at entitles you to a year of immunity from gleaning.”

“I don’t want immunity,” he said.

“Why am I not surprised.” is was the first time she had ever encountered anyone who refused immunity. Even the most downhearted would kiss the ring.

“You’ve done your job. You may go now,” Brother Ferguson said.

ere was only so long Citra could restrain her frustration. She couldn’t yel at the man. She couldn’t use her Bokator moves to kick him in the neck or take him down with an elbow slam. So she did the only thing she could do. She picked up the mal et and put al of her anger into a single, powerful strike at the tuning fork.

e fork resounded so powerful y, she could feel it in her teeth and her bones. It rang not like a bel , which was a hol ow sound. is tone was ful and dense. It shocked the anger right out of her. Diffused it. It made her muscles loosen, her jaw unclench. It echoed in her brain, her gut, and her spine. e tone rang much longer than such a thing should, then slowly began to fade. She had never experienced anything that was quite so jarring and soothing at the same time. Al she could say was, “What was that?”

“F-sharp,” said Brother Ferguson. “Although there’s a standing argument among the brethren that it’s actual y A-flat.”

e fork was stil ringing faintly. Citra could see it vibrating, making its edge look blurry. She touched it, and the moment she did it fel silent.

“You have questions,” said Brother Ferguson. “I’l answer what I can.”

Citra wanted to deny that she had any questions whatsoever, but suddenly she found that she did.

“What do you people believe?”

“We believe many things.”

“Tel me one.”

“We believe that flames were not meant to burn forever.”

Citra looked to the candles by the altar. “Is that why the curate was dousing candles?”

“Part of our ritual, yes.”

“So you worship darkness.”

“No,” he said. “at’s a common misconception. People use that to vilify us. What we worship are the wavelengths and vibrations that are beyond the limits of human sight. We believe in the Great Vibration, and that it wil free us from being stagnant.”

Stagnant.

It was the word Scythe Curie used to describe the people she chose to glean. Brother Ferguson smiled. “Indeed, something resonates in you now, doesn’t it?”

She looked away, not wanting to meet his intrusive gaze, and found her eyes settling on the stone basin. She pointed to it. “What’s with the dirty water?”

“at’s primordial ooze! It’s brimming with microbes! Back in the Age of Mortality, this single basin could have wiped out entire populations. It was cal ed ‘disease.’”

“I know what it was cal ed.”

He dipped his finger in the slimy water and swirled it around. “Smal pox, polio, Ebola, anthrax—they’re al in there, but it’s harmless to us now. We couldn’t get sick if we wanted to.” He raised his finger from the foul sludge and licked it off. “I could drink down the whole bowl and it wouldn’t even give me indigestion. Alas, we can no longer turn water into worm.”

Citra le without another word, and without turning back . . . but for the rest of the day she couldn’t get the stench of that foul-smel ing water out of her nostrils.

The business of the Thunderhead is no business of mine. The Thunderhead’s purpose is to sustain humanity. Mine is to mold it.

The Thunderhead is the root, and I am the shears, pruning the limbs into fine form, keeping the tree vital. We are both necessary. And we are mutual y exclusive.

I do not miss my so-cal ed relationship with the Thunderhead—

nor do the junior scythes I’ve come to see as disciples. The absence of the Thunderhead’s uninvited intrusions into our lives is a blessing, for it al ows us to live without a safety net. Without the crutch of a higher power. I am the highest power I know, and I like it that way.

And as for my gleaning methods, which, now and then, have been brought under scrutiny, I say merely this: Is it not the job of the gardener to shape the tree as much as possible? And shouldn’t branches that begin to reach unreasonably high be the first to be pruned?

—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Goddard

23

The Virtual Rabbit Hole

Just down the hal from Citra’s room was a study. Like every other room in the residence, it had windows on multiple sides, and like everything else in Scythe Curie’s life, was kept in perfect order. ere was a computer interface there, which Citra used for her studies—because unlike Faraday, Scythe Curie did not shun the digital when it came to learning. As a scythe’s apprentice, Citra had access to databases and information that most people didn’t. e “backbrain” it was cal ed—al the raw data within the

underhead’s memory that was not organized for human consumption.

Before her apprenticeship, when she did a standard search for things, the

underhead would invariably intrude, saying something like, I see you are searching for a gi. May I ask for whom? Perhaps I can help you find something appropriate. Sometimes she would let the underhead help her, other times she enjoyed searching alone. But since becoming a scythe’s apprentice, the underhead had gone disturbingly mute, as if it were nothing more than its data.

“You’l have to get used to that,” Scythe Faraday had told her early on.

“Scythes cannot speak to the underhead, and it wil not speak to us. But in time you’l come to appreciate the silence and self-reliance that comes from its absence.”

Now more than ever she could have used the underhead’s AI guidance as she browsed through its data files, because the worldwide public camera system seemed designed to thwart her efforts. Her attempts to track Scythe Faraday’s movements on the day he died was proving harder than she thought. Video records in the backbrain were not organized by camera, or even by location. It seemed the underhead linked them by concept. A moment of identical traffic patterns in completely different parts of the

world were linked. Footage featuring people with similar strides were linked.

One strand of associations led to images of increasingly spectacular sunsets, al caught by streetcams. e underhead’s digital memory, Citra came to realize, was structured like a biological brain. Every moment of every video record was connected to a hundred others by different criteria—which meant that every connection Citra fol owed led her down a rabbit hole of virtual neurons. It was like trying to read someone’s mind by dissecting their cerebral cortex. It was maddening.

e Scythedom, she knew, had created its own algorithms for searching the unsearchable contents of the backbrain—but Citra couldn’t ask Scythe Curie without making her suspicious. e woman had already proven that she could see through any lie Citra put forth, so best not to be in a position where Citra would have to lie.

e search began as a project, quickly evolved into a chal enge, and now was an obsession. Citra would secretly spend an hour or two each day trying to find footage of Scythe Faraday’s final movements, but to no avail.

She wondered if, even in its silence, the underhead was watching what she did. My, oh my, you’ve been picking through my brain, it would say if it were al owed, with a virtual wink. Naughty, naughty.

en, aer many weeks, Citra had an epiphany. If everything uploaded to the underhead was stored in the backbrain, then not just public records were there, but personal as wel . She couldn’t access other people’s private records, but anything she uploaded would be available to her. Which meant she could seed the search with data of her own. . . .

• • •

“ere is no actual law that says I can’t visit my family while I’m an apprentice.”

Citra brought it up in the middle of dinner one night, with neither warning nor context of conversation. It was her intent to blindside Scythe Curie with it. She could tel it worked because of the length of time it took Scythe Curie to respond. She took two whole spoonfuls of soup before saying a thing.

“It’s our standard practice—and a wise one, if you ask me.”

“It’s cruel.”

“Didn’t you already attend a family wedding?”

Citra wondered how Scythe Curie knew that, but wasn’t about to let herself be derailed. “In a few months I might die. I think I should have a right to see my family a few times before then.”

Scythe Curie took two more spoonfuls of soup before saying, “I’l consider it.”

In the end, she agreed, as Citra knew she would; aer al , Scythe Curie was a fair woman. And Citra had not lied—she did want to see her family—

so the scythe could not read deceit in Citra’s face because there was none.

But, of course, seeing her family wasn’t Citra’s only reason for going home.

• • •

Everything on Citra’s street looked the same as she and Scythe Curie strode down it, yet everything was different. A faint sense of longing tugged at her, but she couldn’t be sure what she longed for. Al she knew was that walking down her street suddenly felt like she was walking in some foreign land where the people spoke a language she didn’t know. ey rode the elevator up to Citra’s apartment with a pudgy woman with a pudgier pug, who was positively terrified. e woman, not the dog. e dog couldn’t care less. Mrs.

Yeltner—that was her name. Before Citra le home, Mrs. Yeltner had reset her lipid point to svelte. But apparently the procedure was struggling against a gluttonous appetite, because she was bulging in al the wrong places.

“Hel o, Mrs. Yeltner,” Citra said, guilty to be enjoying the woman’s thinly veiled terror.

“G . . . good to see you,” she said, clearly not remembering Citra’s name.

“Wasn’t there just a gleaning on your floor earlier this year? I didn’t think it was al owed to hit the same building so soon.”

“It’s al owed,” Citra said. “But we’re not here to glean today.”

“Although,” added Scythe Curie, “anything’s possible.”

When the elevator reached her floor, Mrs. Yeltner actual y tripped over her dog in her hurry to get out.

It was a Sunday—both of Citra’s parents and her brother were home, waiting. e visit wasn’t a surprise, but there was surprise on her father’s face when he opened the door.

“Hi, Dad,” Citra said. He took her into his arms in a hug that felt warm, but yet obligatory as wel .

“We’ve missed you, honey,” said her mother, hugging her as wel . Ben kept his distance and just stared at the scythe.

“We were expecting Scythe Faraday,” her father said to the lavender-clad woman.

“Long story,” said Citra. “I have a new mentor now.”

And Ben blurted out, “You’re Scythe Curie!”

“Ben,” chided their mother, “don’t be rude.”

“But you are, aren’t you? I’ve seen pictures. You’re famous.”

e scythe offered a modest grin. “‘Infamous’ is more accurate.”

Mr. Terranova gestured to the living room. “Please, come in.”

But Scythe Curie never crossed the threshold. “I have business elsewhere,” she said, “but I’l return for Citra at dusk.” She nodded to Citra’s parents, winked at Ben, then turned to leave. e moment the door was closed both her parents seemed to fold just a bit, as if they had been holding their breath.

“I can’t believe you’re being taught by the Scythe Curie. e Grandma of Death!”

“Grande Dame, not grandma.”

“I didn’t even know she stil existed,” said Citra’s mom. “Don’t al scythes have to glean themselves eventual y?”

“We don’t have to do anything,” Citra said, a little surprised at how little her parents real y knew about how the Scythedom worked. “Scythes only self-glean if they want to.” Or if they’re murdered, thought Citra.

Her room was the way she had le it, just cleaner.

“And if you’re not ordained, you can come home and it wil be like you never le,” her mother said. Citra didn’t tel her that either way, she would not be coming home. If she achieved scythehood, she would probably live with other junior scythes, and if she did not become an ordained scythe, she would not live at al . Her parents didn’t need to know that.

“It’s your day,” her father said. “What would you like to do?”

Citra rummaged through her desk drawer until she found her camera.

“Let’s go for a walk.”

• • •

e smal talk was of the microscopic variety, and although it was good to be with her family, never had the barrier between them felt denser. ere were so many things she wished she could talk about, but they’d never understand. Never be able to relate. She couldn’t talk to her mother about the intricacies of kil cra. She couldn’t commiserate with her father about that moment when life le a person’s eyes. Her brother was the only one she felt remotely comfortable talking to.

“I had a dream that you came to my school and gleaned al the jerks,” he told her.

“Real y?” Citra said. “What color were my robes?”

He hesitated. “Turquoise, I think.”

“en that wil be the color I’l choose.”

Ben beamed.

“What wil we cal you once you’re ordained?” her father said, treating it as if it were a certainty.

Citra hadn’t even considered the question. She never heard a scythe referred to by anything but their Patron Historic or “Your Honor.” Were family members bound to that as wel ? She hadn’t even chosen her Patron yet. She dodged the question by saying, “You’re my family, you can cal me whatever you like,” hoping that was true.

ey strol ed around town. Although she didn’t tel them, they passed the smal home where she had lived with Rowan and Scythe Faraday. ey passed the train station nearest the home. And everywhere they went, Citra made a point to take a family picture . . . each from an angle very close to that of the nearest public camera.

• • •

e day was emotional y exhausting. Citra wanted to stay longer, and yet a big part of her couldn’t wait for Scythe Curie to arrive. She resolved not to feel guilty about that. She’d had more than her share of guilt. “Guilt is the idiot cousin of remorse,” Scythe Faraday had been fond of saying.

Scythe Curie didn’t ask Citra any questions about her visit on the way home, and Citra was content not to share. She did ask the scythe something, though.

“Does anyone ever cal you by your name?”

“Other scythes—ones I’m friendly with, wil cal me Marie.”

“As in Marie Curie?”

“My Patron Historic was a great woman. She coined the term

‘radioactivity,’ and was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize, back when such things were awarded.”

“But what about your real name? e one you were born with?”

Scythe Curie took her time in answering. Final y she said, “ere’s no one in my life who knows me by that name.”

“What about your family? ey must be stil around—aer al , they have immunity from gleaning as long as you’re alive.”

She sighed. “I haven’t been in touch with my family for more than a hundred years.”

Citra wondered if that would happen to her. Do al scythes lose the ties to everyone they had known—everything they had been before they were chosen?

“Susan,” Scythe Curie final y said. “When I was a little girl, they cal ed me Susan. Suzy. Sue.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Susan.”

Citra found it next to impossible to imagine Scythe Curie as a little girl.

• • •

When they got home, Citra uploaded her pictures to the underhead without worrying if the scythe saw, because there was nothing unusual or suspicious about that—everyone uploaded their photos. It would have been suspicious if she hadn’t.

en, later that night, when Citra was sure Scythe Curie was asleep, she went to the study, got online, and retrieved the pics—which was easy to do since they were tagged. en she dove into the backbrain, fol owing al the links the underhead had forged to her images. She was led to other pictures of her family, as wel as other families that resembled hers in some way. Expected. But there were also links to videos taken by streetcams in the same locations. at’s just what she was looking for. Once she created her own algorithm to sort out the irrelevant photos from the streetcams, she had a ful complement of surveil ance videos. Of course, she was stil le with

mil ions of randomly accessed, unordered files, but at least now they were al streetcam records of Scythe Faraday’s neighborhood.

She uploaded an image of Scythe Faraday to see if she could isolate videos in which he appeared, but as she suspected, nothing came back. e

underhead’s hands-off policy when it came to scythes meant that scythe’s images were not tagged in any way. Stil , she had successful y narrowed the field from bil ions of records to mil ions. However, tracking Scythe Faraday’s movements on the day he died was like trying to find a needle in a field of haystacks that stretched to the horizon. Even so, she was determined to find what she was looking for, no matter how long it took.

Gleanings should be iconic. They should be memorable. They should have the legendary power of the greatest bat les of the mortal age, passed down by word of mouth, becoming as immortal as we are. That is, after al , why we scythes are here. To keep us connected to our past. Tethered to mortality. Yes, most of us wil live forever, but some of us, thanks to the Scythedom, wil not. For those who wil be gleaned, do we not, at the very least, owe them a spectacular end?

—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Goddard

24

An Embarrassment to Who and What We Are

Numb. Rowan could feel himself growing numb—and while it might have been a good thing for his beleaguered sanity, it was not a good thing for his soul.

“Never lose your humanity,” Scythe Faraday had told him, “or you’l be nothing more than a kil ing machine.” He had used the word “kil ing” rather than “gleaning.” Rowan hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now he understood; it stopped being gleaning the moment one became desensitized to the act.

Yet this great plain of numbness was not the worst place to be. Numbness was a mere purgatory of gray. No, there was a much worse place. Darkness masquerading as enlightenment. It was a place of royal blue studded with diamonds that glistened like stars.

• • •

“No no no!” chided Scythe Goddard as he watched Rowan practice bladecra with a samurai sword on cotton-stuffed dummies. “Have you learned nothing?”

Rowan was exasperated, but he kept it just beneath a simmer, counting to ten in his head before turning to face the scythe, who approached across the expanse of the estate’s front lawn, now littered with fluff and cottony remains.

“What did I do wrong this time, Your Honor?” To Rowan, the phrase

“Your Honor” had become a profanity, and he couldn’t help but spit it out like one. “I cleanly decapitated five of them, eviscerated three, and I severed

the aortas of the rest. If any of them had actual y been alive, they would be dead now. I did just what you wanted.”

