48

EVERY GOOD-BYE

IMOGEN STARED AT THE WIRES IN her hands. Green, purple, emerald, violet, jungle leaves, deep dusk, green…What was another word for green? She couldn’t think of one, which freed her mind to wander to any number of awful things.

Lost memories above and around her—jackets and suits, days evanesced.

Aunt Empra’s love story ending.

Another love story coming to a close: Priya in the next room, watching as Farway died.

As Farway died.

As Farway died.

As Farway die—

Swirling thoughts became a spiral. Imogen cut them short. She looked to the least of the current evils, flat on the floor, frazzled to the eyebrows. “What’s another word for green?”

Agent Ackerman didn’t seem to be in a thesaurus mood. He tried spitting, but the saliva made a sad trail down his lips. His groans had evolved into obscenities, albeit, not very creative ones. “Betch!”

“I am a girl,” Imogen corrected him, wagging the wires. “A girl who likes to name things. This is Electro and this is Cute. They’re both very eager to get reacquainted with you, so I’d lay off the insults if I were you.”

The Bureau agent’s answer consisted mostly of drool. Imogen wondered if she should layer a red attack panda to her threat—Saffron was more apt to do damage anyway. The creature was already stalking the porkpie hat, eyes fastened to its feathers.

Daylight scorched through the common area as the Invictus’s hatch opened. Saffron scattered. Imogen brightened. Gram was here. He’d run with lung-popping speed down the Appian Way to make it so.

“Quick! Tell me a synonym for green.”

Gram shut the hatch, but his smile wasn’t dimmed so easily. “Viridescent.”

“And purple?”

“Violaceous.”

The words sounded too preposterous to belong to a language, much less colors, but Imogen wasn’t one to judge. She loved how Gram had these at the ready, even as he sat down next to her.

“So you got stuck with guard duty?” he asked.

“More of a don’t let the wires touch the floor or we’ll see everyone’s skeleton through their skin duty. Plus, I volunteered.” Imogen’s eyes darted to the infirmary door. Closed by Priya, with mercy. “I don’t see how she can be in there… watching.”

“Far needs someone with him.” Gram reached for the viridescent wire, held it so they could sit closer. Knees touching—Electro in his hand, Cute in hers. “We all do.”

Far’s fight dragged on. The battle was harder without Priya, but easier, too, for the next time the gladiator’s sword found Far’s flesh, the hurt of his wounds belonged to him alone.

Alone.

It wasn’t the way Far wanted to die, but death did not care what its victims wanted. The force clung shadow-close, a fell breath against his neck, waiting, waiting for the final strike. Blood trailed Far’s footsteps as he tried to outrun it, frantic scarlet signature. Despite his injuries, he’d managed to stay a trident’s length away from his opponent, but the crowd was growing bored of the chase. Hisses prickled the air—Get on with it. We’ve a schedule of slaughter to keep. Your death isn’t entertaining anymore. Imaginary voices, real thoughts, growing, swelling, louder, until Far didn’t know why he was still blocking the other gladiator’s blows, still trying to land some of his own.

Death caught every man alone.

“Far! I’m here!” Priya’s voice: solid as ever. “Eliot and Imogen needed help.”

“You’re here?” Far asked, dazed.

“I’m here. I promised I would be.” She’d come back to him, his courage. His heart. “Eliot just left. Your mother and father are saying good-bye to each other.”

Clash, block. Thrust, bleed. Sand in the eyes. Cuts full of grit. Steps began to falter. It went this way for a few more minutes, until Priya passed along the words It’s time and a blow from the other gladiator sent Far’s trident flying. Far’s hands flew up, too—though there was no surrender, just a pause for the crowd’s will to make itself known. Thumbs up, thumbs down. Let him go! or Kill him!

Shouts tangled together. Thumbs turned.

These men were hungry. These men were bored.

Emperor Domitian rose from his chair, twisted his wrist to please the masses.

“I’m here. I’m here. I’m here. I’m here,” Priya kept saying, until he felt her hand in his, holding tight as he knelt in the sand. “I’m here. I’m here. I love you.”

His opponent placed his sword’s point on the back of Far’s neck. He stared past the crowd, into the sky, and wondered if the Ab Aeterno had left yet.

The clouds quivered. The blue around them began ripping, dripping…

The Fade had found his moment at last.

Hurry up, please.

Tempus venit.

“Far?”

“I love you, too, P,” he whispered. “Meet you at the tea stand.”

The sword fell.

Far’s vitals slowed. This dying dirge pressed against the infirmary walls, ran through Priya in place of her blood. Sixty seconds and there’d be no heart to return to, no death to mourn, for silence was already blooming. Nothingness grew around her, a whole garden of decay fed by med-patch cabinets and fuel rods. When the gold of her BeatBix began to fade, taking every reflection with it, Priya Parekh shut her eyes and waited for the distant dream.

The Amphitheatrum Flavium was caught up in the death of the moment. The defeated gladiator had faced his end with honor. He was a name struck off a lanista’s roster; a life bleeding out on the sand. Most were too mesmerized to see that they, too, were being scratched out of history’s ledger, the clouds above crippling their firmament. The few who caught the sight were reminded of the tales from Pompeii, after the great eruption. But those stories had been filled with ashes and darkness. This sky wasn’t filled with anything.

The Fade fell on Rome’s past and Far’s present, bringing interruptions and ends. It moved as a fog, creeping through windows, winding down roads, consuming all it could. Four stunrods blinked out, their bearers with them. The Invictus dissolved along with every soul inside. A girl on the edge of a field held her father tight.

There was one CTM the decay did not reach, for though Nicholas wasn’t a knee-jerk kind of guy, he found that—between Empra’s order to Get us the Hades out of here and the glitches on his screen and one year of cabin fever—he was all too happy to jump. The Ab Aeterno vanished from a vanishing sky, just as that vanishing vanished. At last, the Fade had reached what it had ravaged so many worlds for, sliding through stilled lips, seeking that final shudder of a heartbeat.

Lock and key.

Severance.

The boy who should not have been became the boy who never was. No one blinked when the gladiator’s body disappeared. His fight, too, slipped from fifty thousand memories second by second as the unraveling stretched back. Not a soul noticed, for they were already placing their bets for the next battle.

The games rolled on.

Two thousand two hundred fifty-eight years later, a child was born.