Chapter 13: To Catch a Conscience — The Key of Oslov

Volume 17: The Tinderbox

Chapter 13 To Catch a Conscience

Chapter Notes

This chapter starts with a flashback and then returns to the scene in the previous chapter. I thought a lot about how to make this bit work, and I hope I succeeded, though I suspect it could be shorter. If you return to Chapter 9 (which I realize was posted ages ago), you’ll find the roots of this scene there. Thank you for reading!

Chapter Notes

Year 343 (31 years ago)

Snowflakes sifted down through the pine boughs as Besha waited, shivering. He’d jammed his hands into his pockets and wrapped the scarf up to his eyes, but he still felt the bitter wind. Damn that Malsha—why couldn’t they meet indoors?Besha could guess why. The pine grove off the ski trail was only a few minutes’ walk from the villas, but there was no surveillance here. No one to watch them but the blazing stars.He was exhausted from his round trip out to the base. It would have been an easy jaunt if he’d been able to use his wife’s name to requisition a Council plane, but instead, he had disguised himself as a Laborer functionary and taken the military shuttle from Redda. The flight was crammed with troops singing drunkenly on their way back from leave. They reeked—Besha wrinkled his nose fastidiously at the memory.The base itself was an unwelcome blast from the past. The long hallways were as gray and dreary as ever. Besha stuck to shadows and back passages, not wanting to run into anyone who might recognize him on his way to the rendezvous in a deserted locker room.Poor little Willem Rehbrandt looked more red-eyed and put-upon than ever. He was clearly regretting the day, years ago, when he’d boasted to Besha about his hacking prowess.Besha was Willem’s boss in those days, but they were friends of a sort. Late one night, in an unguarded moment, Willem told Besha that he’d written an exploit that could harvest upcoming Q-codes from the silo’s internal software hours before they became viable.Q-codes launched warheads. No one was supposed to have them, least of all a little Drudge maintenance engineer. Willem could have been exiled for his invisible act of sabotage, but Besha kept his secret and supplied him with the sap he craved. And now Besha had returned to the base to collect something in return.He handed over ten vials, neatly banded, and asked Willem for what they’d agreed on.Willem had memorized tonight’s codes. He instructed Besha to memorize them, too, but Besha had no head for numbers. He scrawled them on a paper napkin pilfered from somebody’s breakroom.Now, in the pine grove, he slid a finger into the inner pocket of his parka. He felt the napkin there.He tensed when he spotted someone approaching from the villas. But it was just Malsha, shuffling along to their meeting like the old man he was.Reaching the shelter of the grove, the General Magistrate tipped back his hood and let the snow speckle his bald brow. “Well?” he asked.Besha hated the presumptuous tone, the lack of greeting. “Well yourself,” he said.Malsha didn’t smile, didn’t take the invitation to banter. Besha had never seen him so serious.Something knotted itself in Besha’s stomach. He reached into his pocket, but he didn’t pull the napkin out. “These expire at 2 a.m. and 2:20 a.m., respectively. Whatever you’re doing with them, you better move fast.”Malsha held out his gloved hand.Still Besha hesitated. He was no naif, and he’d seen how heavily Willem had been sweating as he recited those numbers. Writing an exploit to steal nuclear warhead launch codes was something a hacker like Willem did for sheer bragging rights. But Malsha clearly meant to use the codes—how?“So,” he said, trying to turn the situation into a joke, “should I expect to hear about a direct strike on G160 block tomorrow morning?”Malsha offered a token smile. G160 block held the apartment of Visha Verán, his political rival.“Please, Besha,” he said pleasantly. “I came out here from my bed, where I was basking in the warmth of my lovely kettle boy—the one you attempted to steal from me a year or so ago. I hope to return to him immediately.”

After you fire a missile or two?

Besha reminded himself that the less he knew, the safer he was. If worse came to worst, he could always play dumb and say that Malsha had bullied or threatened him.Still, he couldn’t quell the unsettled feeling in his gut. What could the old schemer be planning? Malsha had no reason to attack Oslov, the seat of his power, but … where, then?Besha plucked the napkin from his pocket and held it out. “Are we quits now, Malsha?”Malsha tried to snatch the napkin, but Besha held it just out of reach. “No more favors. No more secret meetings. Say it.”The Magistrate nodded in that condescending way. “We’re quits, my friend. I won’t bother you again.” He took the napkin and slid it into the depths of his parka. “I’ll leave first. Wait ten minutes before following me.”“Great,” Besha muttered, stamping his feet. “I’ll try not to get frostbite.”Now that Malsha had what he wanted, his smile grew wide and sincere. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Besha,” he said, giving the younger man a pat on the back. “I feel sure you have a long and brilliant career in front of you.”