“at’s the problem,” said the scythe. “It’s not what I want, it’s what you want. Where is your passion? You attack like a bot!”

Rowan sighed, sheathing his blade. Now would come a lecture, or more accurately, an oration, because Scythe Goddard loved nothing more than performing to the gal ery, even if it was just a gal ery of one.

“Human beings are predatory by nature,” he began. “at nature may have been bleached out of us by the sanitizing force of civilization, but it can never be taken from us completely. Embrace it, Rowan. Suckle at its transformative breast. You may think gleaning is an acquired taste, but it’s not. e thril of the hunt and the joy of the kil simmers in al of us. Bring it to the surface and then you’l be the kind of scythe this world needs.”

Rowan wanted to despise al of this, but there was something about honing one’s skil , no matter the nature of that skil , that was rewarding.

What he hated was the fact that he didn’t hate it.

Servants replaced the dummies with fresh effigies. Scarecrows with extremely short life spans. en Goddard took the samurai blade from him and handed him a nasty-looking hunting knife instead, for a more intimate delivery of death.

“It’s a bowie knife, like Texan scythes use,” Goddard told him. “Take great satisfaction and pleasure in this, Rowan,” said Scythe Goddard, “or you’l be nothing more than a kil ing machine.”

• • •

Each day was the same: a morning run with Scythe Rand, weight training with Scythe Chomsky, and a nutritional y precise breakfast prepared by a master chef. en would come kil cra administered by Scythe Goddard himself. Blades, bows, bal istics, or the use of his own body as a weapon of death. Never poisons unless they were on the tips of weapons.

“Gleaning is performed, not administered,” Scythe Goddard told him. “It is a wil ful action. To slip into passivity and al ow a poison to do al the work is an embarrassment to who and what we are.”

Goddard’s pontifications were constant, and although Rowan oen disagreed, he didn’t argue or voice his dissent. In this way, Goddard’s voice

began to supplant his own internal moderator. It became the voice of judgment in his own head. Rowan didn’t know why this would be so. Yet Goddard was now there in his head, passing judgment on everything he did.

e aernoons would be fil ed with mental training with Scythe Volta.

Memory exercises, and games to increase cognitive acuity. e smal est part of Rowan’s day, just before dinner, was spent in book learning—but Rowan found that the mental training helped him retain the things he learned without the repetition of study.

“You wil know your history, your biochemistry, and your toxins ad nauseam to impress at conclave,” Goddard told Rowan with a disgusted wave of his hand. “I’ve always found it pointless, but one must impress the academics in the Scythedom as wel as the pragmatists.”

“Is that what you are?” Rowan asked. “A pragmatist?”

It was Volta who answered him. “Scythe Goddard is a visionary. at puts him on a level above every other scythe in MidMerica. Maybe even the world.”

Goddard didn’t disagree.

And then there were the parties. ey came upon the estate like seizures.

Everything else stopped. ey even took precedence over Rowan’s training.

He had no idea who organized them, or where the revelers came from, but they always came, along with food enough to feed armies, and every sort of decadence.

Rowan didn’t know if it was his imagination, but there seemed to be more scythes and known celebrities frequenting Goddard’s parties than when he first arrived.

In three months, the change in Rowan’s physique was obvious, and he spent more time than he would want anyone to know studying the change in the tal mirror in his bedroom. ere was definition everywhere—his abs, his pecs. Biceps seemed to inflate out of nowhere, and Scythe Rand constantly slapped his glutes, threatening al sorts of lewd liaisons with him once he was of age.

He had final y gotten the hang of his journal, writing things that bordered on thoughtful—but it was stil just a sham. He never wrote what he truly felt, for he knew that his “private” journal was not private at al , and that Scythe Goddard read every last word. So he wrote only things that Goddard would want to read.

Although Rowan did not forget his secret pledge to throw the scythehood to Citra, there were moments when he wil ful y suppressed it in his mind, al owing himself to imagine what it would be like to be an ordained scythe.

Would he be the type of scythe Faraday was, or would he accept the teachings of Goddard? As much as Rowan tried to deny it, there was logic to Goddard’s approach. Aer al , what creature in nature despised its own existence and felt shame for its means of survival?

We became unnatural the moment we conquered death, Scythe Faraday would say—but couldn’t that be a reason to seek whatever nature we could find within ourselves? If he learned to enjoy gleaning, would it be such a tragedy?

He kept these thoughts to himself, but Scythe Volta could read, if not the specifics, then the general nature of his thoughts.

“I know you were first brought on as an apprentice for very different traits than the ones Scythe Goddard admires,” Volta told him. “He sees compassion and forbearance as weakness. But you have other traits that are beginning to awaken. You’l be a new-order scythe yet!”

Of al of Goddard’s junior scythes, Volta was the most admirable and the one Rowan most related to. He imagined they might be friends, once they were equals.

“Do you remember the pain when we beat you down?” Volta asked one aernoon, at the end of memory training.

“How could I ever forget?”

“ere are three reasons for it,” Volta told him. “e first is to connect you with our ancestors, reliving the pain, and the fear of pain, because that’s what led to civilization and humanity’s advancement beyond its own mortality. e second is a rite of passage—something sorely missing in our passive world. But the third reason may be the most important: Being made to suffer pain frees us to feel the joy of being human.”

To Rowan it sounded like more empty platitudes—but Volta wasn’t like Goddard that way. He didn’t usual y speak in loy, meaningless ideas.

“I felt plenty of joy in my life without having to be beaten to a pulp,”

Rowan told him.

Volta nodded. “You felt some—but just a shadow of what it can be.

Without the threat of suffering, we can’t experience true joy. e best we get is pleasantness.”

Rowan had no response to that, because it struck him as true. He had led a pleasant life. His biggest complaint was being marginalized. But didn’t everyone feel marginalized? ey lived in a world where nothing anyone did real y mattered. Survival was guaranteed. Income was guaranteed. Food was plentiful, and comfort was a given. e underhead saw to everyone’s needs. When you need nothing, what else can life be but pleasant?

“You’l get it eventual y,” Scythe Volta told him. “Now that your pain nanites are dialed to zero, it’s inevitable.”

• • •

Esme remained a mystery. Sometimes she came down to eat with them, sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes Rowan would catch her reading in various places around the mansion: mortal age books made of paper that had apparently been col ected by the owner before he surrendered it al to Scythe Goddard. She would always hide from him whatever it was she was reading, as if embarrassed by it.

“When you become a scythe, are you going to stay?” she asked him.

“Maybe,” he told her. “And maybe not. Maybe I won’t get to be a scythe.

So maybe I’l be nowhere.”

She ignored that last part of his answer. “You should stay,” she told him.

e fact that this nine-year-old girl seemed to have a crush on him was one more complication Rowan didn’t need. She seemed to get everything she wanted. So did that mean she got him if she wanted that, too?

“My name’s Esmerelda, but everyone cal s me Esme,” she told him when she fol owed him into the weight room one morning. Usual y he’d be nice to younger kids—but since he was told he had to be nice, he suddenly found he didn’t want to be.

“I know, Scythe Goddard told me. You real y shouldn’t be here—these weights can be dangerous.”

“And you’re not supposed to be here without Scythe Chomsky to spot you,” she pointed out, then sat down on a bench press showing no sign of leaving. “If you like, we could play a game or something when you’re done with your training.”

“I real y don’t play games.”

“Not even cards?”

“Not even cards.”

“It must have been boring to be you.”

“Yeah, wel , it’s not boring anymore.”

“I’l teach you to play cards aer dinner tomorrow,” she announced. And since Esme got what she wanted, Rowan was there at the appointed time, whether he wanted to be there or not.

“Esme must be kept happy,” Scythe Volta reminded him aer Rowan’s card game with her.

“Why?” Rowan asked. “Goddard doesn’t seem to care about anyone who doesn’t wear scythe robes, so why does he care about her?”

“Just be decent to her.”

“I’m decent to everyone,” Rowan pointed out. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a decent person.”

Volta laughed. “Hold on to that for as long as you can,” he said, as if doing so would be a very difficult thing.

• • •

en came the day Scythe Goddard threw a new wrinkle into the taut fabric of Rowan’s life. It came without warning, as did al things Scythe Goddard threw at him. It was during kil cra. Today Rowan was working with two blades—daggers in each hand. Two blades were difficult for him; he favored his right and had little dexterity with his le. Scythe Goddard loved to make it difficult for Rowan in these training sessions and always judged him harshly when he didn’t rise to some imaginary level of perfection. Yet Rowan had been surprising himself. He had been getting better at wielding weaponry, and had even drawn forth mild admissions of approval from Goddard.

“Adequate,” Goddard would say, or, “at wasn’t entirely dismal.” High praise from the man.

And in spite of himself, Rowan felt satisfaction each time Goddard gave him approval. And he had to admit he was beginning to like wielding deadly weapons. It had grown on him like any other sport. Skil for the sake of skil , and then a sense of accomplishment when he did wel .

On this particular day, things took a severe turn. It was evident from the moment he stepped out onto the lawn that something was up, because the

dummies had not yet been put out. Instead, there were at least a dozen people mil ing about the lawn. He didn’t get it at first. He should have know that something was different because al the junior scythes were there today to watch his training. Usual y it was just Goddard.

“What’s going on here?” Rowan asked. “I can’t do my training with people in the way—tel them to clear out.”

Scythe Rand laughed at him. “You’re charmingly dense,” she said.

“is ought to be fun,” said Scythe Chomsky, folding his arms, ready to relish what was to come.

And then Rowan final y understood. On the lawn the people weren’t mil ing around, they were standing, evenly spaced. ey were waiting for him. ere were to be no more dummies. Now his practice would be the real thing. Kil cra would now truly be kil cra.

“No,” Rowan said, shaking his head. “No, I can’t do this!”

“Oh, but you wil ,” Scythe Goddard said calmly.

“But . . . but I’m not ordained yet, I can’t glean!”

“You won’t be gleaning,” Scythe Volta said, putting a comforting hand on Rowan’s shoulder. “ere are ambu-drones waiting for each of them. As soon as you’re done with them, they’l be rushed to the nearest revival center, and be as good as new in a day or two.”

“But . . . but . . .” Rowan found he had no viable argument except to say,

“It isn’t right!”

“Listen here,” Scythe Goddard said, stepping forward. “ere are thirteen people out on that lawn. Every single one of them is here by choice, and every single one of them is being wel paid for the service provided. ey al know why they’re here, they know what their job is, they are more than happy to do it, and I expect the same from you. So do your job.”

Rowan pul ed out his blades and looked at them. ose blades would not be cutting into cotton today, but into flesh.

“Hearts and jugulars,” Scythe Goddard told him. “Dispatch your subjects with speed. You wil be timed.”

Rowan wanted to protest—insist that he couldn’t do it—but as much as his heart told him he couldn’t, his mind knew the truth.

Yes, he could.

He had been training for precisely this. Al he had to do was dial his conscience down to zero. He knew he was capable of that, and it terrified

him.“You are to take down twelve of them,” Scythe Goddard told him, “and leave the last one alive.”

“Why leave the last?”

“Because I said so.”

“C’mon, we don’t have al day,” grumbled Chomsky. Volta threw Chomsky a withering glare, then spoke to Rowan with far more patience.

“It’s just like jumping into a cold pool. e anticipation is much worse than the reality. Take the leap, and I promise al wil be wel .”

Rowan could leave.

He could drop his blades and go into the house. He could prove himself to be a failure here and now, and perhaps not have to endure any more of this. But Volta believed in him. And so did Goddard, even if he wouldn’t admit it aloud—for why would Goddard set this chal enge before him if he didn’t believe Rowan would rise to it?

Rowan took a deep breath, gripped his blades tightly in both hands, and with a guttural war cry that drowned the alarms blaring in his soul, he launched himself forward.

ere were men and there were women. e subjects represented different ages, ethnic mixes, and body types, from muscular to obese to gaunt. He yel ed and screamed and grunted with every thrust, slice, and twist. He had trained wel . e blades sunk in with perfect precision. Once he began, he found he couldn’t stop. Bodies fel , and he was on to the next, and the next. ey didn’t fight back, they didn’t run in fear, they just stood there and took it. ey were no different from the dummies. He was covered in blood. It stung his eyes; the smel was thick in his nostrils. Final y he came to the last one. It was a girl his age, and there was a look on her face of resignation bordering on sorrow. He wanted to end that sorrow. He wanted to complete what he had begun, but he overrode the brutal imperative of the hunter in him. He forced himself not to swing his blades.

“Do it,” she whispered. “Do it or I won’t get paid.”

But he dropped his blades to the grass. Twelve deadish, one le alive. He turned to the scythes, and they al began to applaud.

“Wel done!” Scythe Goddard said, more pleased than Rowan had ever seen him. “Very wel done!”

Ambu-drones began to descend from above, grasping his victims and spiriting them away to the nearest revival center. And Rowan found himself smiling. Something had torn loose inside of him. He didn’t know whether it was a good thing or not. And while part of him felt like fal ing to his knees and hurling up breakfast, another part of him wanted to howl to the moon like a wolf.

A year ago if you’d told me that I’d know how to wield more than two dozen types of blades, that I would become an expert at firearms, and that I would know at least ten ways to end a life with my bare hands—I would have laughed and suggested that you ought to get your brain chemistry tweaked. Amazing what can happen in just a few short months.

Training under Scythe Goddard is different from under Scythe Faraday. It’s intense, physical, and I can’t deny that I’m get ing bet er at everything I do. If I am a weapon, then I’m being sharpened against a grindstone every day.

My second conclave is coming up in a few weeks. The first trial was nothing more than a simple question. I’m told it wil be different this next time. There’s no tel ing what the apprentices wil be expected to do. One thing’s for sure, there wil be serious consequences for me if I don’t perform to Goddard’s liking.

I have every confidence that I wil .

—From the journal of Rowan Damisch, scythe apprentice

25

Proxy of Death

e engineer liked to believe that his work at Magnetic Propulsion Laboratories was useful, even though it had always appeared pointless.

Magnetic trains were already moving as efficiently as they could.

Applications for private transportation needed little more than tweaking.

ere was no more “new and improved,” there was just the trick of different

—new styles, and advertisements to convince that stylishness was al the rage—but the basic technology remained exactly the same.

In theory, however, there were new uses that were yet to be tapped—or else why would the underhead put them to work?

ere were project managers who knew more about the ultimate goal of the work they did, but no one had al the pieces. Stil , there was speculation.

It had long been believed that a combination of solar wind and magnetic propulsion would be required to move about in space with any efficiency.

True, the prospect of space travel had been out of favor for many years, but that didn’t mean it would always be.

ere had once been missions to colonize Mars, to explore Jupiter’s moons, and even to launch to the stars beyond, but every mission had ended in utter and disastrous failure. Ships blew up. Colonists died—and in deep space, death meant death, just as completely as if they had been gleaned. e idea of irrevocable death without the control ed hand of a scythe was too much to bear for a world that had conquered mortality. e public outcry shut down al space exploration. Earth was our sole home, and would remain so.

Which is why, the engineer suspected, the underhead moved forward on these projects so careful y and so slowly as not to draw the public’s

attention. It was by no means underhanded, because the underhead was incapable of underhandedness. It was merely discreet. Wisely discreet.

One day, perhaps the underhead would announce that while everyone was looking the other way, humanity had achieved a sustainable presence beyond the bounds of planet Earth. e engineer looked forward to that day, and ful y expected he’d live to see it. He had no reason to expect that he wouldn’t.

Until the day a team of scythes laid siege to his research facility.

• • •

Rowan was awakened at dawn by a towel hurled at his face.

“Get up, sleeping beauty,” Scythe Volta said. “Shower and get dressed, today’s the day.”

