The final part of the tour was for Richard’s eyes only, according to Murphy. Not even Z would be permitted to join them—which Z had no complaints about.

Belle couldn’t object to her own dismissal—but Richard could. Still, Murphy’s orders had come from the queen’s own Right Hand, Lord Eten Jouet, and it took Richard some convincing before Murphy bowed to the prince’s wishes and allowed Belle to shadow them. Belle was dimly impressed by how collected and cold Richard could be under the influence of Elleipsium. Normally he’d just have exploded Murphy and done whatever he liked.

Before Jac could protest at being separated from Belle, Belle assured her she would be fine and sent her friend off. Jac was sweating profusely not only from the heat, but the struggle of hauling around Puissance as well, but she still didn’t want to leave Belle here. Belle had to give her a firm squeeze and a firmer look before Jac nodded and let herself be led away, back toward the rail terminal.

The sun was high and hot now, but the fog over the lake, which lay smooth like black glass, was stubborn, and it hung just as thick and dead as it had this morning. Belle could imagine reaching into the fog and scooping out a handful of cloudy air, leaving a clean hole behind. It was through this fog that their destination waited.

Murphy led them to a pier where a small boat was tied, manned by yet another guard who seemed minimally affected by the Elleipsium. They grinned a twisted grin, then bowed deeply, almost mockingly at Richard. They climbed into the boat, and Belle noticed how the water didn’t even seem to ripple as the boat rocked. Any movement on the surface was swiftly killed, and smoothed back to glass.

She wondered, distantly, if it was only the surface that was so unmoving, unwilling. If death boiled just below. She would prefer that.

While Murphy and this new guard rowed their way across, Belle watched the bottomless black water. Despite the Nothing, there was that one tiny, muffled part of her that told her something bad waited for her in that fog. That she was safer watching her own corpse-like reflection in the lake.

She looked into her reflection’s eyes and saw Nothing.

It was impossible to know how long it was before Richard’s hand on her shoulder made her look around. They had docked, and everyone but her had left the boat. She took Richard’s hand and climbed after him.

And then she turned and saw what it was she had come to see. An island of black rock, more of a small mountain really. It stretched out to either side, and up above, its edges disappearing into the fog so she couldn’t tell exactly how big it was. A sort of metal deck had been built all around its shores, and it was odd that the steps of the guards who walked here didn’t clang and clatter across the metal. They might have been walking across thick grass for all the sound they made.

A strange web of black machinery had been spun along this mountain. The pattern of the machinery over the rock looked almost organic—it reminded Belle of the diagrams of the nervous systems that the healers at the Great Cassiix Circus had shown her when she was studying with them. The machinery was anchored in place by great stakes driven into the rocks, which oozed a foul-smelling black and gray substance in between sparse, thin black grass.

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She didn’t understand why that distant, muffled part of her was weeping. She didn’t want to understand.

Belle looked to Murphy so she wouldn’t have to look at the mountain anymore. So she could stay ignorant a moment longer. His eyes were alight, staring at the rocks before them with an obscene look of twisted pleasure. Like he could feel her gaze, he looked down at her, then winked.

My Dark Mother, bless the Nothing. Bless this distance. It’s the thing I fear above all, but…

“This is what Ma wanted to show me?” Richard asked. His expression was so disinterested Belle couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and that wasn’t a good sign.

“Not exactly. She wanted to show you what we can do with it,” Murphy said, and bounded off the deck and onto the shore.

He vaulted rocks and climbed ledges with the excitement of a child climbing a well-loved tree, and finally reached what looked to be a terminal with a control panel, half a dozen yards above them. There was a seat there and he quickly strapped himself into it. The guards around them immediately jumped into action, clambering toward their own posts in various places up and along the mountain.

Without checking that everyone was in place, Murphy shouted, “Wake up, sleepyhead!” and threw his weight onto a lever beside the control panel, drawing a rumbling from an engine beneath the terminal. The other guards followed suit, their own engines roaring to life, loud enough to send ripples through the lake and send tremors through the black rocks.

Not rocks. Cracked black skin wrapped around jutting bone.

Right in front of them, that black skin parted suddenly to reveal an enormous pale eye. The great slit pupil looked right at Belle.

Her heart stopped.

Richard took a step back.

Murphy threw another lever, and the section of the mountain beneath his terminal jerked upward, lifting him into the fog. Its head. Its cracked lips pulled back to reveal pale teeth as big as those adorning Broken Earth’s main gate. A rumbling a hundred times greater than the sounds of those machines built behind those teeth, but a much worse sound cut through it—a furious, agonized shriek that made both Belle and Richard clamp their hands over their ears.

Murphy messed with the controls, and the sound died out.

“Behold Her Majesty’s genius!” Murphy shouted.

He jerked a lever to his left, and the head swung left as well, revealing the great hole where the Monster’s other eye had once been. Murphy pushed the lever back to the right, and the head followed suit.

The muzzle, the ears, the canine shape of the beast’s enormous skull. Belle knew which Monster this was. The one that was supposed to be long dead, having only lived a few decades after his sister, the Bear.

Had he just been imprisoned this entire time? Experimented on until the Earthbreakers found a way to control him?

Richard stared at the beast, his hands still hovering around his ears. Stunned, he said, “The Coyote.”