than that, the sight of the pocket watch made them all sit up a little straighter, turn their eyes to Kinok, actually paying attention to him. “Do the pack horses and the cattle conspire to murder us in our beds and burn our settlements to the ground? Does the Iron Heart whisper in code, planning the next uprising? Does sunlight stockpile knives and farming tools, anything that can cut, and swarm the Midwiferies in the dead of night?” He stared around the room, cold, and every single Hand looked back. Rapt. “Proper governance applies to our Kind, not the humans. There is no governing a rabid beast. They are violent, and they grow more violent—and more organized, more powerful—each day. Humans are dangerous. We may wish to believe that they could never harm us, but they can; they have. There is no shame in acknowledging a threat—and removing it.”
The image of shoes swinging from the sun apple branches surfaced again in Crier’s mind. She hesitated for a moment, knowing it was not her place to speak, but—
“Yes, some humans can be dangerous,” she said, amazed when her voice didn’t shake. All faces turned to her, their expressions impassive. In a room filled with silent Automae, it was difficult to guess what anyone was thinking, and easy to feel mocked. Crier straightened her spine, standing tall, trying to look as imposing as her father. “But too often it seems we punish minor infractions with—with torture, confinement, even death.”
She could feel her father’s eyes on her.
“We were created to be the enlightened Kind,” Crier continued, forcing herself to look around the room, to meet their eyes. This was what she’d been waiting for, was it not? She couldn’t let fear silence her. “We were created to be more than human, better than human, but—are we really any better, if we resort to senseless violence so easily? How far are we willing to go? We must not—”
“Daughter,” Hesod cut in.
Her mouth snapped shut. Feeling cold, she finally looked at her father, only to find him looking back. But the look on his face wasn’t angry; it was a careful mask.
She’d seen this look so many times before, in reaction to her essays. Her thoughts. Her ideas.
“My apologies,” Hesod said, addressing the room at large. “My daughter thinks herself wise beyond her years.”
A smattering of laughter.
“She’d prove herself the wiser, then,” said Councilmember Shen, “if she occupied herself with the current state of affairs of the human population. As we know, there are reports of more uprisings in Tarreen. One of our Kind died this time. Head was severed and burned.”
Several of the Hands voiced their revulsion aloud. “Not even the most recent incident,” said another. “Just two days ago, twenty leagues south. An entire farm’s worth of servants attacked their lord. The casualties were all human, but it was a close call.”
Just like that, the silent, dignified room devolved into fifty people talking all at once. Mute, humiliated, Crier listened to them argue, some levelheaded and eloquent and some taken by outrage. The only person who wasn’t speaking was Kinok. He was leaning back in his marble chair, regarding the mess before him with cool, amused eyes. He was still holding the pocket watch, spinning it in his fingers . . . and Crier finally got a good look at it. She realized it wasn’t a watch.
It was a—compass?
“Enough!” said Hesod finally.
The voices petered out into another ringing silence.
“There is business to attend to,” said Hesod. “Queen Junn of Varn has made a formal request—”
“The Mad Queen?” someone muttered.
“But what about the uprisings?” demanded Shen.
“What about Reyka?” said another, and Crier’s head jerked up—what about her?—but Hesod ignored the interruptions.
“Queen Junn of Varn has made a formal request for a tour of diplomacy,” he said. “To begin the process of mending the broken bridge between our nations. She wishes to travel from our shared border up to the city of Yanna, paying her respects to each Red Hand along the way.”
Crier inched forward, eyes wide. Queen Junn, here?
The one the people all called mad.
The one whose power Crier had for so long coveted, so pined to meet.
“Why now?” added Paradem. “Why come now? What has changed?”
“I do not trust it,” said Mar. “She is known as the Mad Queen for a reason. She is famously volatile, unpredictable. We are balanced precariously enough already.”
Crier could not stand it.
“Her Highness Queen Junn is not volatile,” she said loudly, her voice cutting through the room. The