“Today’s what day?” Rowan said, stil too groggy to sit up.

“Gleaning day!” said Volta.

“You mean you guys actual y glean? I thought you just partied and spent other people’s money.”

“Just get yourself ready, smart-ass.”

When Rowan turned off his shower, he heard the chop of helicopter blades, and when he came out onto the lawn, it was waiting for them. It was no surprise to Rowan that it was painted royal blue and studded with glistening stars. Everything in Scythe Goddard’s life was a testament to his ego.e other three scythes were already out front, practicing their best kil moves. eir robes were bulky, and clearly loaded down with al nature of weaponry sheathed within the folds. Chomsky torched a potted shrub with a flamethrower.

“Real y?” said Rowan, “A flamethrower?”

Chomsky shrugged. “No law against it. And anyway, what business is it of yours?”

Goddard strode out of the mansion. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”

As if they hadn’t al been waiting on him.

e moment was charged with the adrenaline of anticipation, and as they strode toward the waiting helicopter, Rowan, for an instant, had an image of

them as superheroes . . . until he remembered what their true purpose was, and the image shattered.

“How many are you going to glean?” he asked Scythe Volta, but Volta just shook his head and pointed to his ear. Too loud to hear Rowan over the chopper blades, which made the scythes’ robes flail like flags in a storm as they crossed the lawn.

Rowan did some calculations. Scythes were charged with five gleanings per week, and to the best of his knowledge, these four hadn’t taken a life in the three months that Rowan had been there. at meant they could glean about two hundred fiy today and stil be within their quota. is wasn’t going to be a gleaning, it was going to be a massacre.

Rowan hesitated, fal ing back as the others got in. Volta noticed.

“IS THERE A PROBLEM?” Volta shouted over the deafening chop of the blades.

But even if Rowan could make himself heard, he would never be understood. is is what Goddard and his disciples did. It was how they operated. is was business as usual. Could this ever be that way for him?

He thought to his latest training sessions. e ones with living targets. e feeling he had when he had rendered al but one deadish, revulsion fighting a primal sense of victory. He felt that now as he stood at the entrance to the helicopter. With each step deeper into Goddard’s world, it became harder and harder to retreat.

Al four scythes were looking at him now. ey were ready to go on their mission. e only thing holding them back was Rowan.

I am not one of them, he told himself. I wil not be gleaning. I wil only be there to observe.

He wil ed himself to step up into the helicopter, pul ed the door closed, and they rose skyward.

“Never been up in one of these, have you?” Volta asked, misreading Rowan’s apprehension.

“No, never.”

“It’s the only way to travel,” Scythe Rand said.

“We are angels of death,” said Scythe Goddard. “It is only fitting that we swoop in from the heavens.”

ey flew south, over Fulcrum City, to the suburbs beyond. Al the way Rowan silently hoped the helicopter would crash—but realized what a

pointless exercise that would be. Because even if it did, they’d al be revived by the weekend.

• • •

A helicopter landed on the main building’s rooop heliport. It was unexpected, unannounced—which never happened. e underhead piloted just about everything airborne, and even if it was an off-grid chopper, someone onboard would always announce their approach and request clearance.

is thing just dropped from the sky and onto the roof.

e closest security guard bounded up the stairs from the sixth floor and onto the roof, in time to see the scythes stepping out. Four of them—blue, green, yel ow, and orange—and a boy with an apprentice armband.

e guard stood there slackjawed, unsure what to do. He thought to cal this in to the main office, but realized that doing so might get him gleaned.

e female scythe, in green with witchy dark hair and a PanAsian leaning to her, approached him, grinning.

“Knock, knock,” she said.

He was too stunned to respond.

“I said, knock, knock.”

“Wh . . . who’s there?” he final y responded.

She reached into her robe, producing the most awful looking knife the man had ever seen, but her arm was grabbed by the scythe in blue before she could use it.

“Don’t waste it on him, Ayn,” he said to her.

e scythe in green put her knife away and shrugged. “Guess you’l miss the punchline.” en she stormed past him with the others, and down the stairs into the building.

He caught the gaze of the apprentice, who lagged a few yards behind the others.

“What should I do?” he asked the boy.

“Get out,” the boy told him. “And don’t look back.”

So the guard did what he was told. He crossed to the far stairwel , bounded al the way down, burst out of the emergency exit, and didn’t stop running until he was too far away to hear the screams.

• • •

“We’l start up here on the sixth floor and work our way down,” Goddard told the others. ey came out of the stairwel to see a woman waiting for the elevator. She gasped and froze.

“Boo!” said Scythe Chomsky. e woman flinched, dropping the folders she carried. Rowan knew that any of the scythes, on a whim, could have taken her out. She must have known that too, because she braced for it.

“How high is your security clearance?” Goddard asked her.

“Level one,” she told him.

“Is that good?”

She nodded, and he took her security badge. “ank you,” he said. “You get to live.”

And he moved toward a locked door, swiping the card to gain entrance.

Rowan found himself getting lightheaded, and realized he was beginning to hyperventilate.

“I should wait here,” he told them. “I can’t glean, I should wait here.”

“No way,” said Chomsky. “You come with us.”

“But . . . but what use wil I be? I’l just be in the way.”

en Scythe Rand kicked in the glass of an emergency case, pul ed out a fire hatchet, and handed it to him. “Here,” she said. “Break stuff.”

“Why?”

She winked at him. “Because you can.”

• • •

e employees in suite 601—which took up the entire north half of the floor, had no warning. Scythe Goddard and his scythes strode to the center of activity.

“Attention!” he announced in ful theatrical voice. “Attention, al ! You have been selected for gleaning today. You are commanded to step forward and meet your demise.”

Murmurs, gasps, and cries of shock. No one stepped forward. No one ever did. Goddard nodded to Chomsky, Volta, and Rand, and the four advanced through the maze of cubicles and offices, leaving nothing living in their wake.

“I am your completion!” intoned Goddard. “I am your deliverance! I am your portal to the mysteries beyond this life!”

Blades and bul ets and flames. e office was catching fire. Alarms began to blare, sprinklers gushed forth icy water from the ceiling. e doomed were caught between fire and water, and the deadly sights of four master hunters. No one stood a chance.

“I am your final word! Your omega! Your bringer of peace and rest.

Embrace me!”

No one embraced him. Mostly people cowered and pleaded for mercy, but the only mercy shown was the speed at which they were dispatched.

“Yesterday you were gods. Today you are mortal. Your death is my gi to you. Accept it with grace and humility.”

So focused were the scythes that none of them noticed Rowan slipping out behind them and crossing to suite 602, where he pounded on the glass door until someone came and Rowan could warn him what was coming.

“Take the back stairs,” he told the man. “Get as many out as you can.

Don’t ask questions—just go!” If the man had any doubts, they were chased away by the sounds of desperation and despair coming from just across the hal .A few minutes later, when Goddard, Volta, and Chomsky were done with suite 601, they crossed the hal to find suite 602 empty, save for Rowan, swinging his fire hatchet at computers and desks and everything in his path, doing exactly as he was told to do.

• • •

e scythes moved faster than the flames—faster than the flow of workers trying to escape. Volta and Chomsky blocked two of the three stairwel s.

Rand made her way to the main entrance and stood like a goalie, taking out anyone trying to escape through the front doors. Goddard spouted his ritualistic litany as he moved through the panicked mob, switching his weapons as it suited him, and Rowan swung his hatchet at anything that would shatter, then secretly directed whoever he could toward the one unguarded stairwel .

It was over in less than fieen minutes. e building was in flames, the helicopter was now hovering above, and the scythes strode out of the front

entrance, like the four horsemen of the post-mortal apocalypse.

Rowan brought up the rear, dragging his hatchet on the marble, until he dropped it with a clatter.

Before them were half a dozen fire trucks and ambu-drones, and behind that hordes of survivors. Some ran when they saw the scythes come out, but just as many stayed, their fascination overcoming their terror.

“You see?” Goddard told Rowan. “e firefighters can’t interfere with a scythe action. ey’l let the whole thing burn down. And as for the survivors, we have a wonderful public relations opportunity.”

en he stepped forward and spoke loudly to those who hadn’t fled. “Our gleaning is complete,” he announced. “To those who survive, we grant immunity. Come forward to claim it.” He held out his hand—the one that bore his ring. e other scythes fol owed his lead and did the same.

No one moved at first, probably thinking it was a trick. But in a few moments, one ash-stained employee stumbled forward, fol owed by another and another, and then the entire mob was apprehensively coming toward them. e first few knelt and kissed the scythes’ rings—and once the others saw that this was for real, they surged forward, mobbing the scythes.

“Easy!” shouted Volta. “One at a time!”

But the same mob mentality that propel ed their escape now pushed them toward those life-saving rings. Al of a sudden, no one seemed to remember their dead coworkers.

en, as the crowd around them got denser and more agitated, Goddard pul ed back his hand, removed his ring, and handed it to Rowan.

“I tire of this,” Goddard said. “Take it. Share in the adoration.”

“But . . . I can’t. I’m not ordained.”

“You can use it if I give you permission as a proxy,” Goddard told him.

“And right now you have my permission.”

Rowan put it on, but it wouldn’t stay, so he switched it to his index finger, where it was a bit more snug. en he held out his hand as the other scythes did.e crush of people didn’t care which finger the ring was on, or even whose hand it was on. ey practical y climbed over one another to kiss it, and to thank him for his justice, his love, and his mercy, cal ing him “Your Honor,” not even noticing he wasn’t a scythe.

“Welcome to life as a god,” Scythe Volta said to him. While behind them the building burned to the ground.

We are wise but not perfect, insightful but not al -seeing. We know that by establishing the Scythedom, we wil be doing something very necessary, but we, the first scythes, stil have our misgivings.

Human nature is both predictable and mysterious; prone to great and sudden advances, yet stil mired in despicable self-interest. Our hope is that by a set of ten simple, straightforward laws, we can avoid the pitfal s of human fal ibility. My greatest hope is that, in time, our wisdom wil become as perfect as is our knowledge. And if this experiment of ours fails, we have also embedded a way to escape it.

May the Thunderhead help us al , if we ever need that escape.

—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Prometheus, the first World Supreme Blade

26

Not Like the Others

at night they feasted, although Rowan could not dig up an appetite, no matter how deep he mined. Goddard ate enough for everyone. He was invigorated by the day’s hunt, like a vampire sucking in the life force of its victims. He was more charming, more suave than ever, saying things to make everyone laugh. How easy, thought Rowan, to fal in with him. To be stroked into his elite club, just as the others had been.

Clearly, Chomsky and Rand were cut from a similar cloth as Goddard.

ey held not the slightest il usion of conscience. But unlike Goddard, they held no delusions of grandeur. ey gleaned for sport—for the joy of it—and as Scythe Rand so accurately put it, because they can. ey were more than happy to wield their weapons while Goddard inhabited his role as the Angel of Death. Rowan couldn’t be sure if the man believed it, or if it was al artifice. eatricality to add flair to the show.

Scythe Volta, though, was different. Yes, he stormed the office building and gleaned his share, just as the others had, but he said little as their god-machine carried them home across the sky. And now at dinner, he barely touched the food on his plate. He kept getting up to wash his hands. He probably thought nobody noticed, but Rowan did. And so did Esme.

“Scythe Volta is always cranky aer a gleaning,” Esme leaned over to tel Rowan. “Don’t stare at him, or he’l throw something at you.”

Halfway through dinner, Goddard asked for a final count.

“We gleaned two hundred sixty-three,” Rand told him. “We’re ahead of our quota now. We’l have to glean fewer next time.”

Goddard slammed his fist down on the table in disgust. “e damn quota hobbles us al ! If it weren’t for the quota, every day could be like today.”

en Goddard turned to Scythe Volta and asked how his task was coming. It

was Volta’s job to set appointments with the families of the deceased, so that they could be granted the obligatory immunity.

“I’ve spent the whole day reaching out to each family,” Volta said. “ey’l be lining up at the outer gate first thing tomorrow morning.”

“We should let them onto the grounds,” Goddard said with a smirk.

“ey can watch Rowan train on the lawn.”

“I hate the bereaved,” Rand said, as she stabbed a fresh piece of meat with her fork and dragged it to her plate. “ey always have such awful oral hygiene—my ring always reeks aer an hour of granting bereavement immunity.”

Unable to stomach any more, Rowan excused himself. “I promised Esme I’d play cards with her aer dinner, and it’s getting late.” ere was no truth in that, but he threw a glance to Esme and she nodded, pleased to be part of an impromptu conspiracy.

“But you’l miss the crème brûlée,” said Goddard.

“More for us,” said Chomsky, shoving a forkful of prime rib into his maw.

Rowan and Esme went to the game room and played gin rummy, merciful y undisturbed by talk of gleaning and quotas and the kissing of rings. Rowan was thankful that the suicide king held the monopoly on misery in this room.

“We should get others to join us,” Esme suggested. “en we can play hearts or spades. You can’t play those games with just two.”

“I have no interest in playing cards with the scythes,” Rowan told her flatly.

“Not them, sil y—I mean the servants.” She picked up his discarded nine

—the second one he fed to her, as if he didn’t know she was col ecting them.

Letting her win today was payment for helping him escape the dining room.

“I play cards with the pool man’s sons sometimes,” she told him. “But they don’t like me very much on account of this used to be their house. Now they al share a room in the servant’s quarters.” en she added, “You’re sleeping in one of their rooms, you know. So I’l bet they don’t like you much, either.”

“I’m sure they don’t like any of us.”

“Probably not.”

Maybe it was because Esme was young, but she seemed entirely oblivious to the things that weighed so heavily on Rowan. Perhaps she knew better

than to question things, or to pass judgment on what she saw. She accepted her situation at face value, and never spoke il of her benefactor—or more accurately, her captor, for she was clearly Goddard’s prisoner, even though she might not see it that way. Hers was a gilded cage, but it was a cage nonetheless. Stil , her ignorance was her bliss, and Rowan decided not to shatter her il usion that she was free.

Rowan picked up an ace, which he needed for his hand, but discarded it anyway. “Does Goddard ever talk to you?” He asked Esme.

“Of course he talks to me,” she said. “He’s always asking me how I am, and if there’s anything I need. And if there is, he always makes sure I get it.

Just last week I asked for a—”

“—No, not that kind of talking,” said Rowan, cutting her off. “I mean real talking. Has he ever hinted as to why you matter so much to him?”

Esme didn’t answer. Instead she lay down her cards. Nines over threes.

“Rummy,” she said. “Loser shuffles.”

Rowan gathered the cards. “Scythe Goddard must have had a good reason to let you live, and to grant you immunity. Aren’t you at al curious?”

Esme shrugged, and stayed tight-lipped. It was only aer Rowan dealt the next hand that she said, “Actual y, Scythe Goddard didn’t grant me immunity. He can glean me any time he wants, but he doesn’t.” en she smiled. “at makes me even more special, don’t you think?”

• • •

ey played four games. One Esme won fair and square, two Rowan let her win, and one Rowan won, so it wouldn’t be as obvious that he had thrown the others. By the time they were done, dinner had broken up and the others were going about their particular evening routines. Rowan avoided everyone and tried to go straight to his room, but on his way he heard something that gave him pause. ere was faint sobbing coming from Scythe Volta’s room.

He listened at the door to make sure it wasn’t his imagination, then turned the knob. e door wasn’t locked. He pushed it open slightly and peered inside.

Scythe Volta was there, sitting on his bed, head in hands. His body heaved with sobs that he tried to stifle, but could not. It was a few moments before he looked up and saw Rowan.

