Kegaku's left hand tried to open the glass tank. He stopped it with his right. The effort made his teeth click. Across the map room, Erebos poured a fresh cup of tea and watched the struggle in the reflection on the black table.
He kept his back to Kegaku.
"If you break the tank," Erebos said, "I will be disappointed."
Kegaku forced his graft hand back under the red cloth.
"Forgive , Future King."
"Do not apologize for another creature's appetite."
"It is my hand."
"That is generous."
Kegaku swallowed his answer. The thing under the cloth flexed anyway. Bone pushed against fabric. A finger bent too far backward, then forward, then tapped once against his palm. Three beats.
The sa rhythm as the school heartbeat. The sa rhythm as the knock beneath the arena. The sa rhythm now moving through three different boards because Ty had always been useful at making damage personal. Erebos lifted the cup.
"It likes the lower lane."
"It should not like anything."
"That sentence has ruined many kingdoms."
Kegaku bowed his head. On the table, the twelve black circles had changed while the lower-lane toll accepted Ty's mory. One circle held the wax face marker. One held the cracked knuckle bone. One held Jade's emptied crystal, dry now, its glass fogged from the inside.
The other nine waited. Above each circle, a helm hung in the air. The helms had texture without weight. Possibility had texture if a person knew how to touch it. Erebos had spent centuries learning. A future could bruise a finger. A bad one could bite through gloves.
Three helms already had nas.
SANGUINA
GRISWALD
YAMI
The rest were blank. Kegaku had looked at those helms once and asked whether Ty would be given a captain's seat. Erebos still found that funny. Bodyguard thinking. Guard thinking. Small thinking.
If all Erebos needed was a strong creature to stand near a door, he could buy one from any war that had run out of food. Ty's value was not strength. Strength was common. Ty's value was refusal.
He refused badly, emotionally, often at the wrong target, and with terrible long-term accounting. But he refused. Against gods. Against contracts. Against versions of himself. Against easy answers that wanted to dress as rcy. That made him expensive.
Expensive pieces belonged where thrones cracked and floors gave way. Kegaku's hand tapped again. Three beats. Erebos set the cup down.
"Show ."
Kegaku stiffened.
"My lord?"
"The graft wants to speak. Let it be rude."
"It may contaminate the table."
"So might honesty."
Kegaku hesitated only once. Good servant. He unwrapped the red cloth. The hand beneath it had stopped belonging to him. The skin had gone the color of old ash. Black seams ran between the knuckles. Under the fingernails, small red lights pulsed in a pattern that answered the helms.
In the center of his palm, a mouth opened. Kegaku's face went gray. Erebos leaned forward. The mouth had no lips. Just a split in the skin, wet and red, with teeth too small to belong to anything that expected to chew food.
It spoke with a woman's voice.
"Lower lane."
Kegaku slamd his right hand over it. Erebos lifted one finger. Kegaku froze.
"Again," Erebos said.
The mouth laughed under Kegaku's palm. Not a pleasant laugh. Not cruel either. It sounded like a nurse in a battlefield tent who had seen a prince complain about pillow quality.
"Lower lane," it said. "He is late."
Erebos smiled.
"For what?"
The hand turned in Kegaku's grip until the palm faced the tank. Inside the glass, the sleeping woman with moonlit ash hair remained still. Wires entered the tank from twelve directions. The gold ring on the rim trembled once.
Kegaku looked away. He knew better than to stare at the tank. The graft stared for him.
"Na first," the mouth said. "Face second. Bone last if he is stupid."
"He is often stupid," Kegaku whispered.
Erebos did turn then. Kegaku swallowed.
"With respect."
"Keep respect. I prefer accuracy."
The map table shifted. Jade's empty crystal rolled in a slow circle around the cracked bone. The wax face marker moved away from the center and settled near the edge of the table, close to a little brass gate marked EARTH PUBLIC TRUST.
Zunoder was moving well. Too well for a newborn thing with stolen teeth. That ant hunger rembered training. Erebos picked up a silver spoon and bent one of the future needles away from the tank.
"Send the second team faster."
Kegaku covered the palm mouth with cloth again, fighting it finger by finger.
"To protect Jade?"
"To pressure Jade."
"You told them to draw breaches away from civilians."
"Pressure can leave the corpses for later."
Kegaku's silence had a shape. Erebos recognized it. Servants thought silence hid disapproval. It rarely did. Disapproval always found the shoulders.
"Ask."
Kegaku kept his head lowered.
"Why preserve the civilians?"
"Because Ty saved them in front of witnesses."
"That matters?"
"Consent moves crowns."
The blank helm nearest the bone circle turned slightly. Its faceplate was still smooth. Then a tiny crack appeared down the center, thin as a tooth mark. Kegaku saw it. Fear made him honest.
"It is forming from the inside."
"Yes."
"Is that good?"
Erebos looked at the cracked helm, then at the tank. The woman inside remained asleep. The ring on the rim stopped trembling.
"It is interesting."
Kegaku's hand tapped under the cloth. Three beats. This ti the map table answered. A thin red line drew itself from the lower lane to Earth, through Ty's broken mory, through Jade's left eye, through Zunoder's stolen face, and back to the blank helm.
Kegaku whispered, "That line should not close."
"Correct."
"Will you cut it?"
Erebos picked up the cracked knuckle bone. For a mont, he could have. One turn. One pressure. One future cleaned before it made a ss. The easy move. He put the bone back.
"No."
Kegaku looked up despite himself. Erebos smiled at the table.
"I want to see who tries first."
The lower-lane line burned brighter. In the glass tank, the sleeping woman's finger twitched once.
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