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. His army will be twice the size of mine and we will be the only two left. 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.”
“There! Now, that’s how you got your name, isn’t it?” I say with mocking applause.
The Jackal clicks his tongue regrettably. “Lilath liked the sound of it. It stuck. That’s why I’ll put the apple in her mouth. Wish I could have been something more … regal than Jackal, but reputations tend to make themselves.” He nods to Sevro. “Like the Little Goblin there and his Toadstools.”
“What do you mean, ‘Toadstools’?” Thistle asks.
“That’s what we call you. Toadstools for Reaper and Goblin to squat on. But if you would like a better name beyond this little game, you need simply kill big nasty Reaper here. Don’t stun him. Kill him. Drive a sword into his spine, and you can become Imperators, Governors, whatever. Father will be happy to oblige. Very simple stuff. Quid pro quo.”
Sevro pulls out his knives and glares at his Howlers. “Not so simple.”
Thistle doesn’t move.
“Worth a try,” the Jackal sighs. “I confess, I am a politico, not a fighter. So if we’re to converse, you must say something, Reaper. You look like a statue. I don’t speak statue.” His charisma is cold. Calculating.
“Did you really eat your own Housemembers?”
“After months in darkness, you eat whatever your mouth finds. Even if it’s still moving. It isn’t very impressive, really. Less human than I would have liked, very much like animals. And anyone would have done it. But dredging up my foul memories is no way to negotiate.”
“We aren’t negotiating.”
“Humans are always negotiating. That’s what conversation is. Someone has something, knows something. Someone wants something.” His smile is pleasant, but his eyes … There is something wrong with him. A different soul seems to have filled his body since the time he was Lucian. I have seen actors … but this is different. It is as though he is reasonable to the point of being inhuman.