They have an army
Farley scoffs, all but rolling her eyes. “Ma’am, I care very little for Tiberias Calore,” she replies. I can’t help but wince, hissing out a breath. Farley.
But she isn’t finished. “So you can believe me when I say he will be.”
The representative bobs her head, satisfied with such an answer. She isn’t the only one. Many of the politicians around the room, both Red and Silver, exchange whispers. “Well, Your Majesty?” the woman adds, turning her attention on Tiberias.
He shifts in his chair. On his right, Anabel touches his arm with fleeting fingers. I have enough experience with Silver mothers to know that Queen Anabel would be considered overly maternal, too gentle, too loving with her kin.
I sit as he gets up, stepping onto the floor. Davidson acquiesces, finally taking his own chair to let Tiberias stand alone. He cuts a magnificent sight against the white marble and granite, and the swirling green dome over our heads. The red of his cape seems a livid flame, a swath of fresh blood.
Tiberias raises his chin. “I’ve spent almost a year in exile, betrayed by my brother. But I was betrayed by my . . .” He pauses, chewing the words. “My father as well. He raised me to be a king like every king before. Unyielding, unchanging. Bound to the past. Locked into endless war, married to tradition.” For the first time, Evangeline flinches, her clawed nails curling on the arms of her seat.
The true king pushes on. “The truth is Norta was split in two long before my father was murdered. Silver overlords, with Reds below. I knew it to be wrong, as we all know, in the deepest places of ourselves. But there are limits to the power of kings. I thought changing the bedrock of a country, rearranging the ills of our society, was one of them. I thought the current balance, however unfair,
What just happened
Gasping, I realize not everyone in the crowd is running away. Not all of them are afraid, or even confused by the outburst of violence. They move differently, with purpose, motive, a mission. Black pistols gleam, flashing as they dig into a guard’s back or stomach. Knives glint in the growing dark. The screams of fear become screams of pain. Bodies fall, slumping against the tile of the square.
I remember the riots in Summerton. Reds hunted down and tortured. A mob turning on the weakest among them. It was disorganized, chaotic, without any order. This is the opposite. What looks like wild panic is the careful work of a few dozen assassins in a crowd of hundreds. With a grin, I realize they all have something in common. As the hysteria grows, each one dons a red scarf.
The Scarlet Guard is here.
Cal, Kilorn, Farley, Cameron, Bree, Tramy, the Colonel.
They’re here.
With everything I have, I butt my head back and crack my skull against Clover’s nose. She howls, and silver blood spurts down her face. In an instant her grip on me breaks, leaving only Kitten. I drive an elbow into her gut, hoping to throw her off. She lets go of my shoulder, only to wrap her arm around my neck and squeeze.
I twist, trying to get enough room to bend my neck and bite. No chance. She increases the pressure, threatening to crush my windpipe. My vision spots, and I feel myself being pulled backward. Away from the Treasury, Maven, his Sentinels. Through the lethal crowd. I trip backward as we reach the steps. I kick weakly, trying to catch on to anything. The Security officers dodge my poor efforts. Some drop to their knees, guns raised, covering the retreat. Clover looms over me, the bottom half of her face painted with mirrored blood.
“Double back through Whitefire. We have to keep
Song of Myself (I)
1
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
2
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
While Gwendolyn taught the more visceral elements of acting—voice and body, heart over head—Frederick taught the intimate particulars of Shakespeare’s text, everything from meter to early modern history. Bookish and diffident as I was, I much preferred Frederick’s classes to Gwendolyn’s, but I was allergic to the chalk he used on his blackboard and spent most of my time in the gallery sneezing.
The subject and the exhibition’s name? The Mystery of a Muse.
Statues of Mia fill out the gallery
[...]
Before Mia, I didn’t have a soul, and while some might argue that I still don’t, the truth is, I could only find my drive after Mia came into my life
Old gangsters never die, except for the few that fall asleep in cinemas at midnight. Lay there sprawling in the footlights for the usherette or the ice cream girl to find. And if I die, God knows I might, don’t let me die in black and white, don’t make me share a haunted screen with every other ghost boy who stood trembling in the foyer drinking wine, then coughed and shot his cuffs and checked the time and stepped outside and got cut down by dead policemen, faces strobing in the panic-light, their long dark cars parked out the back, their halos black against the night, and John Dillinger’s name in finest bullet silver etched upon their hearts, a cold tattoo upon their skin, right next to where the badge is pinned. I could die carefully, at dusk.
‘Cause buddy I once owned a pair of diamond collar studs and as I live and breathe I swear that that’s no lie, and men with such good taste as me deserve to cash their chips more elegant than those without a shirt upon their back or shine upon their dancing shoes. Like playing poker, being dealt the ace of flames you stand, and whispering once your mother’s name pitch headlong dead across the roulette table, bullet holes pinned like armistice poppies in neat rows across your back. Or drowning. Do you know so many hoods and hitmen got sent down to tread the riverbed for all eternity and now they look like statues in some cold submerged art gallery and I would gladly kiss the hand of any man who would bind my wrists and send me down to be in such good company. Dutch Shultz, Capone, why, men like that had hellstars in their eyes and when they walked in groups of more than three, they must have looked like grounded constellations torn down from a B-film sky.
Old gangsters never die.
Say, wouldn’t it be nice to fall asleep