Volta’s sorrow instantly turned to fury. “Who the hel said you could come in here? Get out!” He grabbed the nearest object—a glass paperweight

—and hurled it at Rowan, just as Esme had suggested he might. It would have le a pretty nasty gash on Rowan’s head had it connected, but Rowan ducked and the thing hit the door, leaving a substantial dent in the wood instead of in Rowan’s skul . Rowan could have retreated. at probably would have been the most judicious course of action, but leaving wel enough alone was not Rowan’s strong point. He was notoriously skil ed at sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.

He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, preparing to dodge the next blunt object hurled his way. “You have to be quieter if you don’t want anyone to hear you,” he told Volta.

“If you tel anyone, I wil make your life a living hel .”

Rowan laughed at that, because it implied his life wasn’t already that.

“You think that’s funny? I’l show you funny.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh. I wasn’t laughing at you, if that’s what you think.”

Since Volta was no longer throwing things and wasn’t chasing him out, Rowan grabbed a chair and sat down, far enough away to give Volta some space.

“Today was hard,” Rowan said. “I don’t blame you.”

“What do you know about it?” snapped Volta.

“I know you’re not like the others,” said Rowan. “Not real y.”

Volta looked up at him then, his eyes red from tears that he didn’t try to hide anymore. “ere’s something wrong with me, you mean.” Volta looked down again, clenching his fists, but Rowan didn’t move because he didn’t expect to get a beating. He suspected that Volta would use his own fists against himself if he could.

“Scythe Goddard is the future,” Volta said. “I don’t want to be part of the past. Don’t you understand?”

“But you hated today, didn’t you? Even more than me, because you weren’t just watching, you were a part of it.”

“And you’l be part of it soon, too.”

“Maybe not,” said Rowan.

“Oh, you wil be. e moment you get your ring and kil that pretty little girlfriend of yours, you’l know there’s no turning back for you, either.”

Rowan swal owed, trying to fight down what little bit of dinner he had eaten. Citra’s face bloomed in his mind, but he pushed the image away. He couldn’t let himself think about her now.

Rowan knew he was out on a limb with Volta. e only thing to do was shimmy to its precarious end. “You only pretend to like gleaning,” he said to Volta. “But you hate it more than you’ve ever hated anything. Your mentor was Scythe Nehru, right? He’s very old-school, which means he chose you for your conscience. You don’t want to take life—and you definitely don’t want to take dozens upon dozens at a time.”

Volta leaped up, moving faster than seemed possible. He lied Rowan up and pushed him against the wal with a bruising slam that made Rowan sorely miss his painkil ing nanites.

“You wil never repeat that to anyone, do you hear me? I’ve come too far to have my position jeopardized! I won’t be blackmailed by a snot-nosed apprentice!”

“Is that what you think I’m doing? Blackmailing you?”

“Don’t toy with me!” growled Volta “I know why you’re here!”

Rowan was genuinely disappointed. “I thought you knew me.”

A moment more and Volta loosened his grip. “Nobody knows anyone, do they?” he said.

“I promise I won’t tel anyone. And I don’t want anything from you.”

Volta final y backed off. “I’m sorry. Aer you’ve been surrounded by so much scheming, you start to think that’s how everyone plays.” He sat back down on the bed. “I believe you, because I know you’re better than that. In fact, I knew from the moment Goddard brought you in. He sees you as a chal enge—because if he can turn one of Faraday’s apprentices to his way of thinking, it proves he can turn anyone.”

en it occurred to Rowan that Volta wasn’t al that much older than him. He had always feigned a confidence that made him seem older, but now his vulnerability revealed the truth. He was twenty at most. Which meant he’d only been a scythe for a couple of years. Rowan didn’t know the path that led him from an old-guard scythe to Goddard, but he could imagine. He could see how a junior scythe might gravitate toward Goddard’s flash and charisma. Aer al , Goddard promised his disciples anything a human heart could desire, in exchange for the complete abdication of one’s

conscience. In a profession where a conscience was a liability, who would want one?

Rowan sat down again and pul ed his chair close enough to Volta to whisper. “I’l tel you what I think,” Rowan said. “Goddard isn’t a scythe. He’s a kil er.” It was the first time Rowan dared to say it out loud. “ere’s a lot written about kil ers from the mortal age—monsters like Jack the Ripper, or Charlie Manson, or Cyber Sal y—and the only difference between them and Goddard is that people let Goddard get away with it. e mortals knew how wrong it was, but somehow we’ve forgotten.”

“Yeah, but even if that’s true, what can anyone do about it?” asked Volta.

“e future comes whether we want it to or not. Rand, and Chomsky, and the dozens of other sick, twisted bastards longing to be in Goddard’s inner circle are going to dominate that future. I’m sure the founding scythes must be rol ing in their graves—but the point is, they are in their graves, and they’re not coming back any time soon.” Volta took a deep breath, and wiped the last of his tears. “For your sake, Rowan, I hope you come to love kil ing as much as Goddard does. It would make your life so much easier. So much more rewarding.”

e suggestion weighed heavily on him. A month ago, Rowan would have denied that he could ever become such a monster, but now he wasn’t so sure. e pressure to surrender was greater every day. He had to hope that if Volta had never truly surrendered to the darkness, then maybe he might stand a chance as wel .

There is no official media coverage of gleanings, much to the chagrin of the more publicity-minded scythes. Not even large-scale gleanings get on the news. Even so, plenty of personal pictures and videos of gleanings are uploaded to the Thunderhead, providing a gueril a record—which is so much more exciting and enticing than anything official.

Notoriety and infamy quickly evolve into celebrity and fame for scythes—and the most brazen acts harden further into legend.

Some scythes find the fame addictive, and seek greater and greater celebrity. Others would rather remain anonymous.

I cannot deny that I am legend. Not for the simple gleanings I do now, but for the audacious ones I did more than a hundred and fifty years ago. As if I weren’t already immortal enough, I am further immortalized on col ectible cards. The newer ones are prized by schoolchildren. The older ones are worth a fortune to hard-core col ectors, regardless of the condition.

I am legend. Yet every day I wish that I was not.

—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

27

Harvest Conclave

Citra’s secret investigation led to some surprises she couldn’t wait to share with Rowan when she final y saw him at Harvest Conclave. She certainly couldn’t share them with Scythe Curie. e two had come to trust each other, and the scythe would have seen Citra secretly using her online credentials as a flagrant violation of that trust.

Citra’s life had taken a very different turn from Rowan’s. She did not attend loud, lavish parties, nor did she train against live subjects. She helped cook quiet meals for heartbroken families, and sparred with a black belt Bokator bot. She created tinctures and studied the practical use of deadly poisons in Scythe Curie’s personal apothecary and toxic herb garden. She learned about al the infamous acts of both the best and the worst scythes in history.

In the past it was usual y laziness, prejudice, or lack of foresight that made a bad scythe, Citra had discovered. ere were those who seemed to glean too many neighbors because they couldn’t be bothered to look further.

ere were those who, in spite of repeated disciplinary action, would glean people with specific ethnic traits. As for poor judgment, there were plenty of examples there as wel . Such as Scythe Sartre, who thought it was a good idea to do al of his gleanings at rodeos, thereby destroying the sport entirely, since no one would attend a rodeo for fear of being gleaned.

Of course, the bad scythes weren’t al in the past. But instead of “bad”

they were now cal ed “innovative” and “forward-thinking.”

Like the innovative bloodbaths of Scythe Goddard and his kil er cronies.

e mass gleaning at Magnetic Propulsion Laboratory, although never reported official y, was big news. And there were plenty of private videos uploaded to the underhead, showing Goddard and his disciples doling

out immunity like bread to the poor. Rowan was right there in the middle of it. Citra didn’t know what to think about that.

“e world has a talent for rewarding bad behavior with stardom,” Scythe Curie said, as she viewed some of the videos that had been uploaded. en she got a bit pensive. “I know the pitfal s of being a celebrity scythe,” she confessed, although Citra already knew. “I was headstrong and stupid in my early days. I thought that by gleaning just the right people at just the right time, I could change the world for the better. I believed, in my arrogance, that I had a keen grasp of the big picture that others lacked. But of course, I was just as limited as anyone else. When I gleaned the president and his cabinet, it shook the world—but the world was already shaking just fine without me. ey cal ed me ‘Miss Massacre,’ and as time went on that changed to ‘the Grande Dame of Death.’ I spent more than a hundred years trying to fade into anonymity, but even the youngest of children know of me. I am the boogeyman parents use to get their children to behave. Be good or the Grande Dame wil get you. ” Scythe Curie shook her head sadly. “Most celebrity is fleeting, but when you’re a scythe, your defining deeds stand forever. Take my advice, Citra, and remain undefined.”

“You might be a celebrity scythe,” Citra pointed out, “but even at your worst, you were nothing like Goddard.”

“No, I wasn’t, thank goodness,” Scythe Curie said. “I never took life for sport. You see, there are some who seek celebrity to change the world, and others who seek it to ensnare the world. Goddard is of the second kind.”

And then she said something that guaranteed Citra many a sleepless night.

“I wouldn’t trust your friend Rowan anymore. Goddard is as corrosive as acid hurled in the eye. e kindest thing you can do is win that ring when Winter Conclave comes, and glean the boy quickly, before that acid burns any deeper than it already has.”

Citra was glad that Winter Conclave was stil months away. It was Harvest Conclave she had to worry about. At first, Citra had looked forward to September and the Harvest Conclave, but as it approached, she began to dread it. It wasn’t the upcoming test that troubled her. She felt she was prepared for whatever trials would be thrown at the apprentices. What she dreaded was seeing Rowan, because she had no idea what al these months with Goddard had done to him. Win that ring and glean him quickly, Scythe Curie had said. Wel , Citra didn’t have to worry about that now. She had four

months until that decision would be made. But the clock never stopped ticking. It moved inexorably toward one of their deaths.

• • •

Harvest Conclave took place on a clear but blustery September day. While a storm had kept many spectators away from the last conclave, they gathered in force today on the street before the Fulcrum City Capitol Building. Even more peace officers than before were posted to keep the gawking crowds back. Some scythes—mostly the old-guard ones—arrived on foot, choosing a humble walk from their hotels over a more flashy arrival. Others pul ed up in high-end cars, choosing to make the most of their celebrity status. News crews aimed their cameras but mostly kept their distance. is was, aer al , not a red carpet. No questions, no interviews—but there was certainly a lot of preening. Scythes waved to the cameras and squared their shoulders, standing tal so they’d look their best on screen.

Scythe Goddard and his crew showed up in a limousine—royal blue studded with mock diamonds, just in case there was any question as to who was inside. As Goddard and his entourage emerged, the crowd ooh ed and aah ed, as if their dazzling appearance rivaled a display of fireworks.

“ere he is!”

“It’s him!”

“He’s so handsome!”

“He’s so scary!”

“He’s so wel -groomed!”

Goddard took a moment to turn to the crowd and sweep his hand in a royal wave. en he focused on one girl from the audience, held her gaze, pointed at her, then continued on up the stairs, saying nothing.

“He’s so strange!”

“He’s so mysterious!”

“He’s so charming.”

As for the girl he singled out, she was le impressed and terrified and confused by his momentary attention—which was precisely the intent.

So focused was the crowd on Goddard and his colorful entourage, no one much noticed Rowan bringing up the rear as they climbed the steps to the entrance.

Goddard’s crew weren’t the only scythes up for the show. Scythe Kierkegaard had a crossbow slung over his shoulder. Not that he had any intention of using it today—it was merely a part of the spectacle. Stil , he could have aimed at just about anyone in the audience and taken them out.

e knowledge of that made the crowd al the more excited. No one had ever been gleaned on the Capitol steps before a conclave, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t happen.

While most scythes approached down the main avenue, Scythe Curie and Citra made their entrance from a side street, to avoid being the focus of the crowd’s attention for as long as possible. As the stately scythe pushed through the crowd of onlookers, a rumble erupted from the people closest to her as they realized who it was moving among them. People reached out to touch her silky lavender robe. She endured this as a matter of course, but one man actual y grabbed the fabric and she had to slap his hand away.

“Careful,” she said, meeting his eye. “I don’t take kindly to the violation of my person.”

“I apologize, Your Honor,” said the man. en he reached for her hand, intent on touching her ring, but she pul ed her hand away from him.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Citra pushed her way in front of Scythe Curie to help clear a path for her.

“Maybe we should have taken a limo,” Citra said. “At least that way we wouldn’t have to fight our way through.”

“at’s always been a little too elitist for me,” Curie said.

As they cleared the crowd, a sudden gust came down the wide Capitol steps, catching Scythe Curie’s long silver hair and blowing it back like a bridal train, making her look almost mystical.

“I knew I should have braided it today,” she said.

As she and Citra climbed the white marble steps, someone to their le

shouted, “We love you!”

Scythe Curie stopped and turned, unable to find the speaker, so she addressed them al .

“Why?” she demanded, but now, under her cool scrutiny, no one responded. “I could end your existence at any moment; why love me?”

Stil no one answered—but the exchange attracted a cameraman who moved forward, getting a little too close. Scythe Curie smacked the camera

so hard, it wrenched the man’s whole body around, and he nearly dropped it.

“Mind your manners,” said the scythe.

“Yes, Your Honor. Sorry, Your Honor.”

She continued up the steps with Citra behind her. “Hard to imagine that I used to love this attention. Now I’d avoid it entirely if I could.”

“You didn’t seem this tense at the last conclave,” Citra noted.

“at’s because I didn’t have an apprentice being tested. Instead, I was the one testing other scythes’ apprentices.”

A test that Citra had failed spectacularly. But she didn’t feel like bringing that up.

“Do you know what today’s test wil be?” Citra asked as they reached the top of the stairs and stepped into the entry vestibule.

“No—but I do know that it’s being administered by Scythe Cervantes, and he tends to be very physical y minded. For al I know, he’l have you tilting at windmil s.”

As before, the scythes greeted one another in the grand rotunda, waiting for the assembly room doors to open. Breakfast was set out on tables in the center of the rotunda, featuring a pyramid of Danish that must have taken hours to assemble but seconds to fal as scythes carelessly took the lower Danish without regard to the ones above. e waitstaff scrambled to gather the fal en pastries before they could be ground underfoot. Scythe Curie found it al very amusing. “It was foolhardy of the caterer to think that scythes would leave anything in a state of order.”

Citra spotted Junior Scythe Goodal —the girl who had been ordained at the last conclave. She had her robes made by Claude DeGlasse, one of the world’s preeminent fashion designers. It had been a monumental mistake, because today’s designers were al about shocking people out of their happy place. Scythe Goodal ’s orange-and-blue-striped robe made her look more like a circus clown than a scythe.

Citra couldn’t help but notice how Goddard and his junior scythes were the center of even more attention than at the Vernal Conclave. Although there were a number of scythes who turned a cold shoulder, even more crowded them, seeking to ingratiate themselves.

“ere are more and more scythes who think like Goddard,” Scythe Curie said quietly to Citra. “ey’ve slipped between the cracks like snakes.

Infiltrating our ranks. Supplanting the best of us like weeds.”

Citra thought about Faraday, a decent scythe most certainly choked out by the weeds.

“e kil ers are rising to power,” Scythe Curie said. “And if they do, the days of this world wil be very dark indeed. It is le to the truly honorable scythes to stand firm against it. I look forward to the day you join in that fight.”

“ank you, Your Honor.” Citra had no problem fighting the good fight if she became a scythe. It was the events that would lead up to it that she couldn’t bear to consider.

Scythe Curie went off to greet several of the old-guard scythes who held true to the founders’ ideals. at’s when Citra final y spotted Rowan. He didn’t bask in the false glow of Goddard. Instead, he was his own little center of attention. He was surrounded by other apprentices, and even a few junior scythes. ey chatted, they laughed, and Citra found herself feeling slighted that Rowan hadn’t even sought her out.

