Sloane nodded. “The one who made Genetrix’s doomsday prophecy.”
“While I know from experience that this is a thrilling tale,” Ziva said, “we can’t just stay here waiting for the Army of Flickering. I suggest your friends come with us to a safer location.”
“Somewhere packed with the undead, you mean,” Esther said. “Let me just turn over my brains right now, save you the effort.”
“I don’t give a shit who it’s packed with as long as it’s not a platoon of Flickering soldiers with siphons at the ready!” Ziva said.
“Ziva’s right, we have to go,” Sloane said. “We can go somewhere neutral.” She gave Ziva a pointed look over her shoulder. “Public. Lots of exits.”
“We can’t go until we know what the hell is going on!” Esther said. Sloane hadn’t noticed it before, but Esther looked tired again, despite all the powder and the shine. She remembered Esther telling her as they stared at Genetrix’s rubble that she was afraid of her mother dying without her. And she believed Nero was the fastest way home.
But she had still gone to his workshop with Sloane to prove that he was lying to them.
“You can if you just . . . decide to trust me,” Sloane said. “I know I don’t deserve it, but I would never do anything to put you in danger. I hope you know that, at least.”
Matt was already lowering his hand. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Okay.”
“Actually,” Ziva said, “we can’t go until we have a look inside the siphon fortis in the Hall of Summons.”
“Why?” Esther said.
“Sloane,” Matt said. “Is that . . .”
Sloane had almost forgotten that she had a piece of the Needle in each palm. When she had lifted the security gate just outside the Dome, it had felt like breathing or blinking. But the Needle had been acid in her hands—a living, buzzing thing that had motives of its own. She could feel them still, muted in Genetrix, but distinct: the Needle wanted to bury itself in her hand again. She pressed it back, tipping one of the pieces so it rolled to her fingertips.
“The Needle was on Earth,” Matt said. “How did you get it here?”
“From the space between the universes.” Sloane frowned down at the sharp sliver in her right hand.
She was about to go on when she noticed the tightening of Matt’s jaw, Esther’s hand going up to her throat, to the siphon she wore. She turned to see two men descending the terrace steps of the Genetrix River Theater, just beyond the small park where the four of them stood.
One of the men was Nero, his mask of mildness finally gone and in its place the cold, focused man Sloane had seen when she left his workshop. His hair was tousled, his cape flung over one shoulder, showing its rich navy lining. His gold Camel pin was askew, and his right arm was outstretched, his hand heavy on the back of the other man’s neck.
The other man, of course, was Mox.
Mox no longer wore the siphon over his mouth and nose, and his eyes lacked their usual focus. Sweat dotted his hairline, and there was tension in the tendons of his neck, the rise of his shoulders. Nero lifted his hand from Mox’s neck and whistled; a ripple went through the air that sent Mox stumbling toward Ziva.
“Consul?” Ziva said to him.
“Run,” Mox replied, looking from Ziva to Sloane. He said it without hope.
“There will be no running,” Nero said.
Now that Sloane was looking for the resemblance between Nero and the Dark One she had known, she saw it. Not in his face itself—which had likely been altered on Earth, unnatural as it had appeared—but in his bearing and posture, his shoulders thrown back and his chest out, his movements sharp and efficient. His voice, too, was the same, hard as flint, every word mechanical.
Nero whistled through the implant on his tooth, and an unnatural stiffness went through Mox’s body, pulling his shoulders and head back. It reminded Sloane of the way the many-plated siphon had stiffened into a glove when she put it on, then relaxed once it was in position. As if Mox himself was being used as a siphon through the one attached to his spine.
All around them was the iridescent sheen of magical barriers, keeping intruders out—and keeping them from escaping, not that Sloane had been considering escape. She couldn’t leave