“There is no undoing the damage?”

I shrug. “It’s not really my call. Can I ask you one more favor?”

“Of course.”

“Do you have an image of your brother as emperor? It can be digital or physical.”

He freezes, but nods. I expect he’ll go back to his desk, but instead, he reaches down into his collar. On his neck is a small fob. When he hits the button on the side, a hologram of his brother in full regalia projects out. As I watch, it cycles. His mother and father are in the fob too.

It only takes a second to plug his necklace into my cuff and copy the image.

“Can I take your picture?”

“Sure,” I answer, a little crookedly because I’m saying yes before I understand the question. It’s not easy for me to deny him anything either.

He doesn’t ask me to smile, just points the fob at me and takes a quick snap. This is a sign that he’s letting me go, storing my image with the rest of his dead.

I don’t hug him goodbye. I just walk out. I’m only in the sun for a few seconds before I’m back in total darkness again.

    When I climb out of the hatch, Dell is studying me.

“What is it?”

She blinks, shaking her head a little like she hadn’t realized she was staring. She pulls her comm out of her ear.

“I just thought it would take longer,” she says. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Not exactly,” I say, because she might ask to see it.

She turns away from me. “You can go. I’ve fixed the schedule. You’ll need to do a double tomorrow. It will bruise.”

“With the marks I’ve got now, I doubt I’ll notice.”

She looks over her shoulder. “Even if it doesn’t show, it will hurt.”

“I know, but it will be worth it.”

I mean that pulling the double will be worth it because now I have something to tempt the emperor. But I also mean everything else. It will be worth it, all this pain. It has to be.

* * *

AS WE WAIT for the emperor, Mr. Cheeks seems even more nervous than I am. He said he could get me a meeting with Nik Nik quickly, and he wasn’t lying. It was only Thursday that I got the gun, now it’s Sunday and I’m waiting in an empty warehouse for His Royal Pain-in-the-Assness. I haven’t been granted an invite to the palace, which isn’t surprising. If Mr. Cheeks had gone through any official channels, I wouldn’t be meeting with the emperor at all, only his emissary.

Mr. Cheeks pushes back his already-slick dark hair.

“He must trust you, to agree to meet like this,” I say.

“He trusts me now. Ask me if he still does when this is over,” he says, and returns to his nervous preening.

Two runners open the double doors and Nik Nik steps through. He’s come out in full shine—nails, boots, and rings. His long vest was made from a giant wasteland reptile, in case anyone forgets that he was a hunter first. It isn’t as cumbersome as the royal coat; it doesn’t drag and he can freely move his arms, but it inspires far more respect in those who’ve seen the creature it was made from.

    Seeing him feels like being back on Earth 22, in all the worst ways. I was uncertain when I first met the Nik Nik on 175, because he didn’t look like I expected him to, and so I wasn’t sure how he would act. That was a blessing, because this one looks just like mine, which means I know exactly what he’s capable of.

He comes with only two runners—not the six Adranik insisted on—and even those he dismisses when he sees me. He must trust Mr. Cheeks very much indeed. I’ve tried my best to look important but nonthreatening in my thick Wiley City shirt. I’ve brought a jacket of my own, white as bleached bone, the kind of thing that no one here would ever waste money on. But I don’t live in a place where all bright things turn gray anymore, and I need to show it.

When he tilts his head, his long braids slide against each other, snakes cradling the side of his face.

“I told my boy that no matter what you were offering, I wasn’t in the mood to lend out my runners. But now”—he looks me up and down, sucking at his lip—“I’m suddenly open to negotiation.”

It’s an intimidation tactic, nothing more. The emperor takes surprisingly few lovers, and when he does he prefers the professionals at the House to unvetted strangers.

“I’m afraid that’s not on the menu, not even for Your Imperial Majesty.”

I don’t quite bow, but I give a deep enough nod to make him smile. Nik Nik is made up of as much ego as the rest of us are water, and giving him respect has always made him respond in kind.

