving frustration.
I look at her, and for a moment I forget what she was likely planning to do to me. Her expression is lost. Sick with a shock that I don’t think is entirely unexpected, no matter what she says.
She had faith this would work, because the alternative was unfathomable to her.
“Breach,” whispers the second iunctus, her brown eyes still staring glassily upward.
The other children’s eyes snap open. The golden light around us fades to a throbbing, virulent red. And then every eye rolls and focuses on me. Just me. As if Netiqret and Kiya did not exist.
“Breach,” they whisper together, eyes lifeless and glinting crimson.
Oh,vek. “Stop the alarm. Forget anything was wrong.”
“Breach.”
I release my connection. “It’s over. We need to go.”
“We need to try again. We won’t get another chance.”
“Breach.”
My heart drops at the manic desperation in her voice. I don’t want to abandon her and Kiya. I cannot imagine what she’s been through to get here. And more practically, if she’s caught, she knows too much.
“Breach.”
“We can try again, Netiqret,” I lie into the red beneath the chillingly intent stares. “Try something different. Once we’re out.” I edge around her and Kiya.
“Breach.”
“We’ll never get back in here. Not now.” She turns to continue facing me, but doesn’t release Kiya’s hand. The young girl hasn’t reacted to what’s going on around us at all, as far as I can tell. “Siamun, you need to—”
I run.
“SIAMUN!” She screams it after me but I don’t look back; I’m faster than her and more than that, I don’t believe she’ll leave Kiya to chase me. No sound but the panting of my breath, nothing to see but the red-drenched, open-eyed iunctii. “Breach.” My feet slap against stone. “Breach.”
Then there’s the way up ahead and I take the ruby-tinged stairs two at a time. No sign of anyone, iunctii or otherwise, coming down yet. My mind strains after the map Netiqret drilled into me. There is only the one way out ofthe Sanctum, and if I’m compromised—if the Nomarch just saw my face, as I suspect it did—then the Overseers will know exactly who to look for.
I spill out of the stairwell into the shadows of the colonnade. The cavernous space echoes with the screams and laughter of festivities continuing in the distance, apparently uninterrupted by the alarm we’ve raised.
I stop, just for a second. Catch my breath and think. The Nomarch said that it was unable to create a distraction large enough to draw out the Gleaners.
Still.
I jog cautiously, only once having to hide as a group of priests—I think they’re priests, not iunctii—hurry past my concealing shadows, muttering to one another in anxious low tones. It doesn’t take long for me to reach the enormous open path to the triangular tunnel, the warm glow of the pyramid blinding as it looms up ahead.
My heart sinks as I reach the short shadow of the tunnel entrance and my eyes reluctantly adjust. Nothing’s changed. Dark forms still hang on the wall, dormant and silent and ready to wake the moment I step foot on that obsidian bridge. The intrusion into the Nomarch doesn’t seem to have disturbed a single one of them.