27 September, year 374, 12:20 a.m.

Ceill Linnett was beautiful when he was angry. Besha knew he shouldn’t be thinking this—it was an inappropriate thing to notice about a friend’s son, especially when his rage was directed at you. But how could you not appreciate the blazing blue eyes, the ripe flush against the pale skin, the furrow between the graceful brows?Just one time, one little time years ago, Besha had stared slightly too hard at Ceill when he dined with the boy’s two fathers. Afterward, Tilrey had taken Besha aside and talked to him in a way that left Besha unsteady on his feet.I know you look at him and see me all over again. Defenseless, yours for the taking. But this is a Linnett, Besha—a Linnett child. If you ever forget that…Besha had ducked his head and apologized much more sincerely than he usually did. He was so close to Gersha and Tilrey that the misborn boy was practically like his nephew.And yet, he couldn’t help seeing Tilrey’s youth in the boy. Even now, when he was petrified because Ceill had caught him getting it on with a Brothel whore who was (apparently) Ceill’s secret boyfriend, the resemblance bugged him. It confused him, keeping him from finding the best route out of this mess.He missed the old Tilrey so much. But he’d keep that to himself.He summoned his best blasé manner. “Oh, hello, Ceill. Must have been a scheduling mix-up.”He backed away from both young men, trying not to taste the residue of Stefan’s mouth, which had been attached to his a minute earlier. He had to sort this out before Ceill got angry enough to consider telling his fathers. “How embarrassing—my apologies. I’ll be on my way.”“No, I’ll go,” Stefan said with a toss of his head, returning Ceill’s glare in kind. “There was no mix-up. We had no plans tonight, Ceillsha, except in your dreams.”Trouble in paradise. Maybe Besha could take advantage of this.Ceill looked shattered. “But you said we could—”“Hook up again? Sure, sometime! But I never said you could creep around those tunnels and spy on me!”“I wasn’t doing that!” Ceill looked guilty to Besha, though. Red crept down his neck, and his eyes were bright with unfallen tears.“Tunnels?” Besha asked. He’d heard rumors about secret passages in the Brothel.Neither lad seemed to hear him. “I can’t be with you unless you respect my boundaries!” Stefan cried. He marched toward the door, then turned on his heel to shoot Ceill another rageful glance with his expressive eyes. “I was doing my job with Fir Councillor here. This time I have to tell Kai you interfered. I have no choice!”“I’m sorry!” Ceill followed Stefan to the door and reached for him, his voice rising frantically. “I didn’t mean to spy. I was just passing, and I couldn’t help seeing you, and—”“No!” Stefan shook off the other boy’s touch, his face twisting in disgust. “And don’t follow me,” he added, hitting the door switch and stepping out into the hallway. “I don’t want to see you again till you learn that I’m not yours.”The door snapped shut between the two boys with a ferocity that made Besha flinch. Then he realized his best option was to make a quick exit as well.He sidestepped past Ceill to the door, raising both hands to remind the youth he was harmless. Only an old man! “Well, that was awkward, wasn’t it? I had no idea it was so easy to spy on patrons in this place. I must say, I’m a little scandalized.”Ceill examined the carpet, pointedly ignoring Besha. Besha didn’t like the ominous set of his shoulders, which suggested he wanted to hit the nearest person he could find.When Besha was faced with a large, angry person, his natural instinct was to talk as fast as he could. “As far as I’m concerned, tonight never happened,” he said. “I know you’re not fond of me, but let’s forget this ugliness like civilized people. I won’t say a word to your fathers about your little … whatever you have going on with the Brothel’s Jewel. That’s your business, young man. As for the spying, I might have a word with Kai about that. Where did you come from, anyway—out of the wall?”Ceill just glowered.Besha reached for the door switch as subtly as he could. “Discretion—that’s the watchword, right? Well, then, good night.”As he was about to make his escape, a large hand shot out and covered the panel. “You can’t just leave,” Ceill said, blocking Besha’s exit. “Not after this—this—whatever it is. Why were you even with Stefan?”The boy sounded more upset than angry. Feeling a little more secure, Besha savored the unusual sensation of being the wronged party. “All I was doing was enjoying my prerogatives as a Councillor by seeking sanctioned entertainment with your boyfriend—if he is your boyfriend. As he pointed out, you were the one who burst in unannounced.”“No. This was no accident.” Ceill frowned at Besha, but then his chin wobbled and his eyes fell. “You knew how I feel about Stefan. You wanted to do something about it.”Oh, to be young and think the world revolved around you. Besha stepped away from the door, keeping a safe distance from Ceill. “What in the world makes you think I care who you’re fucking?”“The way you look at me.” The boy’s voice had fallen to a whisper. Tears welled in his eyes again. “The way you look at him … you think I don’t notice? You sit there at dinner across the table from him and Gersha, and you stare and stare.”Ah. So this was about Tilrey, not Stefan at all.“My poor lad.” Besha sat down on the sofa. He beckoned Ceill to sit opposite him, feeling more in control now. “Whatever happened between Tilrey and me or between Gersha and me, it was long ago. I think of you the way I would think of any son of my peers—with immense respect.Ceill didn’t sit down. “I’m the son of a Drudge, and you know it.”Besha considered playing dumb about the boy’s parentage, but Ceill wouldn’t fall for that. “As far as I’m concerned, you have two fathers. My best friends in this world.”The boy’s shoulders relaxed a bit. Besha decided to try his luck with more honesty. “If I’ve ever looked at you inappropriately—or at Tilrey in your presence—I’m so sorry. Certain habits die hard.”Ceill sighed. “You want him even now, don’t you? Maybe you love him, if you’re capable of that.”Love! What a word. If Besha did feel that way, he would certainly never admit it. “Tilrey is a trusted friend. An ally.” And someone who happens to be fucking my wife, which is a little awkward. “But yes, I can’t deny I still find him attractive.”Ceill sat down. His gaze was trained on the opposite wall, his posture defeated. “I wish Stefan felt that way about me. But he doesn’t even see me. He doesn’t care.”“Stefan is a professional,” Besha said, wondering for the first time if Ceill might be mentally unstable. Maybe it was his duty to ask Tilrey to get the boy some treatment—green hells, what an awful conversation that would be! “Brothel workers aren’t like us,” he added. “He was just doing his job with me. It doesn’t say anything about his feelings for you.”Ceill sat hunched with his arms wrapped around himself. “We were only together once. I don’t know if he even likes me.”Spare me the adolescent drama. But at least the boy wasn’t raging anymore. Besha would treat him carefully, for Tilrey’s sake. “I can’t speak for Stefan, lad. But he should like you if he has eyes and a brain. Green hells, there’s nothing wrong with you!”“There is, though,” Ceill said in a strange, detached voice. He dashed a tear from his cheek. “Fir Linbeck—Besha—I did lie earlier. Stefan and I had nothing planned. I was in the tunnels that run through the building, and I saw you two, and I barged in. I’m a terrible person. I’m sorry.”Besha felt vindicated by the display of contrition, though it didn’t give him any more confidence in the boy’s mental health. “Apology accepted. It’s always healthier to be honest. But you’re not a terrible person, just a foolish, lovesick boy,” he added. “It’ll pass, believe me.”Ceill raised his eyes to Besha as if seeing him for the first time. He laughed. “It’s always healthier to be honest? That’s rich, coming from you.”“Well, then. If that’s the impression you have of me, I can see why you wouldn’t want my advice.” Besha got up and straightened his tunic. He’d had it with the kid’s mood swings. “Maybe it’s time for us to go our separate—”“Not yet.” Ceill was on his feet, blocking Besha’s path a second time. “I just want you to be honest with me, truly and brutally honest. Is that too much to ask?”“No,” Besha said quickly, thinking yes, probably.“You think there’s something wrong with me, don’t you? My feelings for Stefan? Everything I’ve done tonight?”Besha tried to look noncommittal.“You know I don’t like you.”Besha risked a step toward the door. Please don’t hit me.But Ceill stood firm. “You want me to be honest? I didn’t even come here for Stefan. I came for you. I want to talk with you, and it can’t be at home. One of them is always watching.”“One of who? Your dads?”“Yeah.” Ceill flopped back down on the sofa as if he’d suddenly given up on keeping Besha from leaving. “They’re so worried about me, all the time. There are things they don’t want me to know about the past.”Besha knew he should get the hell out of there. But, against his better judgment, he was curious about the workings of the kid’s deranged brain. And he couldn’t ignore the tears glazing Ceill’s cheeks as the boy added, “I just want to know what’s wrong with me. I can’t seem to love people properly and have them love me back.”Besha’s daughter, Gunde, used to fall into strange, dark moods when she was around Ceill’s age. Besha would sit with her and listen patiently and eventually tease her out of her funk.Maybe Ceill just needed someone to listen.“Well,” Besha said, settling himself back on the sofa at a cautious distance from the boy, “I tend to agree with your dads. The past is more trouble than it’s worth. It certainly has nothing to do with whether you can love people—why are you so hung up on love, anyway? You’re what, twenty-one? The world is yours right now! You have no responsibilities! You’re supposed to be fucking your way around the city and having fun!”Ceill winced. “I’m not like you. That’s not what I want.”