“Shame,” he says, motioning toward the marks on my cheeks, “I’ve never had a cat before. Should have figured the preacher’s eldest would leave me blue.”

I want to laugh at that. Nik Nik thinking I’m too pure to be poached, not understanding that I am nothing if not my mother’s daughter.

    “Show me what you have for me,” he says.

I see Mr. Cheeks relax in my periphery. If Nik Nik hadn’t liked his first impression of me he wouldn’t have given me the chance to present. We’re over our first hurdle.

I open the pack at my side and pull out my silk-wrapped bundle. When I pull away the wrapping, Mr. Cheeks audibly gasps. Nik Nik keeps his face from changing, but his eyes look hungry.

I hold the gun out to him quickly so he won’t confuse this for an assassination. I don’t need to tell him what it is or what it can do. Even decades out of circulation, their legend hangs heavy over us all. My grandfather killed himself with one. His grandfather used one to kill too many others to name.

“How do you have this?” He holds the pistol awkwardly at first, but then it finds a place in his palm like it was always meant to be there.

“Did your runner tell you what I do for a living?” I ask, because saying Mr. Cheeks’s name would suggest a familiarity that might put the emperor on edge.

Nik Nik nods. “You’re a world walker.”

“I smuggled that in from over a hundred worlds away. Last of its kind. The means to reproduce it doesn’t exist here, and they’ve just been destroyed in the other world.”

I can tell by his renewed focus that the pistol’s rarity is tempting him more than its shine. I know that look. He wants it, and he’ll do anything to have it. I wonder if he’s already trying to decide if he will keep it a secret or wear it on his hip to show the world.

He holds the gun up and points it straight at me.

“I’m listening,” he says, finally lowering the weapon when I don’t react.

We’ve passed the second hurdle.

I lay out the plan as Mr. Cheeks and I have rehearsed it. He warned me that once the meeting started he would have to pretend to be an uninvested observer, and he wouldn’t be able to help if I forgot something. I recite everything just as he taught me: how many men we would need, for how long, and how much of a bonus we would front for the families of any men for whom the job went south.

    Nik Nik listens quietly. He lets the gun hang loosely in one hand while he stares at the other, dragging the tip of his thumb over stiletto nails like he’s testing for sharpness.

“And for allowing my men to take this job, I keep the gun.”

“The gun you can keep as a thank-you for meeting with me. If you allow your runners to do my job, you’ll get the bullets. There are only six, but time it right and you’ll only ever need one.”

Mr. Cheeks suddenly straightens, giving a nervous shuffle, but I can’t see why. Nik Nik is smiling…too late I realize he’s just showing all his teeth.

His coat hisses like the creature it once was as he moves even faster than I remember. Suddenly he’s behind me, his arm a bar at my throat while his other hand presses against the back of my neck. He had been testing for sharpness after all, because with a curl of his hand four of his nails puncture the side of my throat.

“You think I need the rumor of bullets to secure my throne? You think me impotent? In need of a weapon?”

I lock eyes with Mr. Cheeks, who seems to vibrate as he’s torn between duty and honor. I keep eye contact as I shake my head. I can handle this. I’ve been here a hundred times before. I focus to calm my beating heart. He’s letting me have a little air, that’s good. I can feel the hardness of his chest like a boulder at my back. This Nik Nik is mine, exactly the same. Which means I know how to make him stop.

I don’t fight. I go soft against him, prey showing its belly. The weaker I become, the looser his hold, until I can finally squeak out something to distract him.

“Your…brother…”

He all but drops me.

“What did you say?”

“If you don’t want the bullets, fine. I’d think you’d take the job to get back at the brother who abandoned you.”

    He doesn’t look at me like I’m lying, just lost.

“My brother died when we were boys.”

He believes what he’s saying. Good. If he’d known what really happened, I would have lost my fail-safe.

I press my cuff, calling up an image of Adam Bosch. Nik Nik glares a little.

“Another too-soft Wileyite, so what?”

I slide to the picture of Adranik in regalia. Finally, Nik Nik reacts.