Alaric had Vallian with one wrist tied to a paper roll holder using a thin strand of string in the corner of the upstairs bathroom.

For a minute or two, Mira assumed she was going to find Val in the closet but, upon arriving at the landing, she found the bathroom door ajar with the traitor in question sitting on the tiled floor.

Light passing through the window made the blood in Vallian’s hair far more noticeable and, while the bruising on his face was still glaringly purple and blue, she could see bits of bandage against the fabrics of his white shirt. His legs were drawn up to his chest, forehead resting against them. Draped over his knees, his free arm acted almost like a pillow and, for a moment, Mira assumed he’d fallen asleep like that considering the amount of blood he probably lost on the table, but there was something about the rhythm of his moving shoulders that told her she might be wrong.

She closed the door behind her when she entered and Vallian only raised his head when it clicked closed. It was a small room, more a square box with the door closed and Alaric had done her the favor of disarming the traitor, his pistol laying unceremoniously on the sink countertop, closest to the door.

Mira closed the lid on the toilet in front of Val, then took a seat on it. Only when she was directly in front of the man did she realize that the chain-up job was poorly done; the tie holding Val’s wrist to the paper roll holder was loose enough for him to slip free from, yet for some reason he submitted to the punishment and, as far as Mira was aware, made no attempts to free himself.

Vallian looked her up and down, as if assessing her, the same way a prey animal would do to a predator, uncertain and cautious. While he did, Mira took a better look at his eyes; the white rims around his pupils seemed larger, no longer a small wavy outline, but thicker and wavvier. She wondered silently to herself if his time being tortured in the basement of the Cardinal building had anything to do with it. Before she could put that theory to question, the man spoke into the silence of the room.

“I was almost hoping it would be Jovie,” he said.

Mira raised a brow. “What do you have? A death wish?”

Val shrugged. “I stopped wishing for death a while ago, but I wouldn’t put up a fight if it happened.”

It was so odd to hear that kind of talk out of Val, who she only really knew as someone who carried himself with such swagger and charm. She frowned. Being a defeatist wasn’t a good look on him.

“If the responsibility of killing me has fallen to you, though,” he went on, “at least do me the courtesy of allowing me to pen some letters back home. It would be the least I can do.”

“My job isn’t to kill you,” Mira said, despite every bone in her body begging to at least rough him up a little more. He wouldn’t cooperate with her if she did and she clasped her hands together, forcing them into her lap to keep herself from slipping. “My job right now is to look for answers.”

“Where would you like me to start, Mirabel?” Vallian asked, his tone cold and unforgiving. “Would you like for me to apologize? Beg? Grovel at your feet?”

“You could lick the soles of my shoes if you truly wanted to,” she shot back, eyes narrowed. “Or do you prefer the taste of talons?”

It was a low blow, she was willing to admit that, but it didn’t have nearly the intended effect that she wanted it to have. Vallian didn’t so much as wince as he did close his eyes slowly. It reminded her of her father, who would always follow the gesture with a deep breath and a sigh. Val, though, only shook his head. “There’s nothing I could do or tell you that would put me back in anyone’s good graces. Not you, not Jovie, not your brother. So what’s the point?”

“I want answers, Val. All of them. And, as much as I want to wring your neck for the pain you’ve caused my brother, I can’t lie to myself. You still have worth to me in information, which is just valuable enough to warrant any of us keeping you around.”

The librarian rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Lovely,” he muttered. “Great to know that my life is still useful for other people’s gain.”

“What do you mean?” Mira asked, crossing her arms over her chest. It felt like a strange statement. Wasn’t the whole point of being a Cardinal to serve the higher ups?

“Exactly what I said. My life has always been a useful way for other people to push their goals.”

“If that’s the case, then why agree to the terms?”

To her surprise, Val started laughing. It was a sharp, cold thing that sent a shiver down her spine. She kicked him in the shin with her toes and he jumped, stopping to take a sharp breath before his chuckling calmed.

“Sorry,” said Vallian, kicking one leg out, elbow resting on his knee. He cupped the side of his face in his restrained hand, the rope sagging a little. Again, Mira wondered why he didn’t just slip his hand through. “It’s just so … amusing to me that you would think anyone in their right mind would willingly serve in the Cardinals’ ranks.”