• • •

Rowan had, in fact, tried to find her, but by the time Citra entered the rotunda, Rowan had already been set upon by unexpected admirers. Some were envious of his position with Goddard, others were just curious, and others were clearly hoping to attach themselves to his rising star. Political positioning started young in the Scythedom.

“You were there at that office building, weren’t you?” one of the other apprentices said—a “spat,” one of the new ones, at conclave for the first time.

“I saw you in the videos!”

“He wasn’t just there,” said another spat. “He had Goddard’s freaking ring, handing out immunity!”

“Wow! Is that even al owed?”

Rowan shrugged. “Goddard said it was, and anyway, it wasn’t like I asked him to give me his ring. He just did it.”

One of the junior scythes sighed wistful y. “Man, he must real y like you if he let you do that.”

e thought that Goddard might actual y like him made Rowan uncomfortable—because the things that Goddard liked, Rowan categorical y despised.

“So what’s he like?” one girl asked.

“Like . . . no one I’ve ever met,” Rowan told her.

“I wish I was his apprentice,” said one of the spats, then grimaced like he had just bitten into a rancid cheese Danish. “I was taken on by Scythe Mao.”

Scythe Mao, Rowan knew, was another showboater, enjoying the celebrity of his public image. He was notoriously independent and didn’t align himself with the old guard or the new. Rowan didn’t know if he was a man who voted his own conscience or sold his vote to the highest bidder. Faraday would have known. ere were so many things Rowan missed about being Faraday’s apprentice. e inside scoop was one of them.

“Goddard and his junior scythes total y owned the Capitol steps when they came up,” said an apprentice Rowan remembered from last conclave—

the one who knew his poisons. “ey looked so good.”

“Have you decided what color you’l be? And what jewels you’l have on your robe?” a girl asked, suddenly hanging on his arm like a fast-growing vine. He didn’t know which would be more awkward, pul ing out of her grip or not.

“Invisible,” Rowan said. “I’l come up the statehouse steps naked.”

“ose’l be some jewels,” quipped one of the junior scythes, and everyone laughed.

en Citra pushed her way through, and Rowan felt as if he was caught doing something he shouldn’t. “Citra, hi!” he said. It felt so forced, he just wanted to take it back and find another way to say it. He shrugged out of the vine girl’s grip, but it was too late, because Citra had seen it.

“Looks like you’ve made a lot of friends,” Citra said.

“No, not real y,” he said, then realized he’d just insulted them al . “I mean, we’re al friends, right? We’re in the same boat.”

“Same boat,” repeated Citra with deadpan dul ness but daggers in her eyes as sharp as the ones that used to hang in Faraday’s weapons den. “Good to see you too, Rowan.” en she strode away.

“Let her go,” said the vine girl. “She’l be history aer the next conclave anyway, right?”

Rowan didn’t even excuse himself as he le them.

He caught up with Citra quickly, which told him she real y wasn’t trying al that hard to get away. is was a good sign.

He gently grabbed her arm and she turned to him.

“Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry about back there.”

“No, I get it,” she said. “You’re a big deal now. You have to flaunt it.”

“It’s not like that. Do you think I wanted them fawning al over me like that? C’mon, you know me better.”

Citra hesitated. “It’s been four months,” she said. “Four months can change a person.”

at much was true. But some things hadn’t changed. Rowan knew what she wanted to hear, but that would just be another dance. Another bit of posturing. So he told her the truth.

“It’s good to see you, Citra,” he said. “But it hurts to see you. It hurts a lot, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

He could tel that reached her, because her eyes began to glisten with tears that she blinked away before they could spil . “I know. I hate that it has to be this way.”

“I’l tel you what,” said Rowan. “Let’s not even think about Winter Conclave right now. Let’s be in the here and now, and let Winter Conclave take care of itself.”

Citra nodded. “Agreed.” en she took a deep breath. “Let’s take a walk.

ere’s something I have to show you.”

ey walked along the outer edge of the rotunda, passing the archways where scythes wheeled and dealed.

Citra pul ed out her phone and projected a series of holograms into her palm, cupping it so no one but Rowan could see. “I dug these out of the

underhead’s backbrain.”

“How did you do that?”

“Never mind how. What’s important is that I did—and what I found.”

e holograms were of Scythe Faraday on the streets near his home.

“ese are from his last day,” Citra said. “I was able to retrace at least some of his steps that day.”

“But why?”

“Just watch.” e hologram showed him being let into someone’s home.

“at’s the house of the woman he introduced us to at the market. He spent a few hours there. en he went to this café.” Citra swiped to another video showing him going into the restaurant. “I think he may have met someone there, but I don’t know who.”

“Okay,” said Rowan. “So he was saying good-bye to people. So far it seems consistent with the things someone would do if it were their last day on Earth.”

Citra swiped again. e next video showed him going up to the stairs to a train station. “is was five minutes before he died,” Citra said. “We know that it happened at that station—but guess what? e camera on that train platform had been vandalized—supposedly by unsavories. It was down for the entire day, so there’s no visual record of what actual y happened on that platform!”

A train pul ed out of the station, and a moment later a train pul ed in, heading in the other direction. at was the one that kil ed Faraday.

Although Rowan couldn’t see it, he grimaced as if he had.

“You think someone kil ed him, and made it look like he did it himself?”

Rowan looked around to make sure they weren’t being observed, and spoke quietly. “If that’s your only evidence, it’s pretty weak.”

“I know. So I kept digging.” She swiped back and replayed the scene of Faraday walking toward the station.

“ere were five witnesses. I couldn’t track them down without digging into the Scythedom’s records, and if I did that, they’d know I was looking.

But it only makes sense that those witnesses would have gone up these stairs, too, right? ere were eighteen people who went up the stairs around the time that Faraday died. Some of them probably got on this first train.” She pointed to the train leaving the station. “But not al of them. Of those eighteen people, I was able to identify about half of them. And three of them were granted immunity that very day.”

It was enough to take the wind out of Rowan and make him feel lightheaded. “ey were bribed to say it was a self-gleaning?”

“If you were just an ordinary citizen and witnessed one scythe kil ing another, and then were offered immunity to keep your mouth shut, what would you do?”

Rowan wanted to believe he’d seek justice, but he thought back to the days before he became an apprentice, when the appearance of a scythe was the most frightening thing he could imagine. “I’d kiss the ring and keep my mouth shut.”

Across the rotunda, the doors of the conclave chamber opened and the scythes began to file in.

“Who do you think did it?” Rowan asked.

“Who had the most to gain by getting Faraday out of the picture?”

Neither of them needed to say it out loud. ey both knew the answer.

Rowan knew that Goddard was capable of unthinkable things, but would he kil another scythe?”

Rowan shook his head, not wanting to believe it. “at’s not the only explanation!” he told her. “It might not have even been a scythe at al . Maybe it was the family member of someone he gleaned. Someone who wanted revenge. Anyone could have taken his ring, pushed him into the path of the train, and used the ring to give immunity to the witnesses. ey’d have to stay quiet then, or they’d be considered accomplices!”

Citra opened her mouth to refute it, but closed it again. It was possible.

Even though using Faraday’s ring would have frozen the kil er’s finger, it was possible. “I didn’t think of that,” she said.

“Or what about a Tonist? e tone cults hate scythes.”

e rotunda was quickly emptying. ey le the alcove and moved toward the chamber doors. “You don’t have enough facts to accuse anyone of anything.” Rowan said. “You should let it sit for now.”

“Let it sit? You can’t be serious.”

“I said for now! You’l have ful access to the Scythedom’s records once you’re ordained, and you’l be able to prove exactly what happened.”

Citra stopped in her tracks. “What do you mean once I’m ordained. It could just as easily be you. Or is there something I’m missing?”

Rowan pursed his lips, furious at himself for the slip. “Let’s just get inside before they close the doors.”

• • •

e rituals of conclave were just as they had been before. e tol ing of the dead. e washing of hands, grievances, and discipline. Once again an anonymous accusation was leveled against Scythe Goddard—this time accusing him of handing out immunity too freely.

“Who brings this accusation?” Goddard demanded. “Let the accuser stand and identify his or herself!”

Of course no one took credit, which al owed Goddard to retain the floor.

“I wil admit that his accusation has merit,” Goddard said. “I am a generous

man, and have perhaps been too liberal in my doling of immunity. I make no excuses and am unrepentant. I throw myself on the mercy of the High Blade to levy my punishment.”

High Blade Xenocrates waved his hand dismissively. “Yes, yes, just sit down, Goddard. Your penance wil be to shut up for a whole five minutes.”

at brought a round of laughter. Goddard bowed to the High Blade and took his seat. And although a few scythes—including Scythe Curie—tried to object, pointing out that historical y, scythes who over-used their ring had their power to grant immunity limited to the families of the gleaned, their complaints fel on deaf ears. Xenocrates overruled al objections in the interest of speeding up the day’s proceedings.

“Amazing,” said Scythe Curie quietly to Citra. “Goddard’s becoming untouchable. He can get away with anything. I wish someone would have had the foresight to glean him as a child. e world would be better off.”

Citra avoided Rowan at lunch, afraid that being seen together more than they already had been might raise suspicion. She stood by Scythe Curie for lunch, and the scythe introduced Citra to several of the greatest living scythes: Scythe Meir, who had once been a delegate to the Global Conclave in Geneva; Scythe Mandela, who was in charge of the bejeweling committee; and Scythe Hideyoshi, the only scythe known to have mastered the skil of gleaning through hypnosis.

Citra tried not to be too starstruck. Meeting them almost gave her hope that the old guard, could triumph against the likes of Goddard. She kept glancing over at Rowan, who, once more, couldn’t seem to get away from the other apprentices, although she didn’t know how hard he tried.

“It’s a bad sign,” said Scythe Hideyoshi, “when our young hopefuls gravitate so openly to the enemy.”

“Rowan’s not the enemy,” Citra blurted, but Scythe Curie put a hand on her shoulder to quiet her.

“He represents the enemy,” Scythe Curie said. “At least he does to those other apprentices.”

Scythe Mandela sighed. “ere shouldn’t be enemies in the Scythedom.

We should al be on the same side. e side of humanity.”

It was general y agreed among the old guard that these were troubling times, but aside from raising objections that were repeatedly dismissed, no one took action.

Citra found herself getting increasingly anxious aer lunch, as the weapons manufacturers touted their wares and various motions were hotly debated. ings like whether a scythe’s ring should be worn on the le or right hand, and whether or not a scythe should be al owed to endorse a commercial product, like running shoes or a breakfast cereal. It al seemed insignificant to Citra. Why should any of that matter when the hal owed act of gleaning was slowly devolving into mortal age murder?

en at last it came time for the apprentice trials. As before, the candidates for Scythedom went first, having been tested the night before. Of the four candidates who made it through their final test, only two were ordained. e other two had to suffer the walk of shame, as they exited the chamber and went back to their old lives. Citra took guilty pleasure at the fact that the girl who had been sucking up to Rowan was one of those ejected.

Once the new scythes were given their rings and took their new names, the remaining apprentices were cal ed down front.

“Today’s test,” announced Scythe Cervantes, “wil be a competition in the martial art of Bokator. e candidates wil be paired and judged on their performance.”

A mat was brought in and rol ed out in the semicircular space in front of the rostrum. Citra took a deep breath. She had this. Bokator was a balance among strength, agility, and focus, and she had found her perfect balance.

And then they stuck a blade right in the heart of her confidence.

“Citra Terranova wil spar against Rowan Damisch.”

A murmur from the crowd. Citra realized this was no random draw. ey were paired intentional y, doomed to be adversaries. How could it be any other way? Her eyes met Rowan’s, but his expression gave away nothing.

e other matches went first. Each apprentice gave their best, but Bokator was a bruising discipline and not everyone’s strength. Some victories were close, others were routs. And then it came time for Citra and Rowan’s match.

Stil , Rowan’s expression gave her neither camaraderie nor sympathy, nor misery at having to be set against each other. “Okay, let’s do this,” is al he said, and they began to circle each other.

• • •

Rowan knew that today was his first true test, but not the one they had devised for him. Rowan’s test was to look convincing but stil throw the match. Goddard, Xenocrates, Cervantes—and for that matter, al the scythes assembled—needed to believe he was doing his best, but that his best just wasn’t good enough.

It began with the ritualistic rhythmic circling. en posturing and physical taunting. Rowan launched himself at Citra, threw a kick that he telegraphed with his body language, and missed her by a fraction of an inch.

He lost his footing and fel down on one knee. A very good start. He turned quickly, rising, remained off balance, and she lunged toward him. He thought she would take him down with an elbow strike, but instead she grabbed him, pul ing him forward even as she appeared to push him back. It brought him to balance and made it appear as if her move had failed—that she didn’t have the leverage to do the job. Rowan backed away and caught her gaze. She was grinning at him, her eyes intensely on his. It was part of the taunting that Bokator was known for, but this was so much more. He could read her just as clearly as if she were speaking aloud.

You’re not going to throw this match, her eyes said. Fight badly—I dare you

—because no matter how poorly you try to fight, I wil find a way to make you look good.

Frustrated, Rowan launched himself at her again, an open palm strike at her shoulder, intentional y two inches off from the perfect leverage point—

but she actual y moved into it. His palm connected, she spun back with the force of his strike, and went down.

Damn you, Citra. Damn you!

She could beat him at everything. Even at losing.

• • •

Citra knew from the moment Rowan made his first kick what he was up to, and it infuriated her. How dare he think he had to fight badly for her to win this match? Had he grown so arrogant under Scythe Goddard that he actual y thought this wouldn’t be a fair fight? Sure, he had been training, but so had she. So what if he had grown stronger—that also meant he was bulkier and moved slower. A fair fight was the only way to keep their consciences clean. Didn’t Rowan realize that by sacrificing himself, he’d be

dooming her as wel ? She would sooner glean herself as her first act as a scythe than accept his sacrifice.

Rowan glared at her now, furious, and it only made her laugh. “Is that the best you can do?” she asked.

He threw out a low kick, just slow enough for her to anticipate, and without any force behind it. Al she needed to do was lower her stance and the kick would have no effect. Instead she responded by raising her center of gravity just enough for the kick to knock her feet out from under her. She fel to the mat, but righted herself quickly, so it wouldn’t look as if she had done it on purpose. en she threw her shoulder against him and hooked her right leg around his, applying force, but not enough to make his knee buckle. He grabbed her, twisted, flipped them both down to the mat, landing with her in the dominant position over him. She countered by forcing him to rol over and pin her. He tried to release her, but she held his arms in place so he couldn’t.

“What’s the matter, Rowan?” she whispered. “Don’t know what to do when you’re on top of a girl?”

He final y pul ed away and she got up. ey faced each other one more time, circling in the familiar battle dance while Cervantes circled them in the other direction, like a satel ite, completely missing what was real y going on between them.

• • •

Rowan knew the match was almost over. He was about to win, and by winning he would lose. He must have been crazy thinking Citra would al ow him to wil ingly throw the match. ey both cared too much about each other. at was the problem. Citra would never wil ingly accept the scythe’s ring as long as her feelings for him got in the way.

And al at once Rowan knew exactly what he had to do.

• • •

With only ten seconds le to the match, al Citra had to do was keep up the dance. Rowan was clearly the victor. Ten more seconds of guarded circling and Cervantes would blow the whistle.

But then Rowan did something Citra hadn’t anticipated at al . He threw himself forward with lightning speed. Not clumsy, not feigning false incompetence, but with perfect, practiced skil . In an instant he had put her in a headlock, squeezing her neck tight—tight enough for her pain nanites to kick in. And then he leaned close and snarled into her ear.

“You fel right into my trap,” he said. “Now you get what you deserve.”

en he flung her body into the air, twisting her head the other way. Her neck broke with a loud and horrible snap, and darkness came over Citra like a landslide.

• • •

Rowan dropped Citra to the ground as the crowd drew a col ective gasp.