“Well, then, go after what you do want!” It was hard not to be impatient with such a spoiled child. “You’re a Linnett! When you graduate, you’ll get a job in the Sector, and your parents will make sure it’s a good one. Since you’re Discourse, you’ll never be a Councillor, but so what? You’ll have a nice apartment and Restaurant meals and Brothel privileges. When you get to R-9 or so, maybe you can even convince Stefan to live with you. Find him a token posting, and he’ll be grateful to you for the rest of his life for taking him out of the Brothel. Just like what happened with Gersha and Tilrey—”“No!” Ceill raised blazing eyes to Besha. “What Gersha and Tilrey have isn’t about gratitude. They love each other. And Stefan will never love me, because . . . because . . .”“Because what?” Besha wondered who had filled the boy’s head with nonsense. Gersha and Tilrey were different, yes, but their relationship was the exception that proved the rule.The blue eyes clouded again. “Stefan can’t love me because I’m a Linnett,” Ceill said. “Because that man’s blood flows in my veins. My great-grandfather . . . the exile.”“Malsha?” Besha hadn’t thought about the old rascal in the longest time. Usually it was Tilrey who forced him to do so by reminding him of the whole ugly business with Willem Rehbrandt. “What do you care? He was exiled long before you were born.”“But you knew him, didn’t you?” A spark ignited in the boy’s eyes. “I’ve heard you talking to Tilrey about him. I can’t ask Tilrey. And I’ve tried to ask my grandmother Linnett, but she changes the subject. She’s clever that way.”Besha nodded. Albertine Linnett was more principled than her old man, but still slippery as a fish. “What do you want to know about your great-grandpa, anyway? What’s so urgent?”Ceill’s eyes widened, as if the answer were obvious. “I want to know what he was exiled for.”Well. This was awkward. “Gross abuse of power,” Besha said. “Infringement on core constitutional provisions.”That was the nice thing about legal language; you could be so vague. No one outside of the Council and a few high-ranking military personnel knew the actual reason.But Ceill could tell when he was being snowed. “Not the official crime. The real one.” As Besha hesitated, he said, “Don’t pretend you don’t know.”Besha sighed. Gersha and Tilrey might not be happy with him, but it was the boy’s right to know the sins of his ancestor. And it was easy to tell the story without mentioning his own part in it.“Promise not to breathe a word,” he said, narrowing his eyes on Ceill’s. “If you tell anyone what I’m about to tell you, they might think it came from Tilrey or Gersha.”Ceill nodded. “I promise.”“Fine.” How did you even begin? “Your great-grandfather pretended to serve Oslov, but all he cared about were his personal pleasures. He was fond of Harbour, having served in the embassy there. He decided he wanted to die in the land of green fields and trees.”I want that, too. I’ve never even seen a green field! a small voice whined inside Besha. He ignored it, keeping up his façade of disapproval.“So, with all the power of the General Magistracy at his disposal, Malsha made a deal with Colonel Thibault, the leader of a faction of Harbourers who call themselves Resurgents. She offered him refuge in her republic—or kingdom or whatever the hell it is. In exchange, he vowed to exterminate her enemies.“So.” This was the tricky part of the story. Besha kept his eyes steady on Ceill’s attentive ones. “Malsha stole one of our warheads. The launch codes change several times daily, and no one has access to them without a Council order. I believe Malsha took advantage of a traitor high up in military command. Anyway, once he had those codes, he could sit at his desk and aim the missile at an unlucky region of Harbour and squeeze the trigger. And . . . blam!”Besha brought his hands together with a clap. Ceill gave a satisfying start.“Who were Colonel Thibault’s enemies?” he asked after a moment.“Harbourers. They’re all just Harbourers to us.”“People died, though?”“Oh, yes.” You innocent child. “The silo command thought at first that the warhead had fired accidentally. By the time the mess was traced back to Malsha, he had already fled to Harbour, leaving the Council to clean up after him. He was exiled in absentia.”Understanding dawned in Ceill’s eyes. “So he didn’t even die.”Besha wouldn’t tell the boy about Tilrey’s later encounter with Ceill’s great-grandfather; it wasn’t his story to tell. “Oh, Malsha’s dead by now—no doubt about that. He was an old man when he left.”“But he got what he wanted.” The boy’s eyes had turned cold and cynical. “He was never punished for any of it. And the Council kept his breach of our security a secret.”“Well, obviously!” Besha spread his hands. “Anyway, it was a freak accident—a sociopath in charge of our arsenal. How could we have prepared for that? And we weathered it just fine. Whatever wretched Harbourer faction Malsha bombed, they didn’t have the resources to strike back. No power in the world does. We stand alone.”“You called Malsha a sociopath,” Ceill said. “Do you think he was just born bad, then?”Besha wasn’t sure why he’d used that word. Way back when he was doing paperwork at the base and running errands for Malsha, he’d thought of the old man as a kindred spirit.Like Besha himself, Malsha understood that “meritocracy” was never really about merit but about habit, entrenched power, and boredom. Malsha saw the potential in Besha, despite his low birth and low test scores. Without the old man’s help at key points, Besha would never have gotten the rest of it—his marriage, his place at Verán’s side, his election to the Council.So yes, Malsha was bad, but in his own way, he had paved a path for Besha and Tilrey and the True Hearth. He’d seen the potential in Tilrey, too.“Do you think it’s so bad to be a rebel against the established order, then?” Besha asked. “That surprises me, coming from a lad who spends all his spare time running around with Drudges.”“I don’t—”“Really? I doubt this is the first time you’ve been sneaking in the tunnels. I’ve heard about you filming the whores with your camera. And, of course, you pay court to the fair Stefan.”Ceill flinched. “I like the company of Laborers, that’s true. But my great-grandfather loved having power over them—and abusing it.”The boy wanted so badly to hear that he was nothing like Malsha. It tempted Besha to play devil’s advocate.“Malsha liked to abuse his power, yes,” he said. “But he never acted self-righteous about it. Power is a social fiction, he used to say. Our tests don’t measure cunning, the only birthright that really matters.”“So he didn’t believe in the system, but he was happy to take advantage of it?”“Oh, yes.” Besha warmed to his subject. He had admired Malsha for his lack of scruples, back in the day. “And he could be charming, your great-grandfather. He made me feel special. Little by little, he pushed me to do things I wouldn’t normally have done.”He paused, seeing curiosity flicker in Ceill’s eyes, and added, “But you know, every intelligent person gets tempted that way. Even your father.”“Not Gersha,” Ceill said immediately.“No, not Gersha. But Tilrey learned from Malsha, just like I did.” Just today, Besha had seen Tilrey and his wife whispering together in her office, plotting their next move. “He may not want to talk about it, but the old man taught him everything he knows about the Council—how to run a winning party and keep it in line.”A shudder ran over Ceill’s shoulders. “Tilrey was my age when Malsha left. Younger, even.”“He learned fast.” Besha let Ceill guess at all the things Tilrey had learned. “You know,” he added thoughtfully, “Malsha once told me that when he—Malsha, not Tilrey—was your age, he was an innocent. An idealist, as I imagine you are. The only unusual thing about him in his youth was that he preferred the company of Drudges to Upstarts. Just like you.”“You’re not saying—”“Oh, I’m not saying anything. I barely know you, lad.” Besha allowed himself a small, triumphant smile. “But wouldn’t it be ironic if Malsha’s personality traits skipped two generations?”Ceill’s brows bunched together. “I’m nothing like him.”“Maybe not, but you worry about it, don’t you? You have so much power over people like Stefan. You don’t want to misuse it.”The boy released a hissing breath. “Sometimes I do worry,” he admitted. “But…”“But what?” It really would be delicious if Ceill ended up like Malsha. Right now, though, the boy seemed irritatingly moralistic and obtuse—much like Besha’s own son Blas. Young people could be so tiring.“I don’t know.”“I suppose you think you would never choose cruelty over kindness?” Besha asked, with a sly smile that implied the opposite might be possible.“I hope not. But I haven’t really been tempted yet.” In a flash, the boy’s blue eyes rose and locked on Besha’s. “You said that Malsha pushed you to do things you wouldn’t normally do. What did you do for him?”“Oh, just errands. We met when I was administering the ordnance depot at an army base deep in the Wastes.” Besha shuddered at the memory of that greenforsaken place. Malsha, still a Councillor then, had somehow known all about the thriving market in misappropriated weaponry that Besha was running.I’ll allow it to continue, the older man had said in his magnanimous, refined way. But I need you to do something for me. Find me the best Drudge hacker you can. Someone who can get access to that silo.What a stroke of luck that Besha already knew Willem Rehbrandt. He and the little Drudge used to play cards, which Besha usually lost. Out there on the Wastes, you found entertainment where you could, and Willem’s unrecognized brilliance had a certain entertainment value.“Just little favors,” Besha continued. “Later, after I met my wife and came back here to work in the Sector, I did some undercover work for Malsha in the Island Party. Tipped him off about important shake-ups. Just politics.”“Just politics.” Ceill seemed to have trouble fitting his lips around the phrase. “So,” he asked, “when Malsha stole the nuclear warhead, was it from your base?”