Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Crown’s footsteps echoed across the tiles as she fled the room.

Then, they were alone.

Camilla looked up and saw Palamedes’ smile on Tern’s perfect mouth. It put her in the mind of the Ninth’s skeleton face paint all those months ago, like the Warden was peering out from behind a costume.

“I admit,” Palamedes said. “This is not quite what I had in mind when I imagined seeing you again.”

“Hijacking the Third cavalier’s corpse?” Camilla asked. “Or the stab wound?”

“The former. The stab wound is typical of our current luck, I’m afraid to say.” His eyebrows still scrunched up in the same worried way they always had, but filtered through Tern’s round schoolboy features.

Camilla was still kneeling on the cold stone floor, her hands wrapped tightly around her middle. She was filled with bright, hot, terror — warm like the blood leaking between her fingers — deeply and quietly afraid that if she let go, she might fall into so many pieces on the floor.

Palamedes, who could read her the way nobody else in the world could, reached out and put his cold hands on her shoulders. She was trembling a little under his grip. “Cam,” he said. “Let me. Please.”

Camilla nodded wordlessly and let him guide her by the shoulders until she was resting in his lap. “There you go,” he said. “In for five and then uncross your arms, alright? I’ve got you.”

She closed her eyes, not so much in anticipation, but because when her eyes were closed this all felt deeply and comfortingly familiar, bleeding from some wound while her necromancer’s steady hands looked her over. Only the smell was wrong, hair gel and formaldehyde instead of books and dust.

“In for five,” the Warden said again.

She breathed in and uncrossed her arms. The flood of warmth was immediate, at contrast with the rest of her, which was cold and growing colder. Then the Warden’s whole weight pressing against her, holding all the pieces of her together. “Oh, this’ll be alright, Cam,” he said to her, low and steady. “It’s just a flesh wound.”

“Don’t make me laugh, Warden,” Cam said. “My insides will come outside.” The pain was shining and brilliant, nearly too much to comprehend.

“Understood, Scholar.” She heard the sharp snip of scissors as he cut away what was left of her bloody, ruined clothes. “Missed the pelvis, like you said. Missed the femoral artery. Can you hold pressure here for a moment?” He guided her hands to somewhere on her abdomen. “Perfect. There’s some iodine here….”

It’s him, Camilla thought, in wonder and in blood loss. It’s really him.

She let herself drift in the tide of his words as he muttered quietly to himself. Eventually, the Warden put one cold hand on her cheek. “Cam? I need you to stay with me.”

She opened her eyes. Worryingly, this took some effort on her part. “I’m right here,” she said, finding his gaze and holding it, her own dark eyes staring back at her.

“Course you are,” he said. “You always are." Then he frowned and added, "Camilla, I have nothing to give you for the pain, and I’m afraid this next part is going to hurt like hell.”

“Sure,” Camilla said. “Figured that was coming.”

“You’re welcome to sound a little bit angrier with me, if you’d like,” he offered politely. “Here, let me…,” he patted around his borrowed clothes and finally pulled off the prince’s white scarf and wadded it up. “Bite down on this.”

Camilla had been a swordswoman long enough to know that nothing good followed the sentence bite down on this. She accepted the wad of fabric, even though it tasted like perfume, because she liked her tongue and would rather keep it in one piece. Then she closed her eyes again.

“I’ll be quick,” the Warden promised. “Hang in there.”

The world dissolved into stars and stars and white-hot pain.

Many times in her life, Camilla Hect had thought she’d reached the limits of the human capacity for pain. She’d broken bones and shredded tendons. She’d been stabbed by a demigod and electrocuted by rebels and shot by terrorists. She’d been betrayed by an imposter wearing Dulcie’s face and unwittingly led her family into Blood of Eden’s trap. She had stood over bloodied pieces of the Warden, picking up scraps of his skeleton, eaten by the guilt of knowing he’d died to save her. So many times, she’d thought this is it. No one can hurt like this and still wake up the next day and keep living.

