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“That will not do,” he roared “Not at all! Stories are the wealth of huive me if I denied you the key to that wealth”

He took to giving me lessons after every breakfast in his stateroom But they were abandoned after Xana burst into the room in a panic I learned later that she had just heard news of the Reaper’s demotion at the hands of the Senate, his murder of the captain of the Wardens, and his disappearance from Luna

Heavy shit

The news has turned the ed the boulevards on the day we returned A crowd of hundreds of thousands flowing like a tide of Cin’s impeachment But they were met violently by a mass of the Reaper’s worshippers The Watchas

Does ood to know I’n

“Sophocles!” I call out again, following a narrow track of gravel past the base of another estate “Sophocles, where are you?” I feel watched He’s playing gaain I crouch low and move off the path in between two sycamores to search the bank of the lake A black swan stares at the shore There! Jutting out fro in the breeze

I creep forward, s under my new shoes Quietly, carefully The tail moves with excitement I burst around the tree, and Sophocles pounces on ht take round, where he licks my ears till I have to wrestle him off His cold nose pokes at the side of my neck I reattach his collar

Then I hear a strange pop through the trees I walk toward the sound In a s, I find a concrete block of a Gray warden speaking with a slender Copper with a fah I crouch barely twenty ic The Gray shoves a finger into the Copper’s chest as if scolding him The Copper looks away, my direction

I dart back into the trees, hauling on Sophocles’s leash Whatever was happening wasn’tthe path back to the Tele so fast I run straight into someone and almost fall down I look up into narrow, cold eyes A woman with a face like tree bark stares down at alos I’ve seen her twice before, always quiet and in the shadows of things The servants say she’s a Howler, and before that, a Son of Ares Her eyes turn to oes downso close to a bloody Gray I feel like I’ies She steps past me and continues down the hill

Feeling twice as small as I did before, I pull on Sophocles’s leash and make for the estate

—

I find Liago curled over his botany desk like a long length of old ivy He’s an old Yellow, e slower outside the mines They use crèmes on their faces Injections Laser therapy Makes soed In the ot white hair? Bloodyda, that

Liago seeree very much with my people His face wrinklier than s and fissures and little patches of scaggleweed facial hair The top of his long-jawed head is crested by great plumes of white hair Nie flower He doesn’t hear the howling of the kettle on his small electric stove

“Dr Liago?”

“Lyria!” He wheels around An odd piece of tech secured by a clear plastic strap around his head covers his right eye, h, you scaredaround like that”