“Oh, I was long gone by then!” Too late, Besha realized he hadn’t answered the question. He should have simply said no, but Ceill had caught him off guard.Maybe the boy did have some natural cunning, after all. He looked straight at Besha with those innocent blue eyes as he asked, “Did Malsha ever ask you to help him with cracking the system, so he could appropriate that missile? You must have had access, after all.”“Oh, ha ha, no!” Perhaps Besha’s laughter was a bit too loud. “I had no access to that silo or that targeting system. That was far above my classification in those days, and I’m no hacker. And, as I mentioned, I left the base long before Malsha made his move!” All true. “No, Malsha must have corrupted someone further up the command structure.”Ceill kept staring. It was unnerving. “They never caught the traitor inside the base?”“A few people were disciplined. No one confessed.”A sharp-edged furrow appeared in the flawless skin between Ceill’s brows. “Malsha never even asked you to help? It seems odd that he knew you so well, someone who’d worked at the base the warhead came from, and it never occurred to him.”What was the boy getting at? Had Gersha or Tilrey let something slip? Even if they had, Besha couldn’t imagine what Ceill might want to do with his secret. Tell the Council? Davita controlled the Council. Tell Davita? These days, Besha wasn’t even sure she’d care.It had all happened so long ago, and it was only a few thousand dead Harbourers. He was a lot more worried that his lovely wife would find out he was plotting to overthrow the very government she served.“If Malsha had asked for my help in committing treason, I would have reported him,” he said.The furrow in Ceill’s brow deepened. “I thought you admired Malsha for seeing our whole system for the lie it is.”Maybe Besha shouldn’t have said that. “‘Admired’ is a strong word,” he said with a breezy laugh.“So, even if he had asked, you wouldn’t have helped him? You were too duty-bound?”As the boy spoke, a lock of hair tumbled into his eyes, its sandy blond looking dark against the pallor of his brow. He was so much like Tilrey that Besha shivered.“Duty-bound isn’t exactly what I would call myself,” he said, losing track of his thoughts. “But I’m no traitor.”“You keep talking about treason.” Ceill’s voice dipped into a lower register. “But, if what you say was true, Malsha only wanted a better life for himself.”“He endangered our security and committed mass murder.”“Of Harbourers. Didn’t you say Harbourers don’t matter?” The boy leaned closer to Besha, gaze fixed on him. “Anyway, how do you even know why Malsha did it? The whole thing about wanting to die in Harbour? How do you know if he didn’t—”“He told me,” Besha snapped. He was getting royally tired of this—not just the conversation, but all the decades of lying about something that really, profoundly, did not matter. “I thought he was joking. I certainly didn’t know he had a plan to do it, but I figured that out later. Why are you so eager to get me to admit I helped him?”Ceill’s chin gave a small wobble. And then, all of a sudden, Besha knew what he was after.“You want to tattle to Gersha! Not Tilrey—you don’t quite trust him to care, do you? But Gersha is virtue incarnate.” Besha had to laugh—the poor kid had no idea how off-base his assumptions were. “If Gersha knew I’d helped Malsha Linnett commit treason, he would stop working with me in the Council and shun me. You would never see me at your dinner table again. Is that what you’re thinking, Ceill? Did you sneak in here hoping to get me to confess something unforgivable?”Ceill flushed, his delicate skin turning almost purple. “My dads say you were tight with Malsha in the old days. I wanted to know how far it went.”Besha couldn’t stop himself from grinning, because he had Ceill’s number now. “And you really think Gersha would dump me—as a friend, an ally—over a tiny bit of treason?”It hadn’t been a “tiny bit of treason” a few minutes ago. But Ceill was too wrought-up to notice Besha’s change of tone. “If the treason killed thousands of people?” he said. “Gersha would want nothing to do with you. He doesn’t think Harbourer lives are nothing.”It was the perfect moment to drive the metaphorical knife into the boy’s chest and twist it. Besha knew he would put himself at risk by telling the truth, not to mention Gersha and Tilrey and their whole rebellion.But he lived for moments when he could indisputably win. Though they came rarely, they were worth the wait, making blood pound in his temples as if he were young again.Anyway, Ceill was no real threat—a student, a misbirth. If he became a loose cannon, Tilrey and Gersha would find ways to disarm him. At best, they could come clean to him and make him part of their rebellion. At worst, if he refused to cooperate, they could pack him off to moral rehab for a spell.Besha yielded to the sweetness of victory.He let a cold smile spread over his face. “What if I told you that Gersha already knows what I helped Malsha do? That he’s known for decades? Since before you were born?”Ceill’s eyes widened. “Then … it’s true? You helped him get the warhead?”“Of course I did, you silly child!” Besha stood up from the sofa and stretched. It felt good being honest for once. “Stop looking at me like I just murdered your lover in front of you. I didn’t know what Malsha would do with the warhead. He was an old friend calling in a favor, who happened to be the General Magistrate. So yes, of course I helped him!”The blood had drained from Ceill’s face, replaced by dead white. “I almost believed you,” he said in a faint voice. “When you denied it.”“When Gersha found out, he was shocked, shocked. Just like you.” Besha mimicked Ceill’s expression. “He wanted to turn me in right then and there. But Tilrey convinced him that I would be more useful as an ally. And so they’ve used my secret to control me, all these years.”There went the twist of the knife.Ceill’s eyes were burning holes in his face. For a moment, he said nothing. Then: “Gersha wouldn’t.” A blink, and a tear slipped down his cheek.The high of victory was as good as orgasm—better, Besha sometimes thought. Nothing beat the intoxication of knowing you had just demolished someone’s entire worldview.But all highs fade. Watching Ceill wipe away another tear, Besha felt something approaching remorse. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken the risk. It would have been safer to leave the boy’s illusions intact.He hovered over Ceill, wondering if he could risk a friendly pat on the back. Probably not. “Gersha’s a good man,” he said. “After he came back from his first trip to Harbour, he called me a sociopath.”That word had stung a little. “But,” Besha continued, “we made up eventually. Gersha knows I never meant to hurt anyone. It was just politics.”“Just politics.” Ceill’s gaze had fallen to the floor. He moved mechanically, his eyes empty now, almost as if he really were bleeding out from a fatal blow.“Yes,” Besha said. “In politics—in life—one sometimes has to sacrifice one’s principles to win a greater victory. Gersha learned that, and so will you. Maybe you’ve learned it tonight.” He drew himself up, wondering if he’d actually done the boy a favor. “Can I count on you to be discreet about this conversation, Ceill? And I’ll be discreet about your dalliance with Stefan?”The answer took a while coming. Besha was just about to say, Even if you tell, no one will believe you when the boy finally said in a flat voice, “I’ll be discreet.”“Good man.” Besha leaned over, determined to perform the back-patting ritual this time.But Ceill inched out of range. “I think you should go now, Fir Linbeck.”“Yes. So do I.” Besha had had his fill of adolescent dramatics, though he wasn’t sure he was leaving things on the right note. Maybe he should spend some time buttering up Ceill so he’d forget how savagely he’d been torn down.But Besha didn’t have the heart for flattery right now. Taking the opening, he headed for the door.He stopped with his hand on the switch for a last glance at the poor, slumped-over boy. It did feel wrong to leave him that way.“Don’t mope over Stefan,” he said. “He’ll come back if you play your cards right. He knows you’re a catch.”Ceill didn’t turn to look at him.Well, I tried. Besha pressed the switch. The door hissed open.Behind him, a woman’s voice spoke: “Not just yet.”Besha wheeled around to find himself face-to-face with someone he didn’t recognize. A tall, middle-aged Drudge with a commanding lift to her chin, who seemed to have appeared from nowhere.The Brothel keeper? Was she miffed that he’d enjoyed Stefan’s favors (barely)? “Good evening,” he said.From the doorway, a familiar voice said, “Shit.”It was Kai standing on the threshold, his impressive bulk blocking the way. “Oh, good,” Besha said. “Kai, will you please explain to your boss that—”He stopped as Kai stepped forward, muscling him back into the room. “What the fuck?”Kai hit the switch, and the door snapped shut again with a force that sent Besha stumbling backward. The woman’s strong hands latched on to his shoulders. He twisted, but she held on tight.“What the fuck is going on here?” This time, Besha addressed Ceill, the only Upstart in the room. Ceill didn’t even lift his head.A sliding panel had opened in the sitting room wall, leaving a dark gap—the entrance to the tunnels, Besha supposed. A third Laborer stood there, a young man with dark hair and a serious expression.It took Besha an instant to recognize the weird little Skeinsha who lived with Gersha as his kettle boy. “What are you doing here?”“Shh. It’s all right, Fir Linbeck,” Kai said, advancing on Besha. Besha tried to back away, but the woman holding him stood firm. “We’d just like you to sit down.”No one had threatened Besha physically for decades, but he knew what bullying felt like. He writhed, making the woman’s hands slip from his shoulders.He opened his mouth to command that fool Kai to be sensible. But an arm snaked around his throat from behind, choking the words into silence.Besha thrashed. He barely had time to register a flash in the corner of his right eye and a sharp pricking sensation before he felt the throb of blood rising to the surface, the hot drip of it down his neck.A knife. A fucking knife. They were assassinating him.So this is how I die—in the greening Brothel. But Besha wasn’t dead yet, and he wasn’t going down without a fight.