She’d been stabbed in the gut by Ianthe the First. The Warden was with her, wearing the body of stranger, so agonizingly close and still trapped painfully far away. Surely no one can hurt like this and keep living.

But every time so far, she’d been wrong. Her capacity for pain kept growing. The world kept turning. She woke up the next day and she ate breakfast. Today would not be an exception. Her own words echoed in her head. I don’t let go. It’s my one thing.

She lived a long and unending moment of pain. It could have been seconds or hours, floating in white hot nothingness. Then she heard a high, sharp sound and she gripped onto it with all her might and dragged herself back to the world.

Very close to her ear, someone was saying, “It’s alright, Cam. Dear one, I’m right here. It’s over, brave girl. I’m right here.”

She realized that the high sound was her own scream, coming from her own bloody throat. It faded into a shaky breath, and she spat the scarf out of her mouth. “Sorry,” she said weakly.

Palamedes was cradling her in his arms. “Don’t you dare apologize to me, Camilla Hect,” the Warden said, pressing his forehead briefly into hers, “You were brilliant.” He brushed her sweaty fringe out of her eyes, ran one hand down her cheek. “You’re freezing,” he noted. Carefully, without jostling her, he slid out of Naberius’ white jacket and draped it over her.

Some small part of her brain was relieved he’d thought to do that before Coronabeth came back. “Thanks,” she said. “Help me up?”

“Absolutely not,” he said, still fussing over her sweaty hair. Then he added, more gently, “The others aren’t back yet. It’s just us. You can rest.”

Camilla found that all her fight had left her. She closed her eyes again. “Alright. Don’t let me pass out again.” She reached out blindly and took his other hand in hers. A tether. An anchor.

“I won’t,” he said. “I promise.”

Chapter Text

Back at the Edenite base, a medic had made Camilla lie down. The laying down itself was fine, but it introduced the agonizing eventuality of standing back up again.

“I can’t do any better on the dressings,” the medic said. “But we do have morphine.” He was one of a hundred faceless soldiers, his faced mostly obscured by a surgical mask.

“I don’t need morphine,” Camilla said.

“Cam, don’t be absurd,” the Warden said, his tone dangerously close to chastising.

“I need my head clear,” she insisted.

“I think you’ll find the blood loss will make your head un-clear, regardless of the morphine,” the BOE medic cut in.

So it was two-on-one. Camilla didn’t love those odds when her necromancer was one of the two.

“Please Cam,” the Warden tried again. “I’m hurting just looking at you.” Which was brutally unfair but effective.

So the medic administered painkillers with the efficiency of someone who really, really wanted to get away from the walking corpse of Naberius Tern, and rushed off to attend to some other matter.

“Help me up,” Camilla said.

The Warden looked like he might argue, but let Cam grasp one of his harms and levered her upright. Regrettably, the drugs had not yet kicked in, and the agonizing eventuality of standing up was just as bad as she’d anticipated. Black spots filled her vision while her knees drew perilously close to giving in, and she leaned hard into Tern’s slim form.

“Easy,” the Warden said, steadying her. “I’ve got you.”

“I know,” Camilla said, struggling not to pass out. “I’m good.” The pain didn’t matter. They had work to do.

Palamedes pursed his lips, but heroically managed not to say anything sarcastic. “Listen — you need to talk to Gideon. About the tomb.”

Cam considered this. “Why not you?”

“I think she’s more likely to trust you — cavalier to cavalier,” Palamedes said. Then, he added, “And, you aren’t puppeting the body of a dead person, which makes for a less stressful atmosphere for everyone involved.”

Which, fair enough. And so Camilla found herself separated from her necromancer (again), in a truck, high on painkillers, and sitting across from the mostly-dead Gideon Nav.

At first she’d tried to sit up, in an effort to retain some semblance of dignity. But she quickly realized that the drugs were making her quite dizzy, and that her abdominal muscles were not reacting well to the sway of the truck, and she decided to have a bit of a lie down instead.

Gideon was laid out parallel to her on the seat opposite, her cold amber eyes fixed on Camilla. “Are you…smiling?” She asked.