Cervantes blew his whistle violently. “Il egal move! Il egal move!” Cervantes shouted, just as Rowan knew he would. “Disqualification!”

e gathering of scythes began to roar. Some were furious at Cervantes, others were spouting vitriol at Rowan for what he had done. Rowan stood stoic, letting no emotions show. He forced himself to look down at Citra’s body. Her head was twisted practical y backward. Her eyes were open, but no longer seeing. She was deadish as deadish could be. He bit down on his tongue until it began to bleed.

e chamber door swung open and guards raced in, hurrying toward the deadish girl in the middle of the room.

e High Blade came up to Rowan. “Go back to your scythe,” he said, not even trying to hide his disgust. “I’m sure he’l discipline you accordingly.”

“Yes, Your Excel ency.”

Disqualification. None of them realized that, to Rowan, it was the perfect victory.

He watched as the guards picked Citra up and carried her, limp as a sack of potatoes, outside where, no doubt, an ambu-drone was already waiting to take her to the nearest revival center.

You’l be fine, Citra. You’l be back with Scythe Curie in no time—but you won’t forget what happened today. And I hope you never forgive me.

I fought against the purge. There are things I’ve done that I am not proud of, but I am very proud that I fought against that.

I can’t recal which scythe began that odious campaign to glean only those who were born mortal, but it spread throughout each regional Scythedom, a viral idea in a post-viral time. “Shouldn’t those who were born to expect death be the sole subjects of gleaning?” went the popular wisdom. But it was bigotry masquerading as wisdom. Selfishness posing as enlightenment.

And not enough scythes argued—because those born in the post-mortal age found mortal-borns to be too uncomfortably different in the way they thought, and in the way they lived their lives. “Let them die with the age that bore them,” cried the post-mortal purists in the Scythedom.

In the end it was deemed a gross violation of the second commandment, and al those scythes who participated in the purge were severely disciplined—but by then it was too late to undo what had been done. We lost our ancients. We lost our elders. We lost our living lifeline to the past. There are stil mortal-borns around, but they hide their age and their history, for fear of being targeted again.

Yes, I fought the purge—but the Thunderhead did not. By its own law of noninterference in scythe affairs, it could do nothing to stop the purge. Al it could do was bear witness. The Thunderhead al owed us to make that costly mistake, leaving the Scythedom to wal ow in its own regret to this very day.

I often wonder, should the Scythedom run entirely off the rails and decide to glean al of humanity in a grand suicide of global gleaning, would the Thunderhead break its noninterference law and stop it? Or would it bear witness again as we destroyed ourselves, leaving nothing behind but a living cloud of our knowledge, accomplishments, and so-cal ed wisdom?

Would the Thunderhead grieve our passing, I wonder? And if so, would it grieve as the child who has lost a parent, or as the parent who could not save a petulant child from its own poor choices?

—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

28

Hydrogen Burning in the Heart of the Sun

Citra Terranova, said a voice both powerful yet gentle. Citra Terranova, can you hear me?

Who’s that? Is someone there?

Curious, said the voice. Very curious. . .

• • •

Being deadish was a pain in the ass. No question about it.

When she was once more pronounced legal y alive, she awoke to the unfamiliar but professional y friendly face of a revival nurse checking her vitals. She tried to look around her, but her neck was stil in a brace.

“Welcome back, honey,” the nurse said.

e room seemed to spin every time she moved her eyes. It was more than just pain nanites, she must have had al sorts of numbing, rejuvenating chemicals and microbots inside her.

“How long?” she rasped.

“Just two days,” the nurse said cheerily. “Simple spinal severing. Nothing too hard for us to handle.”

Two days were robbed from her life; two days she didn’t have to spare.

“My family?”

“Sorry, honey, but this was a scythe matter. ey weren’t notified.” e nurse patted her hand. “You can tel them al about it when you next see them. Now the best thing for you to do is relax. You’l be here one more day, and then you’l be good as new.” en she offered Citra ice cream that was the best she’d ever tasted.

• • •

at evening, Scythe Curie came and fil ed her in on al she had missed.

Rowan had been disqualified and severely reprimanded for his poor sportsmanship.

“Are you tel ing me that because he was disqualified, I won?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Scythe Curie said. “He was clearly going to beat you.

It was decided that both of you lose. We real y need to work on your martial art skil s, Citra.”

“Wel , that’s just great,” Citra said, exasperated for a very different reason than Scythe Curie thought. “So now Rowan and I are both zero for two at conclave.”

Scythe Curie sighed. “e third time’s the charm,” she said. “Now it wil al come down to how wel you do at Winter Conclave. And I have faith that you wil shine in your final test.”

Citra closed her eyes, remembering the look on Rowan’s face when he held her in that headlock. ere was something cold there. Calculating. In that moment, she saw a side of him she had never seen before. It was as if he was looking forward to what he was about to do to her. As if he was going to enjoy it. She was so confused! Did he real y plan that move from the beginning? Did he not know he’d be disqualified, or was disqualification his plan?

“What was Rowan like aer it happened?” Citra asked Scythe Curie. “Did he seem shocked at al about what he had done? Did he kneel down to me?

Did he help carry me out to the ambudrone?”

Scythe Curie took a moment before she answered. en final y she said,

“He just stood there, Citra. His face was like stone. Defiant, and as unrepentant as his scythe.”

Citra tried to turn away, but even though the brace was now gone, her neck was stil too stiff to move.

“He’s not who you think he is anymore,” Scythe Curie said slowly, so that it would sink in.

“No,” Citra agreed, “he’s not.” But for the life of her she had no idea who he was now.

• • •

Rowan thought he would receive another brutal beating when he returned to the mansion. at couldn’t be further from the truth.

Scythe Goddard was al flamboyance and bright chatter. He cal ed for the butler to bring champagne and glasses for everyone, right there in the foyer, so they could toast Rowan’s audacity.

“at took more nerve than I thought you had, boy,” Goddard said.

“Here, here,” seconded Scythe Rand. “You can come to my room and break my neck any time.”

“He didn’t just break her neck,” Scythe Goddard pointed out. “He unflinchingly snapped her spine! Everyone heard it. I’m sure it woke up the scythes sleeping in the back row!”

“Classic!” said Scythe Chomsky, guzzling his champagne down, not waiting for the toast.

“It was a powerful statement you made,” said Goddard. “It reminded everyone that you are my apprentice, and you are not to be trifled with!”

en he became a little quieter. Almost gentle. “I know you had feelings for that girl, yet you did what needed to be done, and more.”

“I was disqualified,” Rowan reminded them.

“Official y, yes,” Goddard agreed, “but you gained the admiration of quite a few important scythes.”

“And made enemies of others,” Volta pointed out.

“Nothing wrong with drawing a line in the sand,” Goddard responded. “It takes a strong man to do that. e kind of man I’m happy to raise a glass to.”

Rowan looked up to see Esme sitting at the top of the grand staircase watching them. He wondered if she knew what he had done, and the thought that she might made him feel ashamed.

“To Rowan!” said Scythe Goddard, holding his glass high. “e scourge of the stiff-necked, and the shatterer of spines.”

It was the most bitter glass Rowan had ever had to swal ow.

“And now,” said Goddard, “I do believe a party is in order.”

• • •

e party that fol owed the Harvest Conclave was one for the record books, and no one was immune to Goddard’s contagious energy. Even before guests started to arrive and the first of five DJs cranked up the music, Goddard

threw his arms wide in the mansion’s ornate living room as if he could reach from wal to wal , and said to no one in particular, “I am in my element, and my element is hydrogen burning in the heart of the sun!”

It was so outrageous a thing to say, it even made Rowan laugh.

“He’s so ful of crap,” Scythe Rand whispered to Rowan, “but you gotta love it.”

As the rooms, and the terraces, and the pool deck began to fil with partiers, Rowan began to rise from the funk he had been le in aer his awful bout with Citra.

“I checked for you,” Scythe Volta told him. “Citra’s conscious and has one more day in the revival center. She’l go back home ful y recovered with Scythe Curie; no harm, no foul. Wel , plenty of foul, but that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

Rowan didn’t answer him. He wondered if anyone else was insightful enough to know why he did what he did. He hoped not.

en Volta got serious in the midst of the revelry around them. “Don’t lose the scythehood to her, Rowan,” he said. “At least not on purpose. If she beats you fair and square that’s one thing, but submitting yourself to her blade because of raging hormones is just plain stupid.”

Maybe Volta was right. Perhaps he should do his best in their final trial, and if his best outshined Citra’s, he would accept the scythe ring. And then maybe he would glean himself as his first and only act. en he’d never be faced with having to glean Citra. It comforted Rowan that he had a way out, even though it was a worst-case scenario.

• • •

e rich and famous arrived by helicopter, by limousine, and in one bizarre but memorable entrance, by jet pack. Goddard made a point to introduce Rowan to them al , as if Rowan were a prize worth showing off. “Watch this boy,” Goddard told his high-profile guests. “He’s going places.”

Rowan had never felt so valued and validated. It was hard to hate a man who treated him like the meat rather than the lettuce.

“is is how life was meant to be lived,” Goddard told Rowan as they luxuriated in his open-face cabana, looking out over the festivities.

“Experiencing al there is to experience, and enjoying the company of others.”

“Even when some of those others are paid to be here?”

Goddard looked out at the crowded pool deck that would have been far less dense, and far less beautiful, had it not been for the presence of professional party guests.

“ere are always extras in every production,” he told Rowan. “ey fil in the gaps and make for pleasant scenery. We wouldn’t want everyone to be a celebrity, would we? ey’d do nothing but fight!”

In the pool a net went up, and dozens gathered for a game of vol eybal .

“Look around you, Rowan,” Goddard said in utter contentment. “Have you ever experienced such good times as these? e commoners love us not because of the way we glean, but because of the way we live. We need to accept our role as the new royalty.”

Rowan didn’t see himself as royalty, but he was wil ing to play along, at least today. So he went to the pool and jumped in, declaring himself captain of the team and joining Scythe Goddard’s loyal subjects in their game.

e thing about Scythe Goddard’s parties is that it was very difficult not to have a good time, no matter how hard you tried. And with al the good feelings that abounded, it was easy to forget what a ruthless butcher Goddard was.

But was he a kil er of scythes?

Citra hadn’t directly accused Goddard—but it was clear that he was her prime suspect. Citra’s investigation was troubling, yet try as he might, Rowan could not find a single instance since he’d been in Goddard’s presence where Goddard did anything that was il egal by scythe law. His interpretations of the commandments might have been stretches, but nothing he did was an actual violation. Even his gleaning rampages were not forbidden by anything but custom and tradition.

“e old guard despises me because I live and glean with a flair they sorely lack,” Goddard had told Rowan. “ey’re a crowd of bitter backstabbers, envious that I’ve found the secret of being the perfect scythe.”

Wel , perfection was subjective—Rowan certainly wouldn’t cal the man a perfect scythe—but there was nothing in Goddard’s repertoire of malfeasance that would suggest he would murder Faraday.

• • •

On the third day of this seemingly unending bash, there were two unexpected party guests—or at least unexpected to Rowan. e first was High Blade Xenocrates himself.

“What is he doing here?” Rowan asked Scythe Chomsky when he saw the High Blade come out to the pool.

“Don’t ask me—I didn’t invite him.”

It seemed strange that the High Blade would show up at the party of a highly controversial scythe. He didn’t appear comfortable being here at al .

He seemed self-conscious and tried to be inconspicuous, but a man of such mighty girth, festooned in gold, was hard not to see. He stood out like a hot air bal oon in an otherwise empty field.

It was, however, the second guest that shocked Rowan more. He was stripping down to his bathing suit just seconds aer getting to the pool deck.

It was none other than Rowan’s friend, Tyger Salazar, who Rowan hadn’t seen since the day he showed him Scythe Faraday’s weapons den.

Rowan made a beeline to him, pul ing him aside behind a topiary hedge.

“What the hel are you doing here?”

“Hey, Rowan!” Tyger said, with his signature slanted grin, “good to see you, too! Man, you’re looking buff! What did they inject you with?”

“Nothing, it’s al real—and you didn’t answer my question. Why are you here? Do you know how much trouble you could be in if anyone found out you snuck in? is isn’t like crashing a school dance!”

“Take it easy! I’m not crashing anything. I’ve signed up with Guests Unlimited. I’m a licensed partier now!”

Tyger had oen boasted that to be a professional party guest was his life’s ambition, but Rowan had never taken him seriously.

“Tyger, this is a real y bad idea—worse than any of your other bad ideas.”

en he whispered, “Professional partiers sometimes have to . . . do things you might not be up for. I know; I’ve seen it.”

“Dude, you know me; I go where the day takes me.”

“And your parents are okay with this?”

Tyger looked down, his upbeat demeanor suddenly subdued. “My parents surrendered me.”

“What? Are you kidding?

Tyger shrugged. “One splat too many. ey gave up. Now I’m a ward of the underhead.”

“I’m sorry, Tyger.”

“Hey, don’t be. Believe it or not, the underhead’s a better father than my father was. I get good advice now, and get asked how my day was by someone who actual y seems to care.”

Just like everything else about the underhead, its parenting skil s were indisputable. But being surrendered by his parents had to hurt.

“Somehow,” noted Rowan, “I don’t think the underhead advised you to be a professional party boy.”

“No—but it can’t stop me. It’s my choice to make. And anyway, it pays pretty good.” He looked around to make sure no one was listening, then leaned in close and whispered, “But you know what pays even better?”

Rowan was almost afraid to ask. “What?”

“e word on the street is that you’ve been training with live subjects.

at kind of work pays top dol ar! Do you think you could put in a word for me? I mean, I go deadish al the time. Might as wel get paid for it!”

Rowan stared at him in disbelief. “Are you nuts? Do you even know what you’re saying? My god, what are you on?”

“Just my own nanites, man. Just my own nanites.”

• • •

Scythe Volta felt lucky to be in Goddard’s inner circle. Most of the time. e youngest of Goddard’s three junior scythes, he saw himself as the balancing force. Chomsky was the brainless brawn, Rand was the animus—the wild force of nature among them. Volta was the sensible one who saw more than he let anyone know. He was the first to see Xenocrates arrive at the party, and watched as he unsuccessful y tried to avoid encounters. He ended up shaking hands with a number of the other guest scythes—some from regions as far flung as PanAsia and EuroScandia. It was al with such reluctance on Xenocrates’ part that Volta knew the man wasn’t here entirely by choice.

Volta positioned himself near Goddard to see if he could get a bead on exactly what was going on.

When Goddard saw the High Blade, he stood; an obligatory sign of respect. “Your Excel ency, what an honor it is to have you at my little get-together.”

“Not so little,” answered Xenocrates.

“Volta!” ordered Goddard, “Bring us two chairs poolside, so we can be closer to al the action.”

And although such a task was normal y le to the servants, Volta did not complain, because it gave him a perfect excuse to eavesdrop on them. He placed two chairs on the flagstone patio by the deep end of the pool.

“Closer,” said Goddard. So Volta placed the chairs close enough for the two of them to be splashed by anyone choosing to use the diving board.

“Stay nearby,” he told Volta quietly, which is exactly what Volta had intended to do.

“Something to eat, Your Excel ency?” Volta asked, gesturing to the buffet table just a few yards away.

“ank you, no,” he said. is, from a man who had a reputation for being quite the gourmand, was tel ing in and of itself. “Must we meet here?”

Xenocrates asked. “Wouldn’t you prefer to speak in a quiet room?”

“None of my rooms are quiet today,” Goddard said.

“Yes, but this is far too public a forum.”

“Nonsense, this isn’t the Forum,” said Goddard. “It’s more like Nero’s palace.”

Volta chimed in with a hearty but staged laugh. If he had to play toady, he would own the part today.