Year 343 (31 years ago)

Besha could guess why. The pine grove off the ski trail was only a few minutes’ walk from the villas, but there was no surveillance here. No one to watch them but the blazing stars.

He was exhausted from his round trip out to the base. It would have been an easy jaunt if he’d been able to use his wife’s name to requisition a Council plane, but instead, he had disguised himself as a Laborer functionary and taken the military shuttle from Redda. The flight was crammed with troops singing drunkenly on their way back from leave. They reeked—Besha wrinkled his nose fastidiously at the memory.

The base itself was an unwelcome blast from the past. The long hallways were as gray and dreary as ever. Besha stuck to shadows and back passages, not wanting to run into anyone who might recognize him on his way to the rendezvous in a deserted locker room.

Poor little Willem Rehbrandt looked more red-eyed and put-upon than ever. He was clearly regretting the day, years ago, when he’d boasted to Besha about his hacking prowess.

Besha was Willem’s boss in those days, but they were friends of a sort. Late one night, in an unguarded moment, Willem told Besha that he’d written an exploit that could harvest upcoming Q-codes from the silo’s internal software hours before they became viable.

Q-codes launched warheads. No one was supposed to have them, least of all a little Drudge maintenance engineer. Willem could have been exiled for his invisible act of sabotage, but Besha kept his secret and supplied him with the sap he craved. And now Besha had returned to the base to collect something in return.

He handed over ten vials, neatly banded, and asked Willem for what they’d agreed on.

Willem had memorized tonight’s codes. He instructed Besha to memorize them, too, but Besha had no head for numbers. He scrawled them on a paper napkin pilfered from somebody’s breakroom.

Now, in the pine grove, he slid a finger into the inner pocket of his parka. He felt the napkin there.

He tensed when he spotted someone approaching from the villas. But it was just Malsha, shuffling along to their meeting like the old man he was.

Reaching the shelter of the grove, the General Magistrate tipped back his hood and let the snow speckle his bald brow. “Well?” he asked.

Besha hated the presumptuous tone, the lack of greeting. “Well yourself,” he said.

Malsha didn’t smile, didn’t take the invitation to banter. Besha had never seen him so serious.

Something knotted itself in Besha’s stomach. He reached into his pocket, but he didn’t pull the napkin out. “These expire at 2 a.m. and 2:20 a.m., respectively. Whatever you’re doing with them, you better move fast.”

Malsha held out his gloved hand.

Still Besha hesitated. He was no naif, and he’d seen how heavily Willem had been sweating as he recited those numbers. Writing an exploit to steal nuclear warhead launch codes was something a hacker like Willem did for sheer bragging rights. But Malsha clearly meant to use the codes—how?

“So,” he said, trying to turn the situation into a joke, “should I expect to hear about a direct strike on G160 block tomorrow morning?”

Malsha offered a token smile. G160 block held the apartment of Visha Verán, his political rival.

“Please, Besha,” he said pleasantly. “I came out here from my bed, where I was basking in the warmth of my lovely kettle boy—the one you attempted to steal from me a year or so ago. I hope to return to him immediately.”

After you fire a missile or two?

Besha reminded himself that the less he knew, the safer he was. If worse came to worst, he could always play dumb and say that Malsha had bullied or threatened him.

Still, he couldn’t quell the unsettled feeling in his gut. What could the old schemer be planning? Malsha had no reason to attack Oslov, the seat of his power, but … where, then?

Besha plucked the napkin from his pocket and held it out. “Are we quits now, Malsha?”

Malsha tried to snatch the napkin, but Besha held it just out of reach. “No more favors. No more secret meetings. Say it.”

The Magistrate nodded in that condescending way. “We’re quits, my friend. I won’t bother you again.” He took the napkin and slid it into the depths of his parka. “I’ll leave first. Wait ten minutes before following me.”

“Great,” Besha muttered, stamping his feet. “I’ll try not to get frostbite.”

Now that Malsha had what he wanted, his smile grew wide and sincere. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Besha,” he said, giving the younger man a pat on the back. “I feel sure you have a long and brilliant career in front of you.”

27 September, year 374, 12:20 a.m.

Just one time, one little time years ago, Besha had stared slightly too hard at Ceill when he dined with the boy’s two fathers. Afterward, Tilrey had taken Besha aside and talked to him in a way that left Besha unsteady on his feet.

I know you look at him and see me all over again. Defenseless, yours for the taking. But this is a Linnett, Besha—a Linnett child. If you ever forget that…

Besha had ducked his head and apologized much more sincerely than he usually did. He was so close to Gersha and Tilrey that the misborn boy was practically like his nephew.

And yet, he couldn’t help seeing Tilrey’s youth in the boy. Even now, when he was petrified because Ceill had caught him getting it on with a Brothel whore who was (apparently) Ceill’s secret boyfriend, the resemblance bugged him. It confused him, keeping him from finding the best route out of this mess.

He missed the old Tilrey so much. But he’d keep that to himself.

He summoned his best blasé manner. “Oh, hello, Ceill. Must have been a scheduling mix-up.”

He backed away from both young men, trying not to taste the residue of Stefan’s mouth, which had been attached to his a minute earlier. He had to sort this out before Ceill got angry enough to consider telling his fathers. “How embarrassing—my apologies. I’ll be on my way.”

“No, I’ll go,” Stefan said with a toss of his head, returning Ceill’s glare in kind. “There was no mix-up. We had no plans tonight, Ceillsha, except in your dreams.”

Trouble in paradise. Maybe Besha could take advantage of this.

Ceill looked shattered. “But you said we could—”

“Hook up again? Sure, sometime! But I never said you could creep around those tunnels and spy on me!”

“I wasn’t doing that!” Ceill looked guilty to Besha, though. Red crept down his neck, and his eyes were bright with unfallen tears.

“Tunnels?” Besha asked. He’d heard rumors about secret passages in the Brothel.

Neither lad seemed to hear him. “I can’t be with you unless you respect my boundaries!” Stefan cried. He marched toward the door, then turned on his heel to shoot Ceill another rageful glance with his expressive eyes. “I was doing my job with Fir Councillor here. This time I have to tell Kai you interfered. I have no choice!”

“I’m sorry!” Ceill followed Stefan to the door and reached for him, his voice rising frantically. “I didn’t mean to spy. I was just passing, and I couldn’t help seeing you, and—”

“No!” Stefan shook off the other boy’s touch, his face twisting in disgust. “And don’t follow me,” he added, hitting the door switch and stepping out into the hallway. “I don’t want to see you again till you learn that I’m not yours.”

The door snapped shut between the two boys with a ferocity that made Besha flinch. Then he realized his best option was to make a quick exit as well.

He sidestepped past Ceill to the door, raising both hands to remind the youth he was harmless. Only an old man! “Well, that was awkward, wasn’t it? I had no idea it was so easy to spy on patrons in this place. I must say, I’m a little scandalized.”

Ceill examined the carpet, pointedly ignoring Besha. Besha didn’t like the ominous set of his shoulders, which suggested he wanted to hit the nearest person he could find.

When Besha was faced with a large, angry person, his natural instinct was to talk as fast as he could. “As far as I’m concerned, tonight never happened,” he said. “I know you’re not fond of me, but let’s forget this ugliness like civilized people. I won’t say a word to your fathers about your little … whatever you have going on with the Brothel’s Jewel. That’s your business, young man. As for the spying, I might have a word with Kai about that. Where did you come from, anyway—out of the wall?”

Ceill just glowered.

Besha reached for the door switch as subtly as he could. “Discretion—that’s the watchword, right? Well, then, good night.”

As he was about to make his escape, a large hand shot out and covered the panel. “You can’t just leave,” Ceill said, blocking Besha’s exit. “Not after this—this—whatever it is. Why were you even with Stefan?”