“I do,” Mira said, recalling the young half-sight she watched torture Jovie with glee in his eyes. She imagined the man would do that again if he had the option of doing so. Not that he ever would, considering he was dead. “I think anyone with a smidgen of resentment towards the Spectacles would. People who view their abilities as more a curse than a blessing.”

He waved his free hand dismissively. “It’s all a scam. The Cardinals say they offer freedom from the Spectacles’ power, but it isn’t what they say it is. The Cardinals give these people a chance to hunt the creatures down with the possibility of getting their Sight reversed. It’s a farce, a stupid trick. The Cardinals can’t reverse their Sight; they don’t have the technology for that.”

It was unspoken, but Mira could read between those lines.

They didn’t have the technology for that, yet.

“Meanwhile,” he went on, “the rest of the poor saps who don’t want to be there aren’t given a chance to deny. Either you agree to terms, or they keep you in containment to force you under experiments.” Vallian rubbed at his eyes with his free hand. “Alternatively, if they don’t think you’re worth the effort, or if you’ve run out of usage in experimentation, you die a coward’s death at the hands of the Beast. And, given Locht’s reputation, most people prefer to live. So they end up trapped.”

I do not wish to be a puppet in their game, Soma had said to her. Not like so many of my children have been forced into being.

But Vallian Roenthall wasn’t one of Soma’s children. In fact, aside from the white rims of his pupils, there was nothing about him that indicated anything about Sight. Then again, what did she know? As far as Mira was concerned, she was just an outsider casting judgment.

“Speaking of Locht,” she said, “what does Jax want Delilah for?”

The librarian avoided her gaze now, turning his attention elsewhere. As though the mere mention of the girl’s location was enough to strike him into compliance. “Two reasons I imagine, the first being that Delilah is near and dear to Jovie’s heart. Jax … likes to strike where the heart is weakest. It’s how he snares most of his victims. Bringing Delilah to the Maidenwoods ensures that Jovie and Soma come to him. He has the advantage on that turf.”

“And the second?”

Vallian tipped his head up to look out the window, squinting into the light. “I suppose it’s just another way for Jax to torture me. Dig the knife in deeper, fill the wound with salt.”

“That makes no sense, though,” Mira said, sitting up straighter. Her hands moved to lay flat beneath her thighs and she leaned a little forward, taking up some of the remaining space. “What good does it do to punish you when you work on the same side?”

She watched him huff and roll his eyes. “You give the Scarlet King too much credit, Mirabel,” he said with a wince. He almost moved his restrained hand—if it could even be called that—before realizing it was tied (if barely) and used his free hand instead to rub at his wounded side. “Jax has no respect for his grunts, just scathing tolerance.

“Now, on a personal level,” he added, with a hint of something that might have been humor. like the afterthought was something amusing to him, “I had a tendency to make Jax’s life … difficult. On occasion. It could be for a number of things. Insolence. Misdemeanor. Sabotage. I don’t even think Jax would know where to start.”

“He’s a real winner, huh?” said Mira dryly.

Val shrugged, holding up his hands in surrender. “I won’t pretend to understand Jax Myers. Never have. Don’t really plan on doing that now.”

“Do you understand him enough to know what specifically he’d want Jovie and Soma for?”

“What he’s always wanted: Power. Power, and control. It was Soma’s meddling that gave humans the ability of Sight in the first place. To that end, Jax has two goals. The first is that by manipulating the jackalope, he may be able to have the means of gathering Scepters and half-sights freedom from their celestial ‘debt,’ provided they serve him in the form of hunting down and capturing the Spectacles first. If he can control the Spectacles, there’s no telling what he would manipulate them for.”

It made some sense. She remembered vaguely all that time ago the man who’d helped her in the streets of Elnoire, before Mira and her brother were caught up in a silent war they hadn’t realized they’d become a part of. The memory wasn’t clear, but she did remember the fear in his eyes at the prospect of being hunted or even looked at differently for an ability he never asked for. She imagined that most people with Sight would jump at the chance to live life without being stopped in the streets like some kind of part-time celebrity.

She took a deep breath, considering the information. Mira placed her hands in her lap, twirling the ring on her left hand. “How long have you known?”

“Long enough,” Val replied.

Mira frowned. “How long have you been with the Cardinals?”

“Long enough,” Val repeated, the words a growl. “I don’t have to justify myself to you.”

