58

Guilty as charged,” Penda said.

“No, no, no,” Nália said. For a moment, they flashed back to the truck—racing at absurd speeds with a dozen patrol on cycles chasing after them, smoke pouring out of the engine. They couldn’t go much longer. Even with the anger building in her, waves upon waves, she forced herself to stay anchored in this shitty palatial suite with the horror of a woman who claimed to be Varazina.

“I often say that myself,” Penda said.

“The tyrant and most of his family were killed in the last bombing campaign,” Nália said.

“Most,” Penda said. “And the rest?”

“They were imprisoned—”

“And here we are,” Penda said, waving about the room. “Not the dreary cell in Hanez you imagined—or that we fucking deserved—but yet, my prison nonetheless.”

“But how?” Wenthi asked. “Even presuming you are Varazina, why? Why be her? And how? How could you do what you do on the radios, giving the orders, leading the Fists of Zapi?”

“The answer is coming into the room,” Penda said.

With crisp steps, a woman came into the bedroom, addressing Penda with a thick accent. “I hear you are feeling more peaked than usual, dear?”

Nália and Wenthi both knew the monster on sight.

“Rather, Doctor,” Penda said.

Doctor Shebiruht came over to the bed and prodded Penda’s head, neck, and chest. “You are a bit feverish. What were you doing?”

“Just . . . trying to feel the people out there.”

“Absurdities, girl,” Shebiruht said with a disapproving click of her tongue. “You were not made for such things.”

“So you keep saying, Doctor. But it’s what I can do.”

“And what I can do is try to keep you alive. Perhaps long enough for them all to see the value you offer. We’re getting closer, dear. They’ll see.”

“Can you just give me my shot and let me rest?”

“You’re in a mood, I see,” Shebiruht said. “Try not to impose it on the folks in the streets below, hmm? Today is bad enough.” She took a syringe out of her bag and injected it into Penda’s arm—which was heavily bruised, covered in scars of needle marks. More than Nália could count.

“The shit was that?” Nália asked when Shebiruht left.

Wenthi had his own question. “What did she mean, not what you were made for?”

Penda struggled to sit up in the bed. “The two of you are hopelessly dense. And you don’t have too much time. That truck is about to fail and be forced to stop.”

“Wait,” Wenthi said, and Nália could feel the realizations click in his mind, and as they did, the true horror of it resonated in her. “Doctor Shebiruht came here with Rodiguen, when he took over Pinogoz. Throughout the Great Noble War, they were working on a weapon. A weapon made with the mushroom.”

“And that weapon is you,” Nália said.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Doctor Shebiruht tell me how I am her unappreciated masterpiece.”

“How?” Wenthi asked.

“I was built to be a vessel for the mushroom. Injection after injection, experiment after experiment. The horrors you heard of in the camp—yes, Wenthi, I see it in your memory now. All steps she took to figure out how to perfect me.” She laughed, a harsh, resentful laugh that turned into hacking coughs. “As if this is somehow perfect.”

“Wait a damned swipe,” Nália said, realizing what this meant. “If you can sense the both of us, feel what’s in our memories, then . . . you always knew he was patrol, infiltrating the Fists.”

“And Shebiruht did such good work creating him into the perfect infiltrator. Of course he already had the natural gifts, the untapped potential. Incredible. With your help, of course, Nália.”

“My help?”

“You discovered his natural vibration in tune with the local mushroom,” she said. “That’s what let him arrest you, thus allowing Shebiruht to discover the perfect way to combine the two of you. She doesn’t even know the power the two of you have unlocked together. She would be very excited.”

“What do you want?” Nália asked. “How could you possibly command the rebellion, be the leader the Fists think you are, while also being . . . this?”

“A pampered llipe doll?” Penda asked. “I have spent years trapped in this prison. These apartments and this dying shell of damaged flesh that my own family made me into. I finally—finally—figured out the full extent of my power, what Shebiruht made me into, and knew what I could do. What I needed to do.”

“Which is what?” Nália asked. “For you to rule over this country like your grandfather did? Another tyrant to take us over?”

“Please,” Penda said. “The last thing I want to do is rule. I couldn’t care less about any of you people, or your rebellion, or your war, or the fucking Alliance and what they hope for. Everyone can rot.”

Anger came off the woman in waves as she struggled to get back on her feet.

“I just want the chaos.”

Nália stumbled, in as much as her phantom form in this well-appointed apartment could lose her footing. Her senses flashed briefly to the empty dark of the ice room, the screaming chaos of the truck losing ground on the highway, but she didn’t lose her place here.

Thanks to Wenthi, who caught her—caught her in every way—and kept her up and present.

“It’s all a joke, isn’t it?” she asked, half to herself, half to him. “There’s no real revolution, no one here to save us. There’s just her, another llipe tyrant here playing games with us.”

“And all of it can burn, for all I care,” Penda said. “I won’t be a pawn in anyone else’s game, when I can be a queen of the inferno.”

Nália found Wenthi’s eyes, and for the first time, actually looked into them. She didn’t see the hard gaze of a dirty tory, burning with contempt for her. She didn’t see the indifference she expected.

She saw the eyes of that boy who had his life torn apart by the tyrant. Who took care of his baby sister in the camps. Who went hungry so she would eat. Who pulled Ajiñe back onto her cycle, who saved Mensi from the Alliance nucks.

“They’ll do whatever she says,” she said quietly. “She doesn’t care and isn’t who we need and we can’t—”

“I can stop her,” he said.

“What?”

“Let me, Nália,” he said. “Please, let me stop her.”

“How . . .” she stammered. “How do I—”

“Please. Let me.”

She knew what he meant. And as much as it shattered her heart, she knew it was the only way.

“Do it right, Wenthi,” she said.

And she let everything go.