Camilla said, “I dunno. I can’t feel my face. Warden gave me painkillers.” She hadn’t really noticed the moment the drugs had started to kick in. It had crept up on her slowly, like boiling water, but the kick was undeniable now.

“Holy shit,” Gideon said. “You’re high as tits. Oh my God.”

“Only —” Camilla lifted one hand and, with some concentration, held her fingers apart in an attempted approximation “—a little bit.”

“This is the weirdest day of my life,” Gideon said. “And let me tell you, that bar is high. I can’t believe Sextus got you high and then left you with me. Not his style at all.”

“S’all part of the plan,” Camilla said. She closed her eyes as the world started spinning again. Focus.not the most tactful approach.

Blunt, but it had the effect Camilla was aiming for. There was a glint in Gideon’s eye’s when she said, “Sure.”

Camilla waited, watching Gideon’s face.

“I don’t care,” Gideon added, in obvious self-justification.

Cam said, “Okay.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” Gideon said. “Don’t act like you can call my bluff. You don’t even know me.”

“I know what it means to be a cavalier,” Camilla said.

“I’m not —“

“I was there,” Camilla interrupted, surprised by her own earnestness. “I was there when you died, when you killed Cytherea the First. Tell yourself whatever, but don’t pretend I wasn’t there.”

They were both silent, maybe for a long time. Camilla couldn’t really tell. They drove without stopping, winding in long, steady curves underneath the city. Thousands of pounds of earth above them, just like home. Sometimes the sun was too bright, the colors too bold. Sometimes she missed the buzz of fluorescents.

“Cam,” Gideon finally said. “If she isn’t Harrow, who is she?”

Camilla held up one hand for pause. She took a moment to collate her thoughts, realizing this was a speech that would require many words, and that those words would probably need to go in order.

“Thought she might be you. Or Nonagesimus. Or both, somehow, that she had figured out… the Warden’s formula. The end to what he started. Maybe misapprehended the process. But I don’t think so, anymore.” This made Camilla’s mouth feel very dry, so she turned her head back toward the ceiling and closed her eyes again.

“Follow up question, then. Since that’s not Harrow, where the fuck is she?”

“That—” Camilla pointed to the ceiling for emphasis “—is the question to bring down the thesis.” Pause. “Sixth House, joke.” Pause. “I guess.”

“How long until those drugs wear off?” Gideon asked. Her tone indicated barely restrained violence.

“No idea,” Camilla said. “Probably when I die.”

“Hokay. Awesome. Fantastic. Am I going to get any useful information out of you in the meantime?”

Camilla considered this. “Yes.”

Gideon made a little go on gesture with one hand, the hand with the funny bracelet visible under the sleeve of her jacket.

“We don’t know who Nona is, but Pyrrha has… relevant theories.” The truck hit a pothole, and Camilla’s whole body flinched as she bounced again the seat.

“What kind of theories?” Gideon asked. Her voice was less suspicious and more…desperate.

Camilla said, “How much do you know about the body in the Locked tomb?”

Camilla was grateful when they finally rattled to a stop a half hour later — it gave her an excuse to stop talking. Her mouth was dry and her sides ached with effort, but she’d gained more information for the Warden, and that was worth any effort.

The truck sat there stalling long enough that worry began to tug on the corner of her mind. They still needed to find the Oversight Body. Had something happened to the other truck? Where was the Warden? She needed to see —

The door of the truck swung open with a satisfying series of clunks. “Take care of Nona,” a voice adjacent to familiar said, just barely audible outside the truck. “I’ll see — yes I believe I can manage my own cavalier, Dve. One thing at a time.” Then, “Cam?”

Relief flooded through her, more potent than any painkiller. “You miss me?” She called back, turning her head toward the light flooding in from the tunnels.

“Sextus,” Gideon said as Palamedes walked up the ramp. “If your cav tries to walk off this truck herself, she’s going to keel the fuck over. And I think Naberius is too twinky to carry her.”