“Really? Because as far as I’m aware, your involvement is what got us into this mess by making Delilah into a target—”

Vallian lunged his upper body forward, wrist catching on the rope and she could have sworn his face went pale the minute his wrist stopped moving. It was the first time she’d seen him react so strongly. Then his body relaxed and he slumped backwards, knocking into the edge of a marble tub. “Leave Delilah out of this,” he said.

Guilt crept in; she didn’t want to bring the girl into the discussion knowing how fond both Vallian and Jovie were of her. Heavens, even Mira felt the child’s absence in the group like an untended wound. Still, it was the truth. That, at the very least, couldn’t be avoided. “I can’t,” she said simply. “Not when that’s going to be the first thing Jovie asks me about when I get downstairs or the first thing she jumps down your throat with. That’s why it’s important you answer my questions instead of being snarky and difficult.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“The time I’ve been in their service doesn’t matter, Mirabel,” Vallian insisted, leaning a little forward. He was glaring at her now, white rims waving in slow, pulsing motions that made him borderline hard to look at. She wondered if they’d always been doing that or if she was just noticing them now because Vallian was closer. “I lost track of it years ago.”

“Why?”

“Are you dull? Because it didn’t matter, Mirabel. Nothing I ever did mattered.”

“I find that hard to believe considering your role.”

“That isn’t—” Vallian took a slow, deep breath in, eyes flicking up to the ceiling. He exhaled deeply through his nose, then said, “All of my years there didn’t mean jack shit. Not to Jax. Not to his uncle before him. It didn’t mean anything to anyone.”

“So why stay?” Mira pressed. “Surely there’s some way you could’ve—”

She stopped short as he flinched and moved back, recoiling a little as though she’d struck him in the face. The words that left his mouth, accompanied by a scowl, were unforgiving.

“That is fucking rich. Y’know, it’s very funny you say it like that. Because that would imply I ever had a choice in the matter.”

“Everyone has choices, Vallian.”

“You would not be saying that if it were you instead of me.”

Mira leaned in, her temper rising like steam through a tea kettle’s spout. “Don’t talk like you know me,” she snarled.

“Then cut the bullshit, Mirabel, and look at this for what it is rather than what you want it to be. Life is not about choices, it’s about control. Those who have it are the ones who decide your options and take a wild, fucking guess at who that benefits. Because I can guarantee you without a fraction of a doubt that it is not the people like us who do.” Val spoke as though the words were strangled things, cinched tight by frustration. His voice, steady as it was, was betrayed by his shaking shoulders, the vein popping a little at his temple.

It was the most emotion out of him Mira had seen aside from the depressive resignation she’d witnessed earlier. If she placed the two versions beside each other, they would have felt like completely different people.

“No one understands how the Cardinals work,” he said. “Everyone assumes it’s a sheet of paper you sign up for when it’s the furthest thing from the truth. It isn’t …”

Then, as though he were discarding a mask, Vallian sat up straighter and extended his free hand in her direction. Mira wasn’t sure what the gesture was supposed to mean. Was it an apology? An olive branch; a truce?

When she didn’t take it, he extended it out to her again with an intensity in his expression that Mira understood to be an order. Not even a request. She didn’t think there was anything for her to lose, not while he was tied up (after all, it wasn’t as though Val had taken the initiative to free himself), so she gently held onto his palm.

For a few seconds, nothing happened.

Until Val’s fingers danced up her wrist and dug into a pressure point.

Mira folded forward and he tugged on her arm, forcing her to the floor. Static consumed her limb and she fought a scream as it lodged in her throat, gasping from the pain instead. Her whole wrist felt numb but the pain raged on, tingling through palm and fingers.

Each time she rose, Vallian pressed harder, forcing her back down. She tapped on the tile with her free palm, but the man didn’t relent.

“Get up,” he said coolly. “Or is that hard to do when you’re being restrained?”

A million curses raged in her head that she would have liked to scream at him. She tapped on the floor again in rapid strikes until finally, Val let go of her arm and he shuffled back against the metal roll holder.

Anger flared in her chest, molten hot and bright like the scarlet stones of the peaks and Mira resisted the urge to slap him as she sat up. Considering the throbbing pain in her hand—the pain she accepted but should have seen coming—it would have been incredibly satisfying. That desire went away once rationality kicked in and she felt more annoyed at herself for even agreeing to the terms.