The boy sounded more upset than angry. Feeling a little more secure, Besha savored the unusual sensation of being the wronged party. “All I was doing was enjoying my prerogatives as a Councillor by seeking sanctioned entertainment with your boyfriend—if he is your boyfriend. As he pointed out, you were the one who burst in unannounced.”

“No. This was no accident.” Ceill frowned at Besha, but then his chin wobbled and his eyes fell. “You knew how I feel about Stefan. You wanted to do something about it.”

Oh, to be young and think the world revolved around you. Besha stepped away from the door, keeping a safe distance from Ceill. “What in the world makes you think I care who you’re fucking?”

“The way you look at me.” The boy’s voice had fallen to a whisper. Tears welled in his eyes again. “The way you look at him … you think I don’t notice? You sit there at dinner across the table from him and Gersha, and you stare and stare.”

Ah. So this was about Tilrey, not Stefan at all.

“My poor lad.” Besha sat down on the sofa. He beckoned Ceill to sit opposite him, feeling more in control now. “Whatever happened between Tilrey and me or between Gersha and me, it was long ago. I think of you the way I would think of any son of my peers—with immense respect.

Ceill didn’t sit down. “I’m the son of a Drudge, and you know it.”

Besha considered playing dumb about the boy’s parentage, but Ceill wouldn’t fall for that. “As far as I’m concerned, you have two fathers. My best friends in this world.”

The boy’s shoulders relaxed a bit. Besha decided to try his luck with more honesty. “If I’ve ever looked at you inappropriately—or at Tilrey in your presence—I’m so sorry. Certain habits die hard.”

Ceill sighed. “You want him even now, don’t you? Maybe you love him, if you’re capable of that.”

Love! What a word. If Besha did feel that way, he would certainly never admit it. “Tilrey is a trusted friend. An ally.” And someone who happens to be fucking my wife, which is a little awkward. “But yes, I can’t deny I still find him attractive.”

Ceill sat down. His gaze was trained on the opposite wall, his posture defeated. “I wish Stefan felt that way about me. But he doesn’t even see me. He doesn’t care.”

“Stefan is a professional,” Besha said, wondering for the first time if Ceill might be mentally unstable. Maybe it was his duty to ask Tilrey to get the boy some treatment—green hells, what an awful conversation that would be! “Brothel workers aren’t like us,” he added. “He was just doing his job with me. It doesn’t say anything about his feelings for you.”

Ceill sat hunched with his arms wrapped around himself. “We were only together once. I don’t know if he even likes me.”

Spare me the adolescent drama. But at least the boy wasn’t raging anymore. Besha would treat him carefully, for Tilrey’s sake. “I can’t speak for Stefan, lad. But he should like you if he has eyes and a brain. Green hells, there’s nothing wrong with you!”

“There is, though,” Ceill said in a strange, detached voice. He dashed a tear from his cheek. “Fir Linbeck—Besha—I did lie earlier. Stefan and I had nothing planned. I was in the tunnels that run through the building, and I saw you two, and I barged in. I’m a terrible person. I’m sorry.”

Besha felt vindicated by the display of contrition, though it didn’t give him any more confidence in the boy’s mental health. “Apology accepted. It’s always healthier to be honest. But you’re not a terrible person, just a foolish, lovesick boy,” he added. “It’ll pass, believe me.”

Ceill raised his eyes to Besha as if seeing him for the first time. He laughed. “It’s always healthier to be honest? That’s rich, coming from you.”

“Well, then. If that’s the impression you have of me, I can see why you wouldn’t want my advice.” Besha got up and straightened his tunic. He’d had it with the kid’s mood swings. “Maybe it’s time for us to go our separate—”

“Not yet.” Ceill was on his feet, blocking Besha’s path a second time. “I just want you to be honest with me, truly and brutally honest. Is that too much to ask?”

“No,” Besha said quickly, thinking yes, probably.

“You think there’s something wrong with me, don’t you? My feelings for Stefan? Everything I’ve done tonight?”

Besha tried to look noncommittal.

“You know I don’t like you.”

Besha risked a step toward the door. Please don’t hit me.

But Ceill stood firm. “You want me to be honest? I didn’t even come here for Stefan. I came for you. I want to talk with you, and it can’t be at home. One of them is always watching.”

“One of who? Your dads?”

“Yeah.” Ceill flopped back down on the sofa as if he’d suddenly given up on keeping Besha from leaving. “They’re so worried about me, all the time. There are things they don’t want me to know about the past.”

Besha knew he should get the hell out of there. But, against his better judgment, he was curious about the workings of the kid’s deranged brain. And he couldn’t ignore the tears glazing Ceill’s cheeks as the boy added, “I just want to know what’s wrong with me. I can’t seem to love people properly and have them love me back.”

Besha’s daughter, Gunde, used to fall into strange, dark moods when she was around Ceill’s age. Besha would sit with her and listen patiently and eventually tease her out of her funk.

Maybe Ceill just needed someone to listen.

“Well,” Besha said, settling himself back on the sofa at a cautious distance from the boy, “I tend to agree with your dads. The past is more trouble than it’s worth. It certainly has nothing to do with whether you can love people—why are you so hung up on love, anyway? You’re what, twenty-one? The world is yours right now! You have no responsibilities! You’re supposed to be fucking your way around the city and having fun!”

Ceill winced. “I’m not like you. That’s not what I want.”

“Well, then, go after what you do want!” It was hard not to be impatient with such a spoiled child. “You’re a Linnett! When you graduate, you’ll get a job in the Sector, and your parents will make sure it’s a good one. Since you’re Discourse, you’ll never be a Councillor, but so what? You’ll have a nice apartment and Restaurant meals and Brothel privileges. When you get to R-9 or so, maybe you can even convince Stefan to live with you. Find him a token posting, and he’ll be grateful to you for the rest of his life for taking him out of the Brothel. Just like what happened with Gersha and Tilrey—”

“No!” Ceill raised blazing eyes to Besha. “What Gersha and Tilrey have isn’t about gratitude. They love each other. And Stefan will never love me, because . . . because . . .”

“Because what?” Besha wondered who had filled the boy’s head with nonsense. Gersha and Tilrey were different, yes, but their relationship was the exception that proved the rule.

The blue eyes clouded again. “Stefan can’t love me because I’m a Linnett,” Ceill said. “Because that man’s blood flows in my veins. My great-grandfather . . . the exile.”

“Malsha?” Besha hadn’t thought about the old rascal in the longest time. Usually it was Tilrey who forced him to do so by reminding him of the whole ugly business with Willem Rehbrandt. “What do you care? He was exiled long before you were born.”

“But you knew him, didn’t you?” A spark ignited in the boy’s eyes. “I’ve heard you talking to Tilrey about him. I can’t ask Tilrey. And I’ve tried to ask my grandmother Linnett, but she changes the subject. She’s clever that way.”

Besha nodded. Albertine Linnett was more principled than her old man, but still slippery as a fish. “What do you want to know about your great-grandpa, anyway? What’s so urgent?”

Ceill’s eyes widened, as if the answer were obvious. “I want to know what he was exiled for.”

Well. This was awkward. “Gross abuse of power,” Besha said. “Infringement on core constitutional provisions.”

That was the nice thing about legal language; you could be so vague. No one outside of the Council and a few high-ranking military personnel knew the actual reason.

But Ceill could tell when he was being snowed. “Not the official crime. The real one.” As Besha hesitated, he said, “Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

Besha sighed. Gersha and Tilrey might not be happy with him, but it was the boy’s right to know the sins of his ancestor. And it was easy to tell the story without mentioning his own part in it.

“Promise not to breathe a word,” he said, narrowing his eyes on Ceill’s. “If you tell anyone what I’m about to tell you, they might think it came from Tilrey or Gersha.”

Ceill nodded. “I promise.”

“Fine.” How did you even begin? “Your great-grandfather pretended to serve Oslov, but all he cared about were his personal pleasures. He was fond of Harbour, having served in the embassy there. He decided he wanted to die in the land of green fields and trees.”