Camilla shot Gideon the best death glare she could manage under the circumstances. “I’ll manage, Warden. Just need an arm up.”

“You sure Ianthe didn’t stab you in the brain, Hect?” Gideon asked. “Seriously Sextus, I’ve got more color than her.”

“Thank you for your input, Gideon,” Palamedes said briskly. He knelt on the floor of truck until his eyes — her eyes — were level with Camilla’s.

“Warden,” Camilla said, panic beginning to nag at her. “The Oversight Body.”

“They’ve got the convoy stopped a hundred yards ahead. We Suffer is holding us back in here in case there’s crossfire.” He took her wrist in his hand, holding two cold fingers on the soft skin of her pulse point. It made her ache, a little bit. The feeling was almost right, almost Palamedes. But the Warden’s hands had always been so warm. “It should all be finished in a few minutes, so don’t worry yourself. Coronabeth is with them.”

“Not as reassuring as you think it is,” Camilla said. “Nona?”

“With Pyrrha,” he said. He paused, still holding his wrist in her hand. “You’re tachycardic,” he said, then pinched her thumbnail. “And capillary refill is delayed. You’re still losing blood, and I can’t check properly for internal bleeds. How do you feel?”

“Great,” Camilla said.

“I am not amused here, Cam. And your hands are freezing.” He called out past the ramp, “Can someone get me a blanket? Or something?”

“I’m fine, Warden,” Camilla said. She was finding it hard to speak above a whisper. “Help me sit up.”

“Not happening,” Palamedes said.

Gideon said, “Told you so.”

“Really, sincerely, not the time, Nav,” Palamedes said. Outside the truck, shots rang out — crack, crack, crack — echoing across the tunnel walls. A pause, then the rapid pop, pop, pop of machine gun fire. The other truck, the Oversight Body.

“Kiana,” Camilla breathed. “Warden, I should be there.”

“She’s going to be fine,” Palamedes said, taking both of Camilla’s hands in his. “It’ll be over in a moment.”

The three of them sat without speaking for one minute, three minutes, five minutes. Gunfire rattled and popped, but it was occasional, intermittent. Not the ceaseless noise of a heavy firefight, a sound Camilla had learned to discern through the walls of their tiny bathroom. That felt far away now. A lifetime ago.

Then Camilla heard someone (Pash, maybe) shout, “All clear!” and We Suffer rounded the back of the truck. Gideon had returned to her excellent impression of being entirely dead (rather than mostly dead).

“What happened?” Palamedes said instantly.

“The convoy is secure,” We Suffer said. “They are working on the doors now, making sure Merv Wing did not leave us any exciting surprises before we open them. We should have your people out in a few minutes.”

Camilla sighed with relief, and then found that action disagreed with her abdomen. “We need to go to them.”

“Cam,” the Warden said, in a very gentle voice that Camilla loathed, “You cannot walk right now.”

“Ah yes,” We Suffer said. “I have thought ahead.” She produced a contraption of criss-crossing poles, which she unfolded into a small, wheeled chair. “For you,” she said with a nod. “I know a thing or two about gut wounds, Hect. Try not to overdo it. We do not have the numbers to spare.”

Camilla slid into the chair with minimal assistance, and the Warden eased her down the ramp of the truck. The tunnel was massive, with ceilings higher than the supermarket near their building and wide enough for six lanes of traffic. A harsh, blue glow puddled around the lights in the ceiling, and the concrete below was damp and muddy with tire tracks.

A few of the Sixth were already making their way out of the truck by the time the Warden had wheeled her down the tunnel. Whichever non-adepts aboard were still well enough to walk under their own power were milling around the bottom of the ramp. She saw faces she recognized — Seis, Cinque, and then —

Kiki stepped out of the truck. She and Cam locked eyes across the echoing, empty tunnel for one second, two seconds. Then Kiana closed the distance between them in four long strides — determined and efficient, never panicked — and dropped to her knees in front of Cam’s chair.

