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“Please, don’t fret. It won’t be anything inequitable. If you’d crossed the Duke of Legs, you’d be wobbling around on those grafted metal prosthetics the rest of your life. And if you insulted the Duke of Tongues, you’d be gibbering like one of those Lost City blackteeth—he is much crueler than the last one. But I’ll only take your least favorite hand.” He smiles as Gorgo slips forward. “Promise.”
Now comes the garrote. A thin wire looped around my throat from behind by Gorgo, not enough to break the skin or trachea, but enough to let me know they will if they need to. It immobilizes me. “Which hand will it be?” the Duke asks. “You owe me a debt. Choose.” I rear back against the garrote, but Gorgo’s fingers are the size of potatoes. “Choose.”
Sense abandons me. My mouth is dry, my body shaking.
“The…left,” I manage as they ease off the wire.
The Duke nods to his thugs and they grab my left arm. I stare in horror as he picks up his bonesaw and turns it on. The razor-sharp sawteeth vibrate. Sheer panic grips me now. The memory of flesh peeled from muscle, how the fat separates from bone, and the screams of friends. I watched, once, and all I thought was, Thank Jove it isn’t happening to me. The guilt returns. The sound of my friends shouting to each other in a bombed-out Endymion building. “Don’t rat! Don’t rat!” The fear and sight to come of metal teeth gnawing through my body. The grisly, butcher-shop look of naked muscle. I search frantically for something to haggle with, but there’s nothing I have that he wants. I feel a desperate, pitiful sob building in my chest that I don’t let out. The Duke lowers the bonesaw toward my wrist. The teeth buzz like insect wings. I grit my teeth and close my eyes.
“There is a way to keep this hand,” he whispers. “Tell me where the sword is.”
“I don’t know! I sold it to my broker already.”
“Tell me his name.”
“I…can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I told you. I don’t rat,” I say coldly. The way it comes out of my mouth soothes me. I’m less afraid, because I have a reason now to let them take the hand. A conviction.
Forgot what that felt like.
“I could carve through your ribs.” He twirls the bonesaw. “Take your manhood. Carve off your toes. Turn your eyes to jelly. You’d tell me then, if I really wanted to find your broker.” He’s going to do it now. Gorgo’s cologne fills my nostrils. “Tell me who he is!”
I glare up at the Duke. “Get to it, asshole.”
He stares down at me, then laughs. “Gorgo, I believe you owe me a diamond.” He turns off the bonesaw. The garrote around my neck disappears. I look up to see the Obsidian shuffle forward, rummage through an alligator skin billfold and pull out a teardrop diamond that he sets in the Duke’s hand. The Duke slips the diamond into his pocket and smiles down at me as the Obsidian eases away. “I’ve been tearing Luna apart for someone like you, Mr. Horn. A man with a code.”
“What?” The adrenaline floods out of my body, leaving me as limp as empty clothes. “What are you talking about?”
“Oslo said you were bright. Odd. A White prone to exaggeration.”
I blink dumbly. I didn’t say his name.
“You know Oslo?” I ask.
“Do I know Oslo? Ha! Your broker has often served as an intermediary between the Ophion Guild and the Syndicate. If you had betrayed him, well, that would have been the end of Ephraim ti Horn. But instead, treasure awaits. You see, the master of thieves”—he touches his black jacket where his heart allegedly beats—“happens to be in need of a thief of chaos. And who better than one recommended by Mr. Oslo and tested by me? There is something of particular significance I would like to acquire. This, my dear Gray, was the final part of your audition. And congratulations. You passed with flying colors.”
I blink up at the madman. “The sword. You had me steal the sword…from you?”
As an answer, a gleaming smile splits the man’s face.
I sit there, my body shivering from the adrenaline leaving the system, still not entirely sure he’s not going to snatch my hand and saw it off. “You’re a special kind of asshole,” I mutter.
“You’ve clearly never met the other Royals.” He touches his chest in offense. “I’m the tender one.”
“The Syndicate has enough thieves,” I say. “Why do you need me?”
“Are any as good as you?” he asks, attempting flattery.
“Three, at least. The Figment, Zendric…” I shake my head, wishing I had taken Holiday up on the job offer. “I told you, citizen. I don’t mess with the Syndicate. You boys play too hard. Whatever job you want me to do, use your men.” I glance at his thorns and Gorgo in particular. “I don’t wear a collar.”
“We all wear collars,” the Duke says, tapping his forehead where the invisible crown lies dormant. “Some are more comfortable than others. And now it’s your turn, Mr. Horn.” He pulls something from his pocket and sets it on the table. They call it the Queen’s Kiss. A black iron rose that can bribe Watchmen, open doors, and intimidate even senators of the Republic. It is the warrant of the Syndicate’s ruler, and those few dark creatures who carry it do so at her bidding.
“This is not a request. The debt is still owed. By you, the Obsidian, the Green, and the Red,” he says quietly. “Now, I assume a man with your reputation, with your…history, is prone to vendettas. I warn you against thinking of this as an onus set upon your shoulders, and instead counsel you to look at it as the greatest opportunity of your lifetime.” He points out the window with his cane. “You have a chance to become more than a thief. With the Syndicate, you can ascend. You can rule. Serve me well and this world can become your playground.”
His silken words are lost on me. I don’t want to ascend. Could give a shit about their games or their ridiculous delusions of grandeur—they’re just another gang with better than average organization and accounting. Sooner or later, they all eat themselves. But even though I might stand on a ledge and think about jumping, that doesn’t mean I want to get bonesawed to death. That’s what will happen if I say no. Or he’ll go for my team first. And I’ll hear the screams all over again. I think of Volga standing there in the rain looking like a lost puppy.