“Wel , let’s hope it doesn’t become the Coliseum,” said Xenocrates, a little bit of bite to his words.

Goddard chuckled at the thought. “Believe me, I’d be more than happy to throw a few Tonists to the lions.”

A partygoer—one of the paid ones—did a perfect triple gainer off the diving board, the splash leaving a streak across the High Blade’s heavy robe.

“Don’t you think this ostentatious lifestyle wil catch up with you?”

Xenocrates asked.

“It can’t catch me if I keep moving,” Goddard said with a smirk. “I’m nearly done with this place. I’ve been looking at real estate down south.”

“at’s not what I mean and you know it.”

“Why so tense, Your Excel ency?” said Goddard. “I invited you here because I wanted you to see firsthand what a positive thing my parties are for the Scythedom. Good public relations al around! You should be throwing grand galas at your own home.”

“You forget that I live in a log cabin.”

Goddard narrowed his eyes, not quite to a glare, but close. “Yes, a log cabin perched atop the tal est building in Fulcrum City. At least I’m not a hypocrite, Xenocrates. I don’t feign humility.”

And then the High Blade said something to Goddard that was a surprise to Volta, although in retrospect, it shouldn’t have been a surprise at al . “My greatest mistake,” said Xenocrates, “was choosing you as an apprentice al those years ago.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Goddard. “I’d hate to think that you’ve yet to make your greatest mistake.” It was a threat without actual y being a threat.

Goddard was remarkably good at that.

“So tel me,” said Goddard, “does fortune smile on my apprentice, as it has on yours?”

Now Volta’s ears pricked up, wondering what fortune Goddard meant.

Xenocrates took a deep breath and let it out. “Fortune is smiling. e girl wil cease to be an issue within a week. I’m sure of it.” Another diver splashed them. Xenocrates put up his hands to shield himself from it, but Goddard didn’t flinch in the least.

Cease to be an issue. at could mean any number of things. Volta looked around until he spotted Rowan. He seemed to be having a heated discussion with a party boy. Citra “ceasing to be an issue” would be the best thing for Rowan, as far as Volta was concerned.

“Are we done now? May I leave?”

“Just a moment,” said Goddard, and then he turned and cal ed toward the shal ow end of the pool. “Esme! Esme come here, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

e look of terror that came over the High Blade’s face was chil ing. is was indeed getting more interesting by the minute.

“Please, Goddard, no.”

“What’s the harm?” Goddard said.

Esme, water wings and al , came trotting along the pool’s edge to them.

“Yes, Scythe Goddard?”

He beckoned to her and she sat on his lap, facing the man in gold. “Esme, do you know who this is?”

“A scythe?”

“Not just any scythe. is is Xenocrates, the High Blade of MidMerica.

He’s Mr. Big.”

“Hi,” she said.

Xenocrates offered a pained nod, not meeting the girl’s eye. His discomfort at this encounter radiated like heat. Volta wondered if Goddard had a point or if he was just being cruel.

“I think we met before,” Esme said. “A very long time ago.”

Xenocrates said nothing.

“Our esteemed friend is far too uptight,” Goddard said. “He needs to join the party, don’t you agree, Esme?”

Esme shrugged. “He should just have fun like everyone else.”

“Wiser words have never been spoken,” said Goddard. en he reached behind him out of Esme’s line of sight toward Volta and snapped his fingers.

Volta drew in a slow, silent breath. He knew what Goddard was asking of him. But Volta was reluctant. Now he regretted being a part of this at al .

“Maybe you should show your moves on the dance floor, Your Excel ency,” said Goddard. “en my guests could laugh at you, just the way you made the entire Scythedom laugh at me in conclave. Did you think I forgot about that?”

Goddard stil reached back toward Volta, now wriggling his fingers impatiently, and Volta had no choice but to give him what he wanted. e young scythe reached into one of the many secret pockets of his yel ow robe and pul ed out a smal dagger, placing the hilt in Goddard’s hand.

Goddard closed his fingers around it, and ever so gently, ever so inconspicuously, brought the edge of the dagger just an inch from Esme’s neck.

e girl didn’t see it. She didn’t know it was there at al . But Xenocrates did. He froze in place, eyes wide, jaw slightly ajar.

“I know!” said Goddard cheerful y. “Why don’t you go for a swim!”

“Please,” begged Xenocrates. “is is not necessary.”

“Oh, but I insist.”

“I don’t think he wants to go swimming,” said Esme.

“But everyone goes swimming at my parties!”

“Don’t do this,” begged the High Blade.

Goddard’s response was to bring the blade even closer to Esme’s unsuspecting neck. Now even Volta was sweating. No one had ever been gleaned at one of Goddard’s parties, but there was always a first time. Volta knew this was a battle of wil s, and the only thing that kept him from intervening, and ripping that dagger away from Goddard, was knowing who would blink first.

“Damn you, Goddard!” said Xenocrates. en he stood up and threw himself into the pool, gold adornments and al .

• • •

Rowan heard none of what transpired between Xenocrates and Goddard, but he did see the High Blade hurl himself into the deep end, creating a cannonbal splash that drew everyone’s attention.

Xenocrates went down, and didn’t come back up.

“He sank to the bottom!” someone said. “It’s al that gold!”

Rowan had no great love of the High Blade, but he also didn’t want to see the man drown. It wasn’t like he fel ; he had jumped, and if he drowned, trapped in his own golden robe, it would be considered a self-gleaning.

Rowan dove into the pool, and so did Tyger, fol owing his lead. ey swam to the bottom, where Xenocrates was bubbling out his last bit of air. Rowan grabbed the man’s heavy, multilayered robe, tugging it over his head, and both he and Tyger helped the High Blade up to the surface, where he gasped, coughed, and sputtered. e crowd around them applauded.

Now he didn’t look much like a High Blade—he was just a fat man in wet, golden underwear.

“I guess I must have lost my balance,” he said, trying to be jovial about it and attempting to put a new spin on what had happened. Maybe others believed it, but Rowan had seen him throw himself in. ere was no confusing that with an accidental fal . Why on earth would he have done that?

“Wait,” said Xenocrates looking at his right hand. “My ring!”

“I’l get it!” said Tyger, who was now the party boy of the hour, and dove to the bottom to retrieve it.

Chomsky had arrived at the scene, and he and Volta reached down from the pool’s edge to haul Xenocrates out of the water. It was as humiliating as could be for the man. He looked like an overstuffed net of fish being hauled onto the deck of a trawler.

Goddard wrapped a large towel around the High Blade, uncharacteristical y sheepish. “I truly, truly apologize,” said Goddard. “It never occurred to me that you might actual y drown. at wouldn’t have been a good thing for anyone.”

And then Rowan realized there was only one reason for Xenocrates to hurl himself into the pool:

Because Goddard had ordered him to.

Which meant that Goddard had a much stronger hold on the High Blade than anyone knew. But how?

“Can I go now?” asked Esme.

“Of course you can,” said Goddard, giving her a kiss on the forehead.

en Esme wandered off, searching for playmates among the children of the stars.

Tyger surfaced with the ring. Xenocrates grabbed it from him without as much as a thank you, and slipped it on his finger.

“I tried to get his robe, too, but it’s just too heavy,” said Tyger.

“We’l get someone with scuba gear to go down there on a treasure dive,”

quipped Goddard. “Although they may claim salvage rights.”

“Are you quite finished?” said Xenocrates. “Because I want to leave.”

“Of course, Your Excel ency.”

en the High Blade of MidMerica le the pool deck and went back through the house dripping wet, leaving behind whatever dignity he had arrived with.

“Damn—I should have kissed his ring when I had the chance,” Tyger lamented. “Immunity right there in my hands, and I blew it.”

Once Xenocrates was gone, Goddard cal ed out to the crowd, “Anyone who uploads pictures of High Blade Xenocrates in his underwear wil be gleaned immediately!”

And everyone laughed . . . then stopped when they realized he was not joking in the least.

• • •

As the party wrapped up and Scythe Goddard said good-bye to his most important guests, Rowan watched, taking in everything.

“So I’l see you at the next party, right?” Tyger said, breaking his focus.

“Maybe next time they’l assign me earlier, so I get to hang for more than just the last day.”

e fact that Tyger was about as deep as the fountain out front was an irritation to Rowan. Funny, but he had never been bothered by Tyger’s shal ow nature before. Perhaps because Rowan hadn’t been much different.

Sure, he wasn’t the thril -seeker Tyger was, but in his own way, Rowan glided on the surface of his life. Who could have known that the ice was so treacherously thin? Now he was in a place too deep for Tyger to ever understand.

“Sure, Tyger. Next time.”

Tyger le with the other professional party people, with whom he seemed to share much more in common now than with Rowan. Rowan wondered if there was anyone from his old life he could relate to anymore.

Scythe Goddard passed him standing by the entryway. “If you’re practicing to be a neoclassical statue, I should get you a pedestal,” he said.

“Of course, we already have enough statuary around here without you.”

“Sorry, Your Honor; I was just thinking.”

“Too much of that could be dangerous.”

“I was just wondering why the High Blade jumped into the pool the way he did.”

“He fel accidental y. He said so himself.”

“No, I saw it,” insisted Rowan. “He jumped.”

“Wel then, how should I know? You’l have to ask him. Although I don’t think bringing up such an embarrassing moment to the High Blade wil work in your favor.” en he changed the subject. “You seemed to be awful y friendly with one of the party boys. Should I invite more of them for you next time?”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” said Rowan, blushing in spite of himself.

“He’s just a friend from home.”

“I see. And you invited him?”

Rowan shook his head. “He signed up without me even knowing. If it was up to me he wouldn’t have been here at al .”

“Why not?” said Goddard. “Your friends are my friends.”

Rowan didn’t respond to that. He never knew whether Goddard was serious, or just baiting him.

Rowan’s silence just made Goddard laugh. “Lighten up, boy! It was a party, not the inquisition.” He clapped Rowan on the shoulder and sauntered away. If Rowan had any sense he would have le it at that. But he didn’t.

“People are saying that Scythe Faraday was kil ed by another scythe.”

Goddard stopped in his tracks, and slowly turned back to Rowan. “Is that what people are saying?”

Rowan took a deep breath and shrugged, trying to make it seem like it was nothing, trying to backpedal. But it was too late for that. “It’s just a rumor.”

“And you think I might somehow be involved?”

“Are you?” asked Rowan.

Scythe Goddard stepped closer, seeming to look through Rowan’s facade to that dark, frigid place where he now dwel ed. “What are you accusing me of, boy?”

“Nothing, Your Honor. It’s just a question. To clear the air.” He tried to return the gaze, looking into Goddard’s own cold place, but he found it opaque and unfathomable.

“Consider the air cleared,” Goddard said, with a sarcastic lightness to his voice. “Look around you, Rowan. Do you think, for one instant, that I would jeopardize al of this by breaking the seventh commandment to rid the world of a washed-up old-guard scythe? Faraday gleaned himself because deep down, he knew it would be the most meaningful act he’d have performed in more than a hundred years. e time for his kind is over, and he knew it. And if your little girlfriend is trying to make a case for foul play, she’d better think twice before accusing me, because I could glean her whole family the day their immunity expires.”

“at would constitute malice, your honor,” said Rowan with polite resolve. “You could be charged with breaking the second commandment.”

For a moment Goddard looked ready to carve up Rowan then and there, but the fire in his eyes was swal owed by that unfathomable depth. “Always looking out for me, aren’t you?”

“I do my best, Your Honor.”

Goddard stared at him for a moment more, then said, “Tomorrow you train with pistols against moving targets. You’l render al but one of your

subjects deadish with a single bul et, or I wil personal y—without bias or malice—glean that party-boy friend of yours.”

“What?”

“Was I in any way unclear?”

“No, Your Honor. I . . . I understand.”

“And the next time you make an accusation, you’d better be damn sure it’s true and not just insulting.”

Goddard stormed away, letting his robe swel behind him like a cape. But before he was out of earshot he said, “Of course, if I did kil Scythe Faraday, I wouldn’t be so stupid as to admit it to you.”

• • •

“He’s just messing with you.”

Scythe Volta hung out with Rowan that evening in the game room, shooting pool. “But I do think you insulted him. I mean, kil ing another scythe? at never happens.”

“I think maybe it did.” Rowan took a shot, and missed the bal s completely. His head wasn’t in it. He couldn’t even remember if he was stripes or solids.

“I think maybe Citra is messing with you, too. Have you even considered that?” Volta took his shot, sinking both a striped bal and a solid, which didn’t help Rowan in knowing what he was going for. “I mean, look at you—

you’re a basket case. She’s playing head games with you and you don’t even see it!”

“She’s not like that,” said Rowan, choosing a striped bal and sinking it.

Apparently it was the right choice, because Volta let him play on.

“People change,” Volta said. “Especial y an apprentice. Being a scythe’s apprentice is al about change. Why do you think we give up our names and never use them again? It’s because by the time we’re ordained, we’re completely different people. Professional gleaners instead of candy-ass kids.

She’s working you like chewing gum.”

“And I broke her neck,” reminded Rowan. “So I guess we’re even.”

“You don’t want to be even. You want to go into Winter Conclave with a clear advantage—or at least feeling like you have one.”

Esme popped in just long enough to say, “I play the winner,” then le.

“Best argument for losing ever,” grumbled Volta.

“I should take her on my morning runs,” Rowan suggested. “She could use the exercise. It might get her into better shape.”

“True,” said Volta, “but she comes by her weight natural y. It’s genetic.”

“How would you know—”

And then Rowan got it. It was staring him in the face, but he was too close to see. “No! You’re kidding me!”

Volta shook his head nonchalantly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Xenocrates?”

“It’s your shot,” said Volta.

“If it came out that the High Blade had an il egitimate daughter, it would destroy him. He’d be in serious violation.”

“You know what would be even worse?” said Volta. “If the daughter that no one knew about got herself gleaned.”

Rowan ran a dozen things through this new lens. It al made sense now.

e way Esme was spared at the food court, the way she was treated—what was it Goddard had said? at she was the most important person he’d meet that day? e key to the future? “But she won’t get gleaned,” Rowan said.

“Not as long as Xenocrates does whatever Goddard says. Like jump in the deep end of a pool.”

Volta nodded slowly. “Among other things.”

Rowan took his shot and accidental y sunk the eight bal , ending the game.

“I win,” said Volta. “Damn. Now I’l have to play Esme.”

I am apprenticed to a monster. Scythe Faraday was right: Someone who enjoys kil ing should never be a scythe. It goes against everything the founders wanted. If this is what the Scythedom is turning into, someone has to stop it. But it can’t be me. Because I think I’m becoming a monster, too.

Rowan looked at what he wrote and careful y, quietly tore the page out, crumpled it, and tossed it into the flames of his bedroom fireplace. Goddard always read his journal. As Rowan’s mentor, it was his prerogative to do so. It had taken forever for Rowan to learn how to write his true thoughts, his true feelings. Now he had to learn to hide them again. It was a matter of survival.

So he picked up his pen and wrote a new official entry.

Today I kil ed twelve moving targets using only twelve bul ets, and saved the life of my friend. Scythe Goddard sure knows how to motivate someone to do

their best. There’s no denying that I’m get ing bet er.

I’m learning more and more each day, perfecting my mind, my body, and my aim. Scythe Goddard is proud of my progress. Someday I hope I can repay

him, and give him what he deserves in return for al he’s done for me.

29

They Cal ed It Prison

Scythe Curie hadn’t gleaned since conclave. Al her concern was on Citra.

“I’m entitled to some down time,” the scythe told her. “I have plenty of time to pick up the slack.”

It was at dinner on their first day back at Fal ing Water that Citra final y broached the subject she had been dreading.

“I have a confession to make,” Citra said five minutes into the meal.