“You’re alive,” Camilla said, her voice heavy with relief. The lines of Kiki’s face were so familiar, so kind to see after months surrounded by strangers in masks and hoods and goggles, after months of picturing Kiki dead or hurt or worse every time Cam closed her eyes.

Kiana’s lashes were wet, but her face was totally composed. She leaned in and pressed her forehead to Camilla’s. “So are you,” she whispered. “Thank God, so are you.” Then she sat back and braced Cam’s shoulders with both her hands, as if to steady her or pin her in place. “Everyone is — well we’re all a little worse for wear. But we’re okay.”

Cam wrapped one hand around Kiki’s left wrist, letting her thumb trace the familiar scar just under her thumb. “We tried to stop them, Kiki,” Camilla said. The drugs were starting to wear off, and sharp, rough-edged thoughts kept jumping to the front of her brain and then fading away again. “I’m sorry. I tried to stop them.”

“Don’t,” Kiana said firmly. “Not your fault.” She looked Camilla up and down and said, “You’re hurt. What happened?”

“Got a little stabbed,” Camilla said. “I’m fine.”

“You need a necromancer,” she insisted.

Palamedes said, “We’re working on it.”

Kiki looked up, as if she’d just realized they weren’t alone. “And who are you, then?”

“It’s alright, Kiki,” Camilla protested. “It’s —“

“It’s me, Kiana,” Pal said. “It’s the Warden. I’m — ah — just borrowing the outfit. So to speak.”

Kiki gave Camilla the look that meant is he fucking serious right now and Camilla returned with a look of unfortunately, yes and Kiki sighed and said, “Well, this might as well happen. Lord over the bloody River.”

“Typical necromantic fuckery,” Camilla agreed.

“If we can all stay alive for the next few days, I’ll show you my notes,” Palamedes offered. “The theory is really very interesting.”

Kiki did not dignify that offer with a response. Instead, she fixed her gaze on him and said, “You were supposed to bring her back to me in one piece.” Her tone was neutral — an observation more than an accusation — but Camilla could see the fire in her eyes.

Before Cam could say anything in his defense, the Warden said, “I’m sorry, Kiana.”

She did not yield a single inch to that apology. “You gave me your word, Warden.”

Palamedes said, “I know I did, and I’m not going to do you the indignity of trying to make excuses. I assure you, the only person in this room angrier at me right now is myself.”

It occurred to Cam that they weren’t discussing some hypothetical responsibility — this was a follow up conversation. Palamedes really had given his word, under Kiana’s unflinching gaze, to bring her back from Canaan House. Their house had tasked Camilla with protecting him. Only Kiana — only her older sister — would have dared ask him to protect her. It made Camilla a bit dizzy to think about.

Kiana kept her eyes fixed on the Warden. The Warden didn’t flinch under her gaze. Camilla, low on blood and high on opioids, felt entirely unprepared to watch the unstoppable force of her necromancer hit the immovable object that was her sister.

But then Kiana sighed and glanced back at Cam. “We have more pressing problems right now,” she said in tones that made it clear further reckoning was only temporarily postponed. “You two better come with me. You’ll need to fill the Archivist in.”

Chapter Text

Pyrrha knelt by Camilla’s chair, looked her up and down, and frowned. Her hair had grown in and there was a reasonable half-inch of red fuzz tracing over her scalp. They’d missed haircut day. “How are you holding up, Hect?” She asked with uncharacteristic softness.

Camilla suspected she was being fussed over. She resented this, but her resentment was steadily decreasing proportionate to her blood volume. “I’m fine,”she said. “It’s cold down here.”

Pyrrha rested one hand on Cam’s cheek and her hand felt hot as fire. “Damn, yeah, you’re freezing. One second.” She leapt back into the boot of the truck, clanged around for a minute, and returned with a crinkled, foil blanket and a bottle of water.

“How’s Nona?” Cam asked.

Pyrrha tucked the blanket around Cam’s legs. “She’s fine, as far as Sextus and I can tell. Sleeping. Here, tuck your hands under here, too. That should help.”

“Thanks.”