Mira leaned against the sink cabinets, glaring at Val and expecting a vindictive “I told you do” as payment for his demonstration. What she got instead was a cold expression slowly morphing into a wistful smile. No, not quite a smile, though not quite a frown, either. “That is what working for the Cardinals is like.”

“Annoying?” Mira spat before she could stop herself.

“Agonizing,” Vallian corrected. “Agonizing and forced. You don’t choose to work for the Cardinals. It is not a draft. It’s a demand. There is no choice or free will—those are illusions as far as we’re concerned.”

For the first time since their conversation started, Mira paused. She took in the words, let them sink in, and pushed her emotions out to the side. Her anger faded a little, replaced more with the beginnings of pity than anything else and began to feel the tiniest bad for being harsh. Only a little; none of the information Val had given her took away the anger she felt regarding his involvement in everything from the start.

But if there was truth to his words, Mira wanted to believe that this—this chained obligation to a ruler with an iron thumb—was the only reason why he was ever a part of it all.

“You said most Cardinals don’t get a choice, right?” she asked, keeping her voice a whisper.

Val shuffled a little in place, tucking his legs in a little closer to his body. “Yeah,” he said, looking at her with a raised brow. “Why?”

“How did it happen to you?”

His eyes lingered on her for a moment, wide and terrified, before skirting back in the direction of the single window in the room. Mira could tell he was avoiding the question—it was obvious in the set of his jaw, the rigidity of his shoulders and the way he moved back and forth as though he couldn’t get himself comfortable. It was hard to watch and Mira felt guilty even just bringing the question up.

But she wanted to know—had to know if she was going to figure out where Val stood in her list of allies or enemies. Because if he truly wasn’t the enemy, then Mira knew she could redirect her energy elsewhere. On the real villain at hand.

When Vallian said nothing after an uncomfortable minute of silence, Mira leaned forward, encroaching on his space with the intent to loosen the rope. Her hand grazed his and the man yelped and recoiled—at least, he tried to until the rope snagged on the metal holder. Everything about him changed from tense to panicked and even as Mira shuffled over to sit in front of him to get a better angle on the knot in the rope, Val snapped his legs into his chest to protect his abdomen.

Mira stopped, her hand hovering in midair.

She recognized the wheezing, the rapid heaving of his chest and shoulders. Mira knew this reaction. It was the same way Magic reacted to the bells back home. A reaction he never understood and one he would kill to live his life without.

“I’m not gonna touch you,” she said. “I’m just gonna untie the knot. So you can free yourself.”

Vallian didn’t respond to her verbally, but she could tell that he understood her words. His posture loosened up, shoulders dropping, arms slowly moving down to his sides as his legs came out and folded like a pretzel as she untied the knot with ease, tossing the string into the nearby trash. The binding was nowhere near tight, though Vallian rubbed his wrist as though something had been clamped around it.

Mira watched him without a word; he was rolling his wrist around as though it would conjure words from out of nothing. In the meantime, she let her mind wander and she wondered, absently, how everyone else was faring downstairs. If Alaric had managed to soothe Jovie’s anger—or at the very least rein it in—and if her brother had calmed down enough not to commit anymore damage to himself than he already had.

“It was a fair.”

She snapped at attention. Val still wasn’t looking at her, his attention focused mainly on his wrist and the words came out slowly. He sounded uncertain, even as the story left his mouth. “I was thirteen. My younger brother, Jon, was eight. He’s a half-sight. Our mother wanted us to stay close to the house, because raids were starting to get common again. Abductions, break-ins. Cardinals ran rampant in Sombrail for a time. But Jonny wanted to see what the fair was about and he was my baby brother. I wanted to make him happy, so we went.

“And we were,” he continued, “for ten whole minutes. We were at a candy machine when they started throwing gas. Two men took my brother away from me, yanked his hand away … Someone blew a whistle and they started … rounding up the kids …”

Vallian paused, tucking his chin to his chest and Mira didn’t press him. Instead, she stood and grabbed a cloth from the sink cabinets, ran it under cool water before wringing it and placing the damp fabrics on the back of the librarian’s neck. Clumsily, he grasped it and began to drag it over his face.

“I imagine they meant to only go after your brother,” she said, eliciting a tiny nod of response. “If that’s the case, why’d they take you?”