Scythe Curie chewed and swal owed before she responded. “What kind of confession?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“I’m listening.”

Citra did her best to hold the woman’s cool gray gaze. “It’s something that I’ve been doing for some time. Something you don’t know about.”

e scythe’s lips screwed into a wry grin. “Do you honestly think there’s anything you do that I don’t know about?”

“I’ve been looking into the murder of Scythe Faraday.”

Scythe Curie actual y dropped her fork with a clatter. “You’ve been what?”

Citra told Scythe Curie everything. How she dug through the backbrain, how she painstakingly reconstructed Faraday’s moves on his last day. And how she found two of the five witnesses that were given immunity, suggesting, if not proving, that the act was committed by a scythe.

Scythe Curie was attentive to everything, and when Citra was done, she bowed her head and braced herself for the worst.

“I submit myself for disciplinary action,” Citra said.

“Disciplinary action,” said Scythe Curie with disgust in her voice, but that disgust was not aimed at Citra. “I should discipline myself for being so

inexcusably blind to what you were doing.”

Citra released a breath that she had been holding for the last twenty seconds.

“Have you told anyone else?” Scythe Curie asked.

Citra hesitated, then realized there was no sense in concealing it now. “I told Rowan.”

“I was afraid you’d say that. Tel me Citra, what did he do to you aer you told him? I’l tel you what he did—he broke your neck! I think that’s a very good indication of where he stands on this. You can bet that Scythe Goddard knows al about your little theory by now.”

Citra didn’t even want to consider whether or not that might be true.

“What we need to do is track down those witnesses and see if we can get any of them to talk.”

“Leave that to me,” Scythe Curie said. “You’ve done more than enough already. You need to clear it out of your head now, and focus on your studies and your training.”

“But if this real y is a scandal in the Scythedom—”

“—then your best possible position would be to achieve scythehood yourself, and fight it from the inside.”

Citra sighed. at’s what Rowan had said. Scythe Curie was even more stubborn than Citra, and when her mind was made up, there was no changing it. “Yes, Your Honor.” Citra went to her room but stil felt a definite sense that there was something Scythe Curie was holding back from her.

• • •

ey came for Citra the fol owing day. Scythe Curie had gone to the market, and Citra was doing what was expected of her. She was practicing kil cra

with knives of different sizes and weights, trying to remain balanced and graceful.

ere came a pounding on the door that made her drop the larger knife, almost stabbing her foot. ere was a moment of déjà vu, because it was the exact same sort of pounding that came in the middle of the night when Scythe Faraday had died. Urgent, loud, and relentless.

She le the larger blade on the ground, but concealed the smal one in a pocket sheath sewn into her pants. Whatever this was, she would not be

unarmed when she answered the door.

She pul ed open the door to reveal two officers of the BladeGuard, just as there had been that terrible night, and her heart sank.

“Citra Terranova?” one of the guardsmen asked.

“Yes?”

“I’m afraid you’l need to come with us.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

But they didn’t tel her, and this time there was no one with them to explain. en it occurred to her that this might not be what it seemed. How did she know that these were real y BladeGuardsmen at al ? Uniforms could be faked.

“Show me your badges!” she insisted. “I want to see your badges.”

Either they didn’t have any, or they didn’t want to be bothered with it, because one of them grabbed her.

“Maybe you didn’t hear me. I said come with us.”

Citra pul ed out of his grip, spun around, and for just an instant considered the knife sheathed on the side of her pants, but instead delivered a brutal kick to his neck that took him down. She coiled, prepared to attack the other one, but she was an instant too late. He pul ed out a jolt baton and jammed it into her side. Her own body suddenly became her enemy and she went down, hitting her head hard enough on the ground to knock her out.

When she came to, she was in a car, locked in the back, with a splitting headache that her pain nanites were struggling to subdue. She tried to li a hand to her face, but found her hands restrained. ere were steel clamps cinched on both hands and connected by a short chain. Some awful artifact from the Age of Mortality.

She pounded on the barrier between the front and back seats until final y one of the guardsmen turned to her, his gaze anything but peaceful.

“Do you want another jolt?” he threatened. “I’d be happy to give you one.

Aer what you did, I wouldn’t mind turning the voltage into the red.”

“What I did? I haven’t done anything! What am I being accused of?”

“An ancient crime cal ed murder,” he said. “e murder of Honorable Scythe Michael Faraday.”

• • •

No one read her rights. No one offered her an attorney for her defense. Such laws and customs were from a very different age. An age when crime was a fact of life, and entire industries were based on apprehending, trying, and punishing criminals. In a crime-free world, there was no modern precedent for how to deal with such a thing. Anything this complex and strange would usual y be le for the underhead to resolve—but this was a scythe matter, which meant the underhead would not interfere. Citra’s fate was entirely in the hands of High Blade Xenocrates.

She was brought to his residence, the log cabin in the middle of a wel -

kept lawn that spread across the roof of a one hundred nineteen–story building.

She sat in a hard wooden chair. e cuffs on her hands were too tight, and her pain nanites were fighting a losing battle to quel the ache.

Xenocrates stood before her, eclipsing the light. is time Xenocrates was neither kind nor comforting.

“I don’t think you realize how serious this charge against you is, Miss Terranova.”

“I know how serious it is. I also know it’s ridiculous.”

e High Blade didn’t respond to that. She struggled in the blasted things cuffing her hands. What kind of world would make such a device? What sort of world would need one?

en out of the shadows stepped another scythe, robed in earthtone brown and forest green. Scythe Mandela.

“Final y, someone reasonable!” said Citra. “Scythe Mandela, please help me! Please tel him I’m not guilty!”

Scythe Mandela shook his head. “I’l do nothing of the sort, Citra,” he said sadly.

“Talk to Scythe Curie! She knows I didn’t do this!”

“is is too sensitive a situation to involve Scythe Curie at this time,” said Xenocrates. “She wil be informed once we’ve determined your guilt.”

“Wait—you mean she doesn’t know where I am?”

“She knows we’ve detained you,” said Xenocrates. “We’re sparing her the details for now.”

Scythe Mandela sat in a chair across from her. “We know you’ve been in the backbrain, attempting to erase records of Scythe Faraday’s movements on the day he died, to foil our own internal investigation.”

“No! at’s not what I was doing!” But the more she denied it, the more guilty she appeared.

“But that’s not the most damning evidence,” said Scythe Mandela. en he looked to Xenocrates. “May I show her?”

Xenocrates nodded, and Mandela pul ed out from his robe a sheet of paper, putting it in one of Citra’s cuffed hands. She raised it to read it, not even imagining what it could be. It was a copy of a handwritten journal entry. Citra recognized the handwriting. ere was no question it was Scythe Faraday’s. And as she read, her heart sank to a place she didn’t know existed in this, or any other world.

I fear I’ve made a dreadful mistake. An apprentice should never be chosen in haste, but I was foolish. I felt a need to impart al I know, al I’ve learned. I sought to increase the al ies I have in the Scythedom who think as I do.

She comes to my door at night. I hear her in the darkness, and can only guess her intentions. Only once did I catch her entering my room.

Had I actual y been asleep, who can say what she might have done?

I am concerned that she may mean to end me. She’s shrewd, determined, calculating, and I’ve taught her the many arts of kil ing far too wel . Let it be known that if death befal s me, it is not the result of self-gleaning. Should my life be brought to an unexpected end, it wil be her hand, not mine, that bears the blame.

Citra found her eyes fil ing with tears of anguish and betrayal. “Why?

Why would he write this?” Now she was beginning to doubt her own sanity.

“ere’s real y only one reason, Citra,” said Scythe Mandela.

“Our own investigation has ascertained that the witnesses were bribed to lie about what truly occurred. Further, their identities have been tampered with, and we can’t locate them.”

“Bribed!” said Citra, holding on to a last thread of hope. “Yes! ey were bribed with immunity! Which proves it couldn’t have been me! It could only have been another scythe!”

“We tracked the source of the immunity,” said Scythe Mandela. “Whoever kil ed Scythe Faraday also gave him one final insult. Aer he was dead, the

kil er defeated the security measures on Faraday’s ring, and used it to grant the witnesses immunity.”

“Where’s the ring, Citra?” demanded Xenocrates.

She couldn’t look him in the face anymore. “I don’t know.”

“I only have one question for you, Citra,” said Scythe Mandela. “Why did you do it? Did you despise his methods? Are you working for a tone cult?”

Citra kept her eyes cast down to the damning journal entry in her hands.

“None of those things.”

Scythe Mandela shook his head and stood up. “In al my years as a scythe, I’ve never seen such a thing,” he said. “You disgrace us al .” en he le her alone with Xenocrates.

e High Blade paced silently for a few moments. Citra wouldn’t look at him.“ere is this concept I’ve been studying from the Age of Mortality,” he informed her. “It is a number of procedures designed to uncover truths. I believe it is pronounced ‘tor-turé.’ It would involve turning off your pain nanites, and then inflicting high levels of physical suffering until you final y confess the truth of what you’ve done.”

Citra said nothing. She stil couldn’t process any of this. She didn’t know if she ever would.

“Please don’t misunderstand,” said Xenocrates. “I have no intent of submitting you to tor-turé. at is only a last resort.” en he pul ed out another piece of paper and put it down on his desk.

“If you sign this confession, we can avoid any more mortal-age unpleasantness.”

“Why should I have to sign anything? I’ve already been tried, and . . .

what’s the word? Convicted.”

“A confession wil remove al doubt. We would al sleep much easier if you’d be so kind as to remove the specter of doubt.” Now Xenocrates final y offered her a sympathetic smile.

“And if I sign it, what then?”

“Wel , Scythe Faraday did grant you immunity until Winter Conclave.

Immunity is nonrevocable, even in a case such as this. erefore, you wil be held in an incarceration facility until that time.”

“A what?”

“ey were cal ed ‘prisons.’ ere are stil a few le—abandoned, of course, but it shouldn’t be to hard to restore one to house a single prisoner.

en, at Winter Conclave, your friend Rowan shal be ordained, and, as has already been stipulated, he shal glean you. I’m sure, knowing what we know now, he’l have no reservations in doing so.”

Citra looked morosely down at the page on the table next to her. “I can’t sign it,” she told him.

“Oh yes, of course, you need a pen.” He reached into various pockets of his gilded person until finding one. As he moved to place it on the table next to her, Citra thought of half a dozen places she could jam it into him that would either render him deadish, or at least incapacitated. But what would be the point? ere were BladeGuard officers in the next room, and she could see even more on the porch through the front window.

He gently laid the pen down within her reach, then cal ed Mandela back in to witness her signature. As soon as the door to the cabin opened, Citra realized there was only one way out of this situation. Only one thing she could do. It might not buy her anything but time, but right now time was the most valuable commodity in the world.

She feigned to reach for the pen, but instead swung her bound hands in the other direction, slamming them into Xenocrates’s gut.

He folded with an “oomf,” and she sprang from her chair, ramming her shoulder against Mandela, knocking him backward and out the front door.

She leaped over him, and immediately a swarm of guards came at her. Now she needed every ounce of her training. Her hands were cuffed, but Bokator was more about elbows and legs than it was about hands. She didn’t need to decimate them, al she needed to do was disarm them and keep them off balance. One came at her with a jolt baton that she kicked out of his hand.

Another had a club, which missed its mark as she dodged, and she used his momentum to flip him onto his back. Two others didn’t waste time with weapons; they lunged for her, hands outstretched—a textbook case of how not to attack. She dropped to the lawn, swung her feet, and bowled them down like pins.

And then she began to run.

“ere’s nowhere you can go, Citra!” cal ed Xenocrates.

But he was wrong.

Forcing strength and speed into her legs, she ran across the rooop lawn.

ere was no guardrail, because the High Blade wanted nothing to impede his view of his domain.

Citra neared the edge, and rather than slowing down, she increased her pace, until the grass was gone and there was nothing but one hundred nineteen floors of air beneath her. She held her cuffed hands over her head, grimacing against the wind and the uneasy feel of freefal , and plummeted feet first, surrendering her wil to gravity, relishing her defiance, until her life ended for the second time in a week, this time with what was undoubtedly the best splat ever.

• • •

is was unexpected and inconvenient, but it changed nothing. Xenocrates didn’t even run out to the edge. at would just be wasting time.

“e girl has a spark,” said Mandela. “Do you real y think she’s working for a tone cult?”

“I doubt we’l ever understand her motives,” Xenocrates told him. “But removing her wil certainly help the Scythedom heal.”

“Poor Marie must be beside herself,” said Mandela. “To have lived with the girl for months, and not known.”

“Yes, wel , Scythe Curie’s a strong woman,” Xenocrates said. “She’l get over it.”

He had his guards cal down to the lobby. e site of Citra Terranova’s remains was to be cordoned off until her unpleasant little self could be scraped off the sidewalk and brought to a revival center. It would have been so much cleaner if she could just stay dead. Damn the immunity rules! Wel , when she was once more pronounced alive, she would find herself in a cel with no possible means of escape, and more importantly, no contact with anyone who might take up her cause and petition for her freedom.

Xenocrates went to the express elevator, not trusting his security detail to handle the situation down below. “Wil you accompany me, Nelson?”

“I’l stay here,” said Mandela. “I have no desire to see the poor girl in such an unpleasant state.”

• • •

Xenocrates assumed this would be a simple scrape-and-soar maneuver—

and indeed, an ambudrone had already landed on the street ready to spirit away what was le of Citra. But something wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t his security detail surrounding her remains; instead, there were at least a dozen men and women, al in cloud-colored suits, forming a circle around her.

Nimbus agents! ey ignored the threats and jeers from the BladeGuard officers who insisted that they needed to get through.

“What’s going on here?” Xenocrates demanded.

“e damn Nims!” said one of the guardsmen. “ey were already here when we came outside. ey won’t let us near the body.”

Xenocrates pushed his way through his security detail and addressed a woman who appeared to be the head Nimbus agent. “See here! I am High Blade Xenocrates. is is scythe business, and as such, you and the rest of your Nimbus agents have no place here. Yes, the law states she must be revived, but we shal bring her to a revival center. e underhead has absolutely no jurisdiction.”

“On the contrary,” the woman said. “Al revival fal s under the auspices of the underhead, and we are here to make sure its domain is not infringed upon.”

Xenocrates sputtered for a moment, before finding mental traction. “e girl is not a public citizen. She is a scythe’s apprentice.”

“Was a scythe’s apprentice,” said the woman. “e moment she died, she ceased to be anyone’s apprentice. She is now a rather damaged set of remains that the underhead must repair and revive. I assure you that the moment she is pronounced alive, she wil be ful y under your jurisdiction once more.”

A team of revival workers made their way from the ambu-drone and began to prepare the body for transport.

“is is inexcusable!” raved the High Blade. “You can’t do this! I demand to speak to your superior.”

“I’m afraid I report directly to the underhead. We al do. And since there can be no contact between the Scythedom and the underhead, there’s no one else for you to speak to. I shouldn’t even be speaking to you now.”

“I wil glean you!” threatened Xenocrates. “I wil glean every last one of you where you stand!”

e woman was not troubled. “at is your prerogative,” she said. “But I believe that would be considered bias and malice aforethought. A violation of the Scythedom’s second commandment by the region’s High Blade would most certainly raise eyebrows at the World Scythe Council’s next global conclave.”

With nothing le to say, Xenocrates just screamed primal rage into the woman’s face until his emo-nanites calmed him down. But he didn’t want to calm down. He just wanted to scream and scream and scream.

Part Four

MIDMERICAN FUGITIVE

30

Dialogue with the Dead

Citra Terranova. Can you hear me?

Is someone there? Who is that?

I’ve known you since before you

knew yourself. I’ve advised you

when no one else could. I’ve

concerned myself with your wel -

being. I’ve helped you choose gis