The room begins to clear. Each employee gets up hesitantly enough to afford them deniability if their king were to declare that anyone leaving ought to be imprisoned, their bodies still facing their cubicles until the final second. Matiyu is the last to shuffle through the entryway, and he grimaces awkwardly at Calla before sliding the door shut. It clicks.
“You need to get out.”
Anton’s gaze is knife-sharp when it pivots to her. He performs a haughty sniff, but no amount of feigned disdain can disguise his fury.
“Why?” he asks. “So you can kill me without consequence a second time?”
They haven’t been alone like this since the arena. Since Calla put a blade into his back and through his heart. Where she hasn’t changed her wardrobe from her getup during the games, he is dressed in a pressed blue jacket and fitted trousers, looking like he could lead a royal battalion across Talin and lounge back on the throne after a long day. This isn’t the manner of someone wreaking momentary havoc. He’s staying in August’s body.
“Anton, please,” Calla says, her voice dropping to a whisper. “The arena . . . you know I didn’t want to—”
“Whether you wanted to or not doesn’t change anything, does it?” Anton interrupts, rising to his feet.
“It changes everything.” Calla is trying her damned best not to sound angry. “I don’t—I’m still—”
The truth is, she doesn’t know what she’s trying to say. Whether this is the time to be deciphering why she did what she did. There’s no way for her to say, “Sorry I killed you,” without the part that goes, “but if you think about it, you forced my hand.”
“Anton,” Calla pleads, stepping forward. It could be her imagination, but she swears she sees him flinch, even from several paces away. “You are causing trouble where there needs none. Didn’t the palace keep your birth body? You can take it back, jump—”
“I’m not leaving.”
The rest of her words sour in her throat. She doesn’t understand what his purpose is here. Power? Money? If it were only this title he wanted to keep forever, he should have gotten rid of Calla the moment she put that crown on his head. He should never have revealed the truth to her. Put her neck under a sword before anyone could question the decision, gain some points with the councilmembers who reported to Kasa and now report to him. Then he could have playacted as August forever.
“Don’t force my hand further,” Calla says tightly. “Leave, Anton. Let the kingdom return to how it should be.”
“And how should it be? Another century ruled by a useless king, I gather.”
“August has plenty to do.”
“August wants power for himself, first and foremost,” Anton counters. “You are a fool to think otherwise.”
Calla has to turn away from him, has to look somewhere else, her eyes falling on the monitors that show her the scenes outside the palace. The marketplace has almost cleared of shoppers, save for a handful of stragglers here and there. “Maybe I am a fool.” There is the truth. There is her pulsating heart, pulled bloody from her chest and harvested for the threads of deceit she wove into it herself. “Once August was on the throne, my job was done. Then everything was supposed to have been worth it, no matter how high the price.”
You, the room whispers. Filling in the blanks where she won’t, whispering impatiently from the monitors whirring around them. If putting August on the throne meant nothing, then losing you meant nothing.
“Unfortunately . . .” It’s Anton who steps closer now. The metal buttons on his jacket reflect back each flicker on the screens, and when Calla turns back, she finds herself focusing on that detail to keep her expression in check. She wonders if August had those buttons matched to Galipei’s eyes, silver enough to appear perpetually cold to the touch. “I’m not going anywhere. I have unfinished business.”
Calla remains still. He couldn’t mean their battle in the arena. Finishing that business is as simple as picking up the nearest heavy object and bludgeoning her in one quick swing. He could do it now, while the room is empty, with no one able to punish him for the indiscretion afterward.
She might even let him.
Anton reaches for a lock of her hair. The gesture appears affectionate at first, when he winds it around his finger. Then he yanks hard, and Calla has to yield an inch to stop him from ripping out the lock. Her hand whips up, grasping his wrist. She doesn’t dare look straight at him. She only squeezes hard, her breath locked in her throat. It seems absurd to recall how different the circumstances were the last time they stood this close. Maybe Anton is thinking the same thing: her touch and the dark of night, the storm outside raging white light through the blinds. The cluttered floor. The twisted bedsheets.
“What is it?” Calla whispers, her words strained. “Your unfinished business.”
When she runs through the possibilities, she emerges with very few options. Outside of her, if there is anything that would keep a flight risk like Anton in one place, it has to do with August, and what he has discovered while wearing his body.
Anton lets go of her. Terribly, Calla misses his touch despite the sting. She needs more, craves a longer moment of contact to know that he is real, that although she has torn him apart, he has cobbled himself back together as no one else could.
The door into the surveillance room shudders, cutting short anything Anton might have said in reply. Calla has a mere second to get ahold of herself and flatten her expression before Galipei Weisanna appears at the entryway, yanking the door back.
“You’re needed in the royal infirmary, August,” he says.
Anton doesn’t glance at his bodyguard, but Calla is watching him carefully. Galipei’s collar sits crumpled. His silver eyes are wild: an abnormal sight for someone who has spent his entire life training to be August Shenzhi’s obedient half.
“Not now,” Anton replies.
“What is it, Galipei?” Calla asks, curious.
Anton shoots her a glare. “What part of not now is unclear—”
“This part,” Galipei interrupts.
Anton finally looks over, rearing with an air of offense. Before Anton can let out a reprimand, Galipei says, “It’s Otta. She’s here.” ...
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