He had killed Lois, Orchid’s mother? Or had Lois allowed herself to become a sacrifice? The idea of Mr. Capulatio executing his own wife’s mother was horrid to the girl, no matter his justification. She took a step away from him.
The four other men walked to four points surrounding the black block. Surrounding her. Mr. Capulatio went to the center, where there was also a shallow stone basin, presumably to collect blood.
“Are you going to kill Orchid?” she whispered.
His face was a wash of pacific resolve. At his feet, in the wet grass, his own blade, the pearlescent curved edge that he had used to behead her brother. She saw it now. His voice contained no doubt and no fear. “There is no death, Aurora. There is only Wonderblood.”
The four men who stood with Mr. Capulatio all held their own swords like ceremonial staves in front of them. The rain had gathered and was now a cool mist, collecting as droplets of water on blades and clothing alike. She began to shiver. Two of the men were in middle age, and one was older and one was younger. The younger man was shorter and stouter than the rest and wore an otter-skin over his cloak. He had a close-trimmed yellow beard.
“But who are these men?” She tried to meet eyes with Orchid, who would not look at her.
“These are my Orbiters, the leaders of our four other carnivals. The same four carnivals which you’ve seen gathered here at the Cape in anticipation of my coronation as king. Five is the holiest number. As a group of five acting as one we cannot be vanquished. Each of these men has been convinced of the righteousness of our cause for many and many a year, and each has sworn an oath to die for me. They will be my cabinet when I ascend my kingship inside the palace compound. They have each forsworn their birth-names and taken up nom de guerres in honor of the shuttles. Columbia, Challenger, Endeavour, Discovery. And I am Atlantis.”
“We have waited a long time for you, Sigil. You are the beacon that will bring forth the Age of Times. Glorify,” one of them said.
Orchid was staring intently at Mr. Capulatio. Her arms were bound. The blond man held her by the elbow. Now Mr. Capulatio came to the girl and took the parasol from her and tried to push his sword into her hands. She kept her fists balled up.
He had executed her brother on this block. He must carry it around with him wherever he went. She looked at the stone as though she could burn it to death with her eyes. Did some small amount of Argento’s blood remain in the rock? The day he died, she had been afraid. She hadn’t watched; the guilt had closed her eyes. Now she was different. It seemed every hardship of her life had carried her here as if by design—her abandonment by her mother, her abuse in Argento’s carnival, her kidnapping and enthronement, her marriage. All these past moments aligned perfectly, one atop the next, and she saw through them like a telescope: the thing she saw at the other end was her power. The girl had survived each and every trial and they had led her here.
The blond man brought Orchid forward. He pushed her to the block, where he bent her neck down and to the side.
The girl did not know if her mother was right and all magic was lunacy, or if magic was surely everywhere, waiting to be known at the precise moment one was able to know it and never an instant before. But she knew she felt power coursing through her and it made her brave. She had power to do this, or refuse. She thought maybe she was magical.
Mr. Capulatio said, “I’ll hold your arm. It takes more force that you’d expect.” He raised his eyebrows to the other men, who all chuckled darkly.
The girl pulled at her white dress, which was sticking to her body in the light rain, and gathered herself to her full height. “I don’t need any help.”
He peered at her closely and spoke after a long moment. “Do you know what we’re asking you to do?”
“Yes.”
The girl could not stop looking at Orchid, the bloody dress, the eyelashes wet from the drizzle. Now that she stood so close to her, Orchid seemed very pale, and smaller than the girl had imagined. Her body rigid and defiant still. The muscles in Orchid’s arms flexed with tension. What would it take, she thought, for them to live together in harmony?
She took the sword from Mr. Capulatio. Orchid’s face remained still. The girl spoke to them all, meeting in turn the eyes of the four Orbiters and trying very hard not to sound afraid. She was not. It was as though she had never been afraid in her life. “I am the sigil. You were waiting for me. I’m here now. The Great Work is finished and the world is different now,” she began slowly. “I’ll show you.”
She raised the sword. But it was not Orchid’s head she cut off. Instead she pushed Orchid back to her knees, grabbed her bound hands and cut the rope with a fluid swish. For a moment, Orchid’s face went entirely blank; she could not have imagined this. But as soon as the girl had cut the rope, she brought the sword back down, the force