I want that, too. I’ve never even seen a green field! a small voice whined inside Besha. He ignored it, keeping up his façade of disapproval.

“So, with all the power of the General Magistracy at his disposal, Malsha made a deal with Colonel Thibault, the leader of a faction of Harbourers who call themselves Resurgents. She offered him refuge in her republic—or kingdom or whatever the hell it is. In exchange, he vowed to exterminate her enemies.

“So.” This was the tricky part of the story. Besha kept his eyes steady on Ceill’s attentive ones. “Malsha stole one of our warheads. The launch codes change several times daily, and no one has access to them without a Council order. I believe Malsha took advantage of a traitor high up in military command. Anyway, once he had those codes, he could sit at his desk and aim the missile at an unlucky region of Harbour and squeeze the trigger. And . . . blam!”

Besha brought his hands together with a clap. Ceill gave a satisfying start.

“Who were Colonel Thibault’s enemies?” he asked after a moment.

“Harbourers. They’re all just Harbourers to us.”

“People died, though?”

“Oh, yes.” You innocent child. “The silo command thought at first that the warhead had fired accidentally. By the time the mess was traced back to Malsha, he had already fled to Harbour, leaving the Council to clean up after him. He was exiled in absentia.”

Understanding dawned in Ceill’s eyes. “So he didn’t even die.”

Besha wouldn’t tell the boy about Tilrey’s later encounter with Ceill’s great-grandfather; it wasn’t his story to tell. “Oh, Malsha’s dead by now—no doubt about that. He was an old man when he left.”

“But he got what he wanted.” The boy’s eyes had turned cold and cynical. “He was never punished for any of it. And the Council kept his breach of our security a secret.”

“Well, obviously!” Besha spread his hands. “Anyway, it was a freak accident—a sociopath in charge of our arsenal. How could we have prepared for that? And we weathered it just fine. Whatever wretched Harbourer faction Malsha bombed, they didn’t have the resources to strike back. No power in the world does. We stand alone.”

“You called Malsha a sociopath,” Ceill said. “Do you think he was just born bad, then?”

Besha wasn’t sure why he’d used that word. Way back when he was doing paperwork at the base and running errands for Malsha, he’d thought of the old man as a kindred spirit.

Like Besha himself, Malsha understood that “meritocracy” was never really about merit but about habit, entrenched power, and boredom. Malsha saw the potential in Besha, despite his low birth and low test scores. Without the old man’s help at key points, Besha would never have gotten the rest of it—his marriage, his place at Verán’s side, his election to the Council.

So yes, Malsha was bad, but in his own way, he had paved a path for Besha and Tilrey and the True Hearth. He’d seen the potential in Tilrey, too.

“Do you think it’s so bad to be a rebel against the established order, then?” Besha asked. “That surprises me, coming from a lad who spends all his spare time running around with Drudges.”

“I don’t—”

“Really? I doubt this is the first time you’ve been sneaking in the tunnels. I’ve heard about you filming the whores with your camera. And, of course, you pay court to the fair Stefan.”

Ceill flinched. “I like the company of Laborers, that’s true. But my great-grandfather loved having power over them—and abusing it.”

The boy wanted so badly to hear that he was nothing like Malsha. It tempted Besha to play devil’s advocate.

“Malsha liked to abuse his power, yes,” he said. “But he never acted self-righteous about it. Power is a social fiction, he used to say. Our tests don’t measure cunning, the only birthright that really matters.”

“So he didn’t believe in the system, but he was happy to take advantage of it?”

“Oh, yes.” Besha warmed to his subject. He had admired Malsha for his lack of scruples, back in the day. “And he could be charming, your great-grandfather. He made me feel special. Little by little, he pushed me to do things I wouldn’t normally have done.”

He paused, seeing curiosity flicker in Ceill’s eyes, and added, “But you know, every intelligent person gets tempted that way. Even your father.”

“Not Gersha,” Ceill said immediately.

“No, not Gersha. But Tilrey learned from Malsha, just like I did.” Just today, Besha had seen Tilrey and his wife whispering together in her office, plotting their next move. “He may not want to talk about it, but the old man taught him everything he knows about the Council—how to run a winning party and keep it in line.”

A shudder ran over Ceill’s shoulders. “Tilrey was my age when Malsha left. Younger, even.”

“He learned fast.” Besha let Ceill guess at all the things Tilrey had learned. “You know,” he added thoughtfully, “Malsha once told me that when he—Malsha, not Tilrey—was your age, he was an innocent. An idealist, as I imagine you are. The only unusual thing about him in his youth was that he preferred the company of Drudges to Upstarts. Just like you.”

“You’re not saying—”

“Oh, I’m not saying anything. I barely know you, lad.” Besha allowed himself a small, triumphant smile. “But wouldn’t it be ironic if Malsha’s personality traits skipped two generations?”

Ceill’s brows bunched together. “I’m nothing like him.”

“Maybe not, but you worry about it, don’t you? You have so much power over people like Stefan. You don’t want to misuse it.”

The boy released a hissing breath. “Sometimes I do worry,” he admitted. “But…”

“But what?” It really would be delicious if Ceill ended up like Malsha. Right now, though, the boy seemed irritatingly moralistic and obtuse—much like Besha’s own son Blas. Young people could be so tiring.

“I don’t know.”

“I suppose you think you would never choose cruelty over kindness?” Besha asked, with a sly smile that implied the opposite might be possible.

“I hope not. But I haven’t really been tempted yet.” In a flash, the boy’s blue eyes rose and locked on Besha’s. “You said that Malsha pushed you to do things you wouldn’t normally do. What did you do for him?”

“Oh, just errands. We met when I was administering the ordnance depot at an army base deep in the Wastes.” Besha shuddered at the memory of that greenforsaken place. Malsha, still a Councillor then, had somehow known all about the thriving market in misappropriated weaponry that Besha was running.

I’ll allow it to continue, the older man had said in his magnanimous, refined way. But I need you to do something for me. Find me the best Drudge hacker you can. Someone who can get access to that silo.

What a stroke of luck that Besha already knew Willem Rehbrandt. He and the little Drudge used to play cards, which Besha usually lost. Out there on the Wastes, you found entertainment where you could, and Willem’s unrecognized brilliance had a certain entertainment value.

“Just little favors,” Besha continued. “Later, after I met my wife and came back here to work in the Sector, I did some undercover work for Malsha in the Island Party. Tipped him off about important shake-ups. Just politics.”

“Just politics.” Ceill seemed to have trouble fitting his lips around the phrase. “So,” he asked, “when Malsha stole the nuclear warhead, was it from your base?”

“Oh, I was long gone by then!” Too late, Besha realized he hadn’t answered the question. He should have simply said no, but Ceill had caught him off guard.

Maybe the boy did have some natural cunning, after all. He looked straight at Besha with those innocent blue eyes as he asked, “Did Malsha ever ask you to help him with cracking the system, so he could appropriate that missile? You must have had access, after all.”

“Oh, ha ha, no!” Perhaps Besha’s laughter was a bit too loud. “I had no access to that silo or that targeting system. That was far above my classification in those days, and I’m no hacker. And, as I mentioned, I left the base long before Malsha made his move!” All true. “No, Malsha must have corrupted someone further up the command structure.”

Ceill kept staring. It was unnerving. “They never caught the traitor inside the base?”

“A few people were disciplined. No one confessed.”

A sharp-edged furrow appeared in the flawless skin between Ceill’s brows. “Malsha never even asked you to help? It seems odd that he knew you so well, someone who’d worked at the base the warhead came from, and it never occurred to him.”

What was the boy getting at? Had Gersha or Tilrey let something slip? Even if they had, Besha couldn’t imagine what Ceill might want to do with his secret. Tell the Council? Davita controlled the Council. Tell Davita? These days, Besha wasn’t even sure she’d care.

It had all happened so long ago, and it was only a few thousand dead Harbourers. He was a lot more worried that his lovely wife would find out he was plotting to overthrow the very government she served.

“If Malsha had asked for my help in committing treason, I would have reported him,” he said.

