friend to betray me.
If she was true to her word, the Eagles would be leaving here to go deal with the rebel uprising happening outside in the courtyard. If she’d turned back, though, I’d be left on my own in a room full of soldiers with all their weapons trained on me.
“Prometheus,” called Adjutant, clearing his throat. “The girl, the one you asked to see.”
The man on the dais straightened, saying something to his advisors, dismissing them with a wave of his hand.
Prometheus somehow sensed me, and with movements so quick my dazzled eyes struggled to follow, he ducked to the side and leaped for the glass chair. The moment his hand touched it, brilliant power flared all around him. He looked as though he were on fire, blinding me.
I cried out and jerked away from my second sight. And froze.
It was Caesar.
My mind raced. It couldn’t be Caesar—I’d left Caesar behind at the foot of our fire escape, broken and bloodied. He was in the city; he couldn’t have come after me. He couldn’t be here—he couldn’t be Prometheus. Prometheus was here years before I ever even left my home.
But there was his nose, his stern jaw, the thick dark stubble that shaded his face when he skipped a shave. There were his brown eyes, hard and cold.
And then Prometheus saw me, too. His expression went from one filled with icy fury to one of confusion. Then recognition flared all across his features—confusion turned to horror. “No,” he whispered.
And then I knew who it was. It wasn’t Caesar. Of course not—because that was impossible. Caesar was still at home.
It was my other brother. It was Basil.
PART III
CHAPTER 23
My brother and I stared at each other. For an interminable moment the rest of the audience chamber ceased to exist, no more than an animated blur outside the tense corridor of space between us.
Then, abruptly, everything around us came rushing back, and the moment shattered. A pair of Eagles grabbed me, pinning my hands behind my back while Adjutant came between me and Prometheus, wielding another of those talon weapons.
“Is that how you greet your god?” he hissed for my ears alone, eyes snapping. Gone was the polite, almost considerate man from the interrogation room, replaced by an utter madman. Shaking, he stretched out the device, and I braced myself for another dose of overwhelming magic.
“Stop!” My brother’s voice was deeper, more resonant than I remembered. And yet I could hear it threatening to crack, held together only by determination. “Stop. Take her—take her away. Put her somewhere.”
“But sir,” Adjutant said, straightening out of my vision, calm once again. The Eagles were forcing my head down so I couldn’t see my brother. “Sir, this is the girl. The one who can magic iron.” A murmur rippled through the crowd, shock and fear and disbelief. “This is the girl you wanted to use.” Adjutant sounded patient, as if he suspected Prometheus— Basil—simply didn’t understand my significance.
“I’m aware of that,” said Basil, regaining some control over himself. “And I asked you to take her away. I’ll deal with her later.”
Adjutant hesitated. Even though my shock and confusion I could tell he was not pleased to have been so ordered— perhaps there was a seed of dissention in Prometheus’s rule. Before I could process the thought, Adjutant gestured to the Eagles restraining me. If I could have spoken through my shock, I would have told them no restraint was necessary. All desire to fight had drained away the moment I recognized my brother’s face. They hoisted me up under my arms and started to make for the door.
“And Adjutant,” said my brother, “don’t throw her into one of your interrogation rooms. She’s our guest. Make sure she’s treated like one.”
I didn’t resist as they took me away. I couldn’t see, couldn’t think—the hallways passed in a blur. I had no sense for how far we traveled or for how long, only that my brother was here, my brother was alive. My brother was Prometheus.
The world intruded on my horror when the Eagles dropped me unceremoniously on the floor. I hit carpet, the thick plush cushioning my fall.
I heard Adjutant clear his throat, and I looked up at him blearily.
“It seems Prometheus has decided to seek your voluntary cooperation,” he said calmly. There was no sign of that fury I’d seen before. Part of me wondered if I’d imagined the way his face transformed earlier—it seemed so impossible, coming from this quiet, controlled man. “It wasn’t what I recommended, but I suggest you consider his offer very, very carefully.”
And then he was gone with the sound of a door shutting gently behind him.
Reluctantly I lifted my head, staring numbly around at my new surroundings. It was a small room but richly appointed. A full-sized wooden bed with fluffy white bedclothes stood in the corner, with a matching wooden nightstand and a desk opposite. The desk had an ink blotter, paper, and an array of pens. There were no windows, but landscape paintings on the walls gave the illusion of being aboveground.
It was the nicest room I’d been in since the dining hall at the Institute, and yet my mouth tasted of ashes.
How could Basil be Prometheus? Basil was
The resistance movement had found a journal full of schematics for Prometheus’s machines, Prometheus’s plans. They’d assumed it was the very first resistor, the very first person to go off-grid and study Prometheus. They’d found the journal after Prometheus took power—but that didn’t mean it was
I imagined my brother living in the walls of a dying city, trying to figure out how to save it. Imagined him walking into the square and talking until people listened, until they agreed with him, decided to help him do what he knew would save the city. My brother had always been good with machines, with magic. That Prometheus, the one who swayed a whole city with his words, who figured out how to save it—that Prometheus, I could believe was my brother.
But how could my brother enslave an entire race of people? Even the Institute only held one Renewable. How many did my brother hold captive in the bowels of Central Processing, their life torn out of them, only to regenerate enough to be harvested again?
Sick, I recalled the picture of Prometheus in the book, his liver torn out each night, to regrow each day. He took that name when he first took power. He had to have planned it all then.
I dragged myself to my feet and tried the door. I was unsurprised to find it locked, but surprised when it opened and an Eagle stood there, watching me. “Do you need anything?” he asked politely.
I swallowed. I needed my brother. My real brother, not this monster in his place.
“No, thank you.”
The door closed again. Locked again. I scanned the room again, more closely this time, only to discover that the pixie who had been Nix was there too, perched now on the desk chair.