“I fought back,” Val replied, his voice slightly hoarse. He sat upright now, one leg extended, the other still bent. His arm rested on his knee as he wiped his face with the cloth which was pale and sweaty. “I fought to take him back. They thought it was amusing. Said I had potential.” It rolled off his tongue with emphasis and disgust. “I don’t know what happened after they knocked me out, but I woke up crammed in a box car with eight other children and metal cuffs thick as bricks clamped around my wrists.”

Mira sat up straighter. Now it made sense.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t free himself from the rope. He was more than capable of that. It was the restraint that kept him immobilized, paralyzed by a learned fear none of them were privy to.

“They kept the Sighted children separated from us by a thin wall,” Val murmured under his breath. “I listened to my brother sob for three consecutive hours as we went from Sombrail to the HQ building in the capital. Three hours while my brother cried both of us to sleep.”

“Does your family know?” Mira asked, her voice a whisper.

“Probably. I mentioned before that raids were on the rise then. In fact, they were commonplace in areas outside the mining districts. Myers—Jax’s uncle, the leader of the Cardinals before him—didn’t want to risk directly angering Ori by causing harm to her celestial nieces and nephews. It was why he opted for the collapse of the mines instead; he wanted to flush her out or wound her enough to find a Vessel.”

Mira winced, only able to see the names on the paper, the information they contained. “And you never thought to tell anyone this? Not even Jovie?”

“Especially not Jovie,” Val corrected. “It was bad enough that most people ran in fear whenever I even attempted to tell people. Trust me. I tried. But there was no way in Ori’s speckled sky I was going to run my luck with Jovie. She has no sympathy for the people out to end her life or make her into a trophy. I can’t blame her for that—even Delia told me as much.”

Immediately her brows furrowed. She recognized that name. The same name Jovie used in the basement of Subsidia’s HQ. “Delia?”

Vallian’s expression softened as he slowly snaked his hand under the collar of his shirt, digging out the golden necklace from beneath it. She’d never seen it out in the open before and she watched the metal glint in the neon light coming in through the window.

Hanging from the interlocked chains were three charms: one of Ori in flight, a standard charm in most Droidellan areas, a large, silver ring with a ruby at the top, decorated with the long body of a salamander on the inside, and a white rabbit’s foot outlined in gold. He ran a finger fondly over the latter before rubbing it between his thumb and index finger with an expression on his face Mira knew all too well.

The same look Benji had when he handed over the engagement ring belonging to Mira’s deceased mother as a keepsake.

The same look Magic had when he looked at the sky at night, searching for forgiveness.

Grief.

Vallian touched the charm to his lips and closed his eyes. “The love of my life,” he whispered. Delilah’s mother. Jovie’s sister.”

Now Jovie’s rage made a lot more sense. “How much did she know?”

“Well, I imagine Jovie knew that Delia and I were … interested in each other. She was an all-purpose doctor before she was Soma’s Vessel. I had a feeling she’d pieced that timeline together. But it was Delia’s idea to keep Jovie in the dark. She knew her twin and knew how she would react.” Vallian took a breath and slowly opened his eyes, rubbing at them. “I don’t think it’s only me she’s pissed at.”

For once, Mira agreed. “It’s a backstab.”

Vallian winced, but didn’t disagree with her. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say, though? No one would willingly choose this kind of life if they knew what was good for them. Cardinals are not born, they’re trapped. We’re caged playthings who can only dream of something more.”

“So do something more.” Wishes and hopes were feeble things, likely to die out if you didn’t act fast. They were fickle and pointless and hinged on fate or destiny, things that did not yield to human action or desire. Wishing held less weight than doing, but she wasn’t going to diminish his point over semantics. “You have the opportunity to get the upper hand. It’s your choice to give Jax what he deserves or take the coward’s way out and run from it.”

Val’s eyes snapped to hers with an intensity she’d never seen. The white rims around his pupils began to undulate again, wavering as though caught in the ripples of a sea of molasses. He stood, grabbing onto the tub for assistance as Mira followed suit. He strode over to the counter, snagging the pistol from its spot on the marble. It spun gently around his fingers, natural as though he’d spent his entire life with a gun in his hands. And maybe he did.

The pistol made one last loop around Val’s finger until the barrel pointed towards the ceiling and he pressed the back of it to his forehead. “Oh, don’t you worry, Mirabel. Jax will get more than what he deserves.” Vallian pressed his lips tenderly to the back of the weapon, closest to the chamber. “I’m going to put his ass seven feet in the ground and give Locht a feast with his remains. Just tell me where we start.”