“Here, drink.” Pyrrha tipped the bottle of water to Cam’s parched lips. Her stomach roiled in immediate revulsion — an unfortunate side-effect of the morphine — but she managed to get a few sips down. “There, ‘atta girl. Do you need more painkillers?”

“The Warden just gave me some,” Camilla said. “I don’t need to be coddled, Pyrrha.”

“If you took a look around, I think you’d see that nobody is coddling you.” Pyrrha said, with equal parts affection and exasperation. “Once we get one of these Sixth bigwigs up and moving we’ll find someone to patch you up, I’m sure.”

“Sure,” Camilla said. The Warden and Kiana had just left in mind of that exact goal. But Camilla was looking at the hunched forms of her House — of her family, of her friends — milling around in the darkness, wheeled on gurneys and propped up against walls. She’d already come to the conclusion everyone else was avoiding: nobody was coming to rescue her. She was dying. Anything they did now was merely delaying the inevitable.

Really, she was mostly mad that she’d given Ianthe the goddamn satisfaction.

“Just hang in there,” Pyrrha said. The comment didn’t quite feel directed at Camilla. “Just a little bit longer.”

“Camilla? Cam? Can you look at me, Cam?”

With effort, she blinked her eyes open. For a moment the images in front of her didn’t make sense, and panic pooled in her stomach. Tern’s face. Icy, buzzing lights. The sharp smell of gasoline. Then the last few hours coalesced in her mind. She was still in the wheelchair, her head lolled back on the cold concrete wall of the tunnel.

“Palamedes,” she whispered, calmed by the recognition of him.

He scrunched up Tern’s eyebrows in concern. It was such a familiar Palamedes’ expression that it almost made Camilla smile. “Cam,” he said, almost pleading. “I need you to stay awake.”

“I’m so tired, Warden.”

He reached out and held her face in both of Naberius’ cold hands. “I know, Cam. You’ve done so well — mad, stubborn, lovely girl — you’ve been brilliant. But if you fall asleep now I’m very afraid you won’t wake up again.”

She was not very afraid of this, because she was certain it was true. “Warden,”she said, some urgency rising through the haze of the drugs and pain and nausea to grip her. “We’re running out of options.”

“Shh,” he said. He lifted a water bottle to her lips, the plastic crinkling in his hands. “Try and drink something.”

“No,” Camilla said flatly. “I’ll puke on you.”

“Unfortunate side effect of the painkillers,” the Warden muttered, mostly to himself. “Damn. I wish I could get IV fluids set up. I wonder what the Edenites would have…?” He pressed his fingers to her wrist and frowned at her pulse.

“Palamedes,” Cam said, insisting. “Look at me.” He quit his fiddling and held his gaze on hers. “IV won’t do any good.” Then she repeated, “We’re running out of options.

And the hurt she felt when his face crumpled in on itself, despair etched into every line, was a kind of pain no morphine could touch. “Cam, please —“

“No other choices. Backs against the wall.” She paused, struggling for words. “You promised, Warden. If it came to this, you promised.”

He understood. He always understood. After letting out a long and unsteady exhale he said, “I know. We can — I’ll need to find the Archivist first, and I’ll need you to help me run some numbers. But Cam — I know. Just hang on a little longer. For me.”

“I always do,” Camilla said.

He pressed a cold hand to her cold cheek, and he looked at her with so much gentle fondness filtering through Tern’s features that it made her ache. “I’m well aware.” He brushed a thumb across her cheek and then called over his shoulder, “Kiana? Do you have a moment?”

Her sister loped over — everything so familiar in her calm, even strides — and Camilla watched her eyebrows immediately knit together with concern.

“Didn’t think I looked that bad,” Camilla said.

Kiana looked at her, then look at Palamedes. “A time like this and she’s making jokes?”

“You’re telling me,” Palamedes sighed. “I need to find Zeta. And talk to her about maths, so that’s probably the most treacherous risk I’ll be undertaking today. You both stay here. Kiana —” he glanced at her “— keep Cam awake until I get back.”

