him for years.
Like her closest friend.
She trailed a hand down the railing as she descended into the cockpit. The bridge was not a vast room, not by the standards of the
She stopped at the bottom, beside the captain's chair, which commanded the center of the bridge. She brushed cobwebs from its arms. Despite the dust, it looked comfortable.
She didn't think that was her own opinion.
'Get out of my head.'
'We'll be together,' Dust said, coalescing. He turned, arms wide on a grand gesture, his waistcoat catching the light of the waystars. On the screens, Ariane and Asrafil still climbed. Higher, or more inward, proceeding through the vast laddery webwork of the world. Closer now. Nearly there.
'It's the only way.'
They would arrive in a matter of minutes.
'I don't love you,' Perceval said. 'I decide who I love, and how I love them.'
'But I love you,' Dust said, his breath against her scalp a thrill that made her wish she could still hide behind her hair. It wasn't real breath. It wasn't any more real than the flush that crept along her neck in response.
She stepped away from his outstretched hand. He frowned, as if he had expected her to allow him to bow over it like some make-believe prince. 'I love Rien.'
'But bow to me,' he said, 'and I will serve you all my days. Together we will cross space and sail the stars. Just your consent—'
'I don't love you,' Perceval said. 'I love Rien.' 'Because you have decided to love Rien.' 'Yes,' she said, against the warm pressure of desire. She should have felt hunger; she did not know how long it had been since she had eaten. Her symbiont could have told her, but she did not trust its answers. It was infected by Pinion now. As surely as Perceval herself.
She scratched at the back of the chair. The cobwebs felt powdery soft; they stuck only to themselves now. And a bit to the back of her hand, but only because she tore through them.
'Get
But even inside her head, she could see Ariane creeping like a crippled spider along the skin of the world. There was a whole world out there. Beyond her. Behind her.
Somewhere out there, beyond Dust, beyond Ariane, was Rien and Tristen and Perceval's mother and her father. Somewhere out there was a cave of bats and a necromancer guarding the vale of the dead. Somewhere there were ship-fish, flitting through gravityless corridors. There were daggery angels and lies as soft as sleep.
Perceval hated how it was made, the world. She hated what it was made for. She wished she could find the builders, and pass with them a pointy word or two. They were evil men, whatever they did in God's name.
Whatever they had thought was God's will, the world was full of people and creatures who did not deserve to die for the sins of their fathers. Perceval opened her eyes. She looked straight at Dust, at his silver waistcoat gleaming peach in the light of the dying stars, and let her hands fall.
Creatures that do not deserve to die for the sins of their fathers. And maybe, she thought, a few that do.
There was a world, and it did not matter if Perceval agreed with its plan. The world was bigger than she was. And had as much right to survive. And if she didn't like the way the world worked, tomorrow was another day.
She turned to Dust, who stood at her shoulder, shorter than she by half a head. 'Take off the compulsion,' she said.
'Beloved—'
'Take off the compulsion, and I shall fight for you. Give me the freedom of my heart, Jacob Dust, and I shall do your will.'
'I would have given you absolution,' he said. 'I would have absorbed your crimes.'
'Give me back my brain,' she said. 'Get your parasites off me, and I will be your damned captain, Jacob Dust.'
'Pinion stays,' he said. 'There is no way now to extricate you, and you will need its protection to fight Ariane, who is armored and comes bearing an unblade.'
Perceval's skin crawled, but she nodded. 'Fine,' she said. 'As long as both of you get the hell out.'
'A compromise, then. It shall be as you wish,' he said. And kissed her on the cheek before she could close her eyes.
Perceval pulled away. She smiled bitterly, and looked down at her hands. The sticky bit of spiderweb smirched, her knuckle and thumb. She put her hand in her mouth, but it only tasted of grit and powder.
'Hurry, Dust,' she said. 'Your enemy is climbing.'
27 black mercy
Rien's clothing had been recycled, but her personal belongings had been scrubbed and stored. She was required to sign for them, which she did, and retina and thumbprinted, too. The contents of her pack were there, including the plum.
She left everything else behind. Caitlin, who was more or less her size, had dressed her in sturdier clothes, and she didn't need a blanket here. She did check the somewhat battered fruit for excessive radiation, and was reassured. Both her symbiont and Ng agreed that any residue was within tolerance.
She slipped it into a pocket, threw away the rest, and within ten minutes has completed the forms to release her temporary locker back to the common pool.
Then, accoutered, she went to find Tristen and her father. And, incidentally, Caitlin Conn.
The same guide strips that had led her to the left luggage would bring her to the air-lock gateways. She walked through the bustling streets and the covered corridors, inevitably smaller and less flamboyant than whatever Engineer walked near. She thought she could vanish here, and the idea was attractive.
She missed being a Mean among Means. Even if it had been a lie, even then.
She thought the others would have a pack for her, gear, whatever was necessary for the long trip back to Rule. She didn't fancy another run through Inkling's chamber. She didn't think they could; there was no way to survive it without medical care waiting on the far end.
Gavin could not yet have returned from his errand, and Rien was both sad and grateful. She missed his weight on her shoulder, his malicious wit. But she could not trust him, and even though Samael himself would be with them, it was a cold comfort that Gavin was elsewhere.
Better the hand than the cat's-paw, perhaps?
No, of course not. Rien knew why.
She liked Gavin.
She would have hated to place herself on constant guard against him. She wanted to preserve the illusion of friendship.
And in the end, she was Samael's creature also, wasn't she? She, and all of Engine. And she had been a servant of monsters before. And worse monsters than Samael, who was after all only the Angel of Death.