The furrow in Ceill’s brow deepened. “I thought you admired Malsha for seeing our whole system for the lie it is.”

Maybe Besha shouldn’t have said that. “‘Admired’ is a strong word,” he said with a breezy laugh.

“So, even if he had asked, you wouldn’t have helped him? You were too duty-bound?”

As the boy spoke, a lock of hair tumbled into his eyes, its sandy blond looking dark against the pallor of his brow. He was so much like Tilrey that Besha shivered.

“Duty-bound isn’t exactly what I would call myself,” he said, losing track of his thoughts. “But I’m no traitor.”

“You keep talking about treason.” Ceill’s voice dipped into a lower register. “But, if what you say was true, Malsha only wanted a better life for himself.”

“He endangered our security and committed mass murder.”

“Of Harbourers. Didn’t you say Harbourers don’t matter?” The boy leaned closer to Besha, gaze fixed on him. “Anyway, how do you even know why Malsha did it? The whole thing about wanting to die in Harbour? How do you know if he didn’t—”

“He told me,” Besha snapped. He was getting royally tired of this—not just the conversation, but all the decades of lying about something that really, profoundly, did not matter. “I thought he was joking. I certainly didn’t know he had a plan to do it, but I figured that out later. Why are you so eager to get me to admit I helped him?”

Ceill’s chin gave a small wobble. And then, all of a sudden, Besha knew what he was after.

“You want to tattle to Gersha! Not Tilrey—you don’t quite trust him to care, do you? But Gersha is virtue incarnate.” Besha had to laugh—the poor kid had no idea how off-base his assumptions were. “If Gersha knew I’d helped Malsha Linnett commit treason, he would stop working with me in the Council and shun me. You would never see me at your dinner table again. Is that what you’re thinking, Ceill? Did you sneak in here hoping to get me to confess something unforgivable?”

Ceill flushed, his delicate skin turning almost purple. “My dads say you were tight with Malsha in the old days. I wanted to know how far it went.”

Besha couldn’t stop himself from grinning, because he had Ceill’s number now. “And you really think Gersha would dump me—as a friend, an ally—over a tiny bit of treason?”

It hadn’t been a “tiny bit of treason” a few minutes ago. But Ceill was too wrought-up to notice Besha’s change of tone. “If the treason killed thousands of people?” he said. “Gersha would want nothing to do with you. He doesn’t think Harbourer lives are nothing.”

It was the perfect moment to drive the metaphorical knife into the boy’s chest and twist it. Besha knew he would put himself at risk by telling the truth, not to mention Gersha and Tilrey and their whole rebellion.

But he lived for moments when he could indisputably win. Though they came rarely, they were worth the wait, making blood pound in his temples as if he were young again.

Anyway, Ceill was no real threat—a student, a misbirth. If he became a loose cannon, Tilrey and Gersha would find ways to disarm him. At best, they could come clean to him and make him part of their rebellion. At worst, if he refused to cooperate, they could pack him off to moral rehab for a spell.

Besha yielded to the sweetness of victory.

He let a cold smile spread over his face. “What if I told you that Gersha already knows what I helped Malsha do? That he’s known for decades? Since before you were born?”

Ceill’s eyes widened. “Then … it’s true? You helped him get the warhead?”

“Of course I did, you silly child!” Besha stood up from the sofa and stretched. It felt good being honest for once. “Stop looking at me like I just murdered your lover in front of you. I didn’t know what Malsha would do with the warhead. He was an old friend calling in a favor, who happened to be the General Magistrate. So yes, of course I helped him!”

The blood had drained from Ceill’s face, replaced by dead white. “I almost believed you,” he said in a faint voice. “When you denied it.”

“When Gersha found out, he was shocked, shocked. Just like you.” Besha mimicked Ceill’s expression. “He wanted to turn me in right then and there. But Tilrey convinced him that I would be more useful as an ally. And so they’ve used my secret to control me, all these years.”

There went the twist of the knife.

Ceill’s eyes were burning holes in his face. For a moment, he said nothing. Then: “Gersha wouldn’t.” A blink, and a tear slipped down his cheek.

The high of victory was as good as orgasm—better, Besha sometimes thought. Nothing beat the intoxication of knowing you had just demolished someone’s entire worldview.

But all highs fade. Watching Ceill wipe away another tear, Besha felt something approaching remorse. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken the risk. It would have been safer to leave the boy’s illusions intact.

He hovered over Ceill, wondering if he could risk a friendly pat on the back. Probably not. “Gersha’s a good man,” he said. “After he came back from his first trip to Harbour, he called me a sociopath.”

That word had stung a little. “But,” Besha continued, “we made up eventually. Gersha knows I never meant to hurt anyone. It was just politics.”

“Just politics.” Ceill’s gaze had fallen to the floor. He moved mechanically, his eyes empty now, almost as if he really were bleeding out from a fatal blow.

“Yes,” Besha said. “In politics—in life—one sometimes has to sacrifice one’s principles to win a greater victory. Gersha learned that, and so will you. Maybe you’ve learned it tonight.” He drew himself up, wondering if he’d actually done the boy a favor. “Can I count on you to be discreet about this conversation, Ceill? And I’ll be discreet about your dalliance with Stefan?”

The answer took a while coming. Besha was just about to say, Even if you tell, no one will believe you when the boy finally said in a flat voice, “I’ll be discreet.”

“Good man.” Besha leaned over, determined to perform the back-patting ritual this time.

But Ceill inched out of range. “I think you should go now, Fir Linbeck.”

“Yes. So do I.” Besha had had his fill of adolescent dramatics, though he wasn’t sure he was leaving things on the right note. Maybe he should spend some time buttering up Ceill so he’d forget how savagely he’d been torn down.

But Besha didn’t have the heart for flattery right now. Taking the opening, he headed for the door.

He stopped with his hand on the switch for a last glance at the poor, slumped-over boy. It did feel wrong to leave him that way.

“Don’t mope over Stefan,” he said. “He’ll come back if you play your cards right. He knows you’re a catch.”

Ceill didn’t turn to look at him.

Well, I tried. Besha pressed the switch. The door hissed open.

Behind him, a woman’s voice spoke: “Not just yet.”

Besha wheeled around to find himself face-to-face with someone he didn’t recognize. A tall, middle-aged Drudge with a commanding lift to her chin, who seemed to have appeared from nowhere.

The Brothel keeper? Was she miffed that he’d enjoyed Stefan’s favors (barely)? “Good evening,” he said.

From the doorway, a familiar voice said, “Shit.”

It was Kai standing on the threshold, his impressive bulk blocking the way. “Oh, good,” Besha said. “Kai, will you please explain to your boss that—”

He stopped as Kai stepped forward, muscling him back into the room. “What the fuck?”

Kai hit the switch, and the door snapped shut again with a force that sent Besha stumbling backward. The woman’s strong hands latched on to his shoulders. He twisted, but she held on tight.

“What the fuck is going on here?” This time, Besha addressed Ceill, the only Upstart in the room. Ceill didn’t even lift his head.

A sliding panel had opened in the sitting room wall, leaving a dark gap—the entrance to the tunnels, Besha supposed. A third Laborer stood there, a young man with dark hair and a serious expression.

It took Besha an instant to recognize the weird little Skeinsha who lived with Gersha as his kettle boy. “What are you doing here?”

“Shh. It’s all right, Fir Linbeck,” Kai said, advancing on Besha. Besha tried to back away, but the woman holding him stood firm. “We’d just like you to sit down.”

No one had threatened Besha physically for decades, but he knew what bullying felt like. He writhed, making the woman’s hands slip from his shoulders.

He opened his mouth to command that fool Kai to be sensible. But an arm snaked around his throat from behind, choking the words into silence.

Besha thrashed. He barely had time to register a flash in the corner of his right eye and a sharp pricking sensation before he felt the throb of blood rising to the surface, the hot drip of it down his neck.

A knife. A fucking knife. They were assassinating him.

So this is how I die—in the greening Brothel. But Besha wasn’t dead yet, and he wasn’t going down without a fight.