Kiana dragged an empty crate across the concrete floor and settled herself next to Camilla’s wheelchair. Cam gave into the childlike urge to reach out and run her hand along the buzzed side of Kiki’s hair, savoring the fuzzy, prickling feeling it left on her fingers. The very edge of Kiki’s mouth curled up in an indulgent smile.

“You’re really okay?” Camilla asked.

“I’m fine. Mostly hungry.” She paused, considering. “And worried about you.” Camilla apparently did not look convinced, because she added, “They didn’t hurt us.”

“Saves me the trouble of killing them,” Cam said.

Kiana fidgeted a bit with the crinkly silver blanket, tucking it a little tighter around Cam’s legs. “I could make you do sums, if that would help keep you awake.”

“Hard pass,” Camilla said.

She ran a hand of her Cam’s arm, checking her over for cuts and bruises, like she’d done when Cam first started practicing at Swordsman Spire. Not a necromancer’s touch — the Warden would have put one hand on her shoulder with his eyes closed and said put some ice on that bruise — but searching patiently, analytically. “Some of these are new,” she observed, brushing one hand against Camilla’s shoulder, over the twisted knot of scar tissue Cytherea the First had etched into her skin.

“It’s been a long year.”

Kiana was very calm when she said, “I always worried that they’d put you on the front. You were so strong. I always saw it, even before they did. When the Warden made you his cavalier I was so relieved, because it meant you’d be safe. I thought he’d keep you safe.”

“He did, Kiki,” Camilla said. She thought of all the nights she’d laid awake in their apartment, wondering if Kiana was okay. She wondered how many of those nights Kiki was turning the same restless thoughts over in her own mind. “He did keep me safe. He saved my life about three times over, and then died for me just to make sure the first three tries stuck.” This was a lot of words for both of them.

Kiana smiled, just a little bit, and it was the saddest goddamn smile Camilla had ever seen. “He never did anything halfway.” Then she paused and added, “Actually, scratch that. The only thing he ever did halfway was die — and thank God for that, I suppose.”

“This was my choice,” Camilla said. “It was always my choice, to do this.” Then she added, quietly, “Kiki I — I’m glad I got to see you again.”

“Don’t,” Kiana said. She pressed her teeth softly into her chapped lower lip. “We’re all getting out of this. You two will come up with a plan. You always do.”

But in all the choices in front of Camilla, there were deaths. Nona’s, the Sixth’s, the planet’s, the Warden’s, her own. Any plan to save one sacrificed another. How to explain to her sister that she had already chosen what path she would follow — that she had chosen eight years ago when she had said one flesh, one end. “We have a plan,” Camilla finally said. “You won’t like it.”

Kiki leaned back. She kept one hand tightly wrapped around Cam’s wrist, but her eyes were very far away. “He swore to me he’d protect you.”

“It’s my choice,” Camilla repeated. The drugs were fading fast now, and every word hurt more than the last. “Let me choose Kiana. For you. For the Sixth House. For him.”

“But not for yourself,” Kiana said.

Camilla had no response to that.

Kiana sighed, just the tiniest of exhales, and released her grip on her sister’s shoulders. “If I had the power to stop you, God knows I would have done it a long time ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Camilla said, and meant it. She wouldn’t have a single regret if she didn’t have to leave her sister.

Kiana said, “I understand.” And that was so much sweeter than forgiveness, so much richer than absolution. She brushed Camilla’s fringe out of her eyes, wiped a smudge of dirt or blood off her face. “I really do.” She paused, then added, “But God, Cam, I really am going to kill him this time.”

She and Kiki sat for awhile in the big, echoing quiet of the tunnels. Kiana ran her fingers along Cam’s knuckles and said nothing, except the occasional, gentle reminder not to fall asleep, until the Warden returned with Zeta.

The Archivist seemed quite cheerful despite being blind, unable to stand on her own, and facing the impending death of her House. This was typical of the Archivist.

“This plan is harebrained, bordering on fantastical, and tragically lacking in background research,” she announced. “But I admit, it’s our best chance. I’ve already run the