Nik Nik raises an eyebrow. “They won’t—”

“Scan for prints, I know. Just being thorough,” I say. “Where’s your mask?”

Nik Nik smiles. “I wanted him to see my face.”

Wanted Adam to know that he knew they were brothers, more like. I want to scream, call him stupid. He’s tipped our hand and jeopardized the whole thing, but there’s an energy in his eyes I’ve never seen before. His hands are fists, clenching and unclenching.

“When the bomb goes off, he’ll know it’s the past calling.”

I hadn’t believed Mr. Cheeks before, when he said Nik Nik was hurt by the news of his brother, but I see it now, clear as a knife wound. He hates his brother. But he also wore his best shirt and had his hair freshly done before seeing him.

“I’ll take her home through the shadowways, and meet you back at the palace,” Mr. Cheeks says.

Nik Nik nods. “Watch yourself until you’ve passed downtown. They’ll chase us over the border for this.”

The two men grab each other’s shoulders, and then the emperor departs. Head high, steps long but slow, not at all like a man trying to hide.

    Mr. Cheeks leads me back down the scaffolding to the dark elevator. We pull down our masks, and he pulls up his collar once we’re on my floor. We walk slow and close like a couple out for a stroll until we’re in front of my door.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay the night?” I say.

He shakes his head. “Light will be no friend of mine. And I need to be with the rest.”

“I understand,” I say, but I don’t.

With the exception of my too-brief stays at the House when I was a girl, I’ve never been a part of anything. I thought of Nelline as being tragically lonely, without so much as a lover who would claim her in the light. But now that I’ve lost Jean, I’m not much better off.

I’m looking up at him, finally coming to terms with the fact that he might be the one Esther chooses, and maybe he wouldn’t be the worst pick in the world, when I see the slender fingers work around his throat, grab his bandanna, and yank.

* * *

MR. CHEEKS’S HEAD snaps back with the violence of a whip, and for a moment I think it’s over that quickly. But then he ducks and turns, spinning away.

My mind stutters at the sight. “Dell?” I ask, but she ignores me, slamming a hand into Mr. Cheeks’s throat that leaves him sputtering.

Dell is taller than either of us, but Mr. Cheeks is a runner. He should have retaliated by now. He keeps his hands at his sides.

I wrap my arms around Dell’s shoulders. She shakes me off.

“Dell, stop!” I say, but she’s already going for him again. “He can’t fight back. You’re a Wileyite. He can’t lay a hand on you. It’s not fair.”

She snaps her head toward me so fast her hair spins like a propeller.

“Fair? I suppose it’s fair for him to choke you, then? When you’re so small? Is it fair for him to make you smuggle guns for him and break into mansions?”

    “What? No, that’s not what happened.”

“I know you must…feel for him. But no one should treat you that way. Use you like that.”

Mr. Cheeks is laughing loud now, and Dell’s confusion at the sound gives me an opening.

I step forward and touch her hand. It’s trembling. “He’s not for me. He could never be for me.”

“You think I’m dragging her into this? That’s a laugh. She hired me and mine. We’re working a job for her.” He shakes his head and glares at me like it’s all my fault. “Sucker-punched by a Wileyite. The shit you get me into.”

Dell looks back at me. “You hired him? I thought…”

“I know what you thought. That I’m a tiny little Ashtowner, easily led astray.” I turn to Mr. Cheeks. “I’m sorry. I owe you.”

“Yeah, yeah. What’s new?”

He rubs at his throat, and points at Dell, squinting. Then he abandons whatever threat he meant to deliver and shifts his gaze to me.

“Trouble. White-hot trouble, that’s all you are.”

“That mean you’re rescinding the job offer?”

“Like I’d let you land anywhere else.”

“I’ll see you later, Mr. Cheeks.”

He nods, then steps back, merging into the shadows.

Without a word I usher Dell into my apartment and try to figure out where to start. Her eyes are on my neck, and I realize I’m still wearing the bandanna. I pull it off and remove my boots, hoping I’ll look more like the Cara she knows when we talk.

I sit in my chair, hands on the arms the same way Nik Nik sat. When I notice, I take my hands off and fold them into my lap.

“You eavesdropped on me on Earth 175.”

Dell rolls her eyes as she sits down. She’s removed her coat and I see that she was fully prepared to start a fight in her scrap of an evening gown.

    “Yes, please make this about an invasion of privacy,” she says. “Some watchers listen to their traversers’ every trip. I’ve obviously allowed you too much leniency for too long. A gun? A real, working gun? Are you crazy?”

“It only has six bullets, and it can’t be re-created here. Besides, I didn’t have a choice. I needed it to pay Nik Nik. Otherwise he wouldn’t let me use his runners. He still almost said no. I insulted him.” I touch my neck. “He’s…sensitive.”

“The emperor of Ashtown choked you?” She looks away. “You sounded like friends on 175.”

“On Earth 175 he’s my friend. On every other world he’s an enemy.” I feel guilty about the half-truth. “On 22, he’s my ex, but that just makes him even more my enemy.”

She leans forward. “You don’t need to do this. Whatever you want, I can get it for you. You don’t need to hire wasteland runners to steal for you. I have money.”

It’s strange, her talking about her money like I should think of it as mine.

“I didn’t hire them to steal from Adam Bosch. I hired them to destroy him. Tonight was just a test run.”

“Why?”

I look down, calculating. She was at his house tonight. She could be more than his guest; she could be an accomplice. Jean knew what was really happening; maybe Dell does too.

“How did you find me that night?”

“What night?”

“You know what night. The night I was electrocuted.”

“I was on fortieth. I saw you taking the elevator up instead of down and I thought you might be coming to see Jean. But you got off on seventy-six, so I followed you. I lost you in the stairwell, but then I heard the net go off and knew it was you.”

“And you didn’t wonder what I was doing up there?”

“I’ve become adept at overlooking things about you that don’t add up.”

    “How generous,” I say. “Why were you on fortieth? You live and work on eighty but lately you’ve been down on forty an awful lot.”

“I have my reasons.”

“And what were you doing at Bosch’s place?”

“He was having a party. All of the elite got invited.”

“Must be nice.”

“Oh, be more bitter. I never get sick of it.”

“Why were you heading toward his bedroom?”

Her eyes flare before they narrow—rage and insult, but not guilt. I’ve missed the mark.

“Why do you think that’s any of your business?”

She doesn’t make it easy to trust her. We’ve never communicated well, but between tonight and our fight yesterday a canyon has formed between us. We danced around each other for years because neither would tell the other the truth. If I keep quiet, she’ll walk out, and we’ll spend whatever time I have left navigating around each other like ships and icebergs. All because neither of us is brave enough to show our throat first.

“Adam Bosch didn’t create an inoculation. He’s just going to kill the dops of the winning bidders. I made a report to enforcement and he…he thought Jean did it.”

I don’t spell it out, and it takes no time for her to get it. She sits up straight.

“Adam killed Jean? And then he spread the rumor that it was your fault, that you were there?”

I hadn’t known Bosch was responsible for the rumor, but I should have guessed.

“I was there. Jean made him let me go.”

She runs both hands through her hair, though even after that dishevelment it resets to perfect.

“I’m so sorry. I should have…I’m so sorry.” She takes a breath, then lets it go slowly. “I checked the record from your…Caramenta’s first pull. It had a death entered without enough evidence, just like 175. I got suspicious. I was hoping to speak to Bosch alone about it. I wasn’t headed to his bedroom. I was headed to his library. Why were you in his bedroom?”

    “Looking for evidence. He has a file on me, but it looks like it’s just filled with medi-scans?”

She nods. “I forward all of your scans. Quarterly bloodwork too.”

“Did he request that from all of the high-volume traversers?”

“I wouldn’t know. You’re the only one I’ve ever had. But”—her eyebrows furrow, like she’s accessing information stored deep down that she’d never thought she’d need again—“once I compared the serum compound I had to what Anthony gave Starla. They weren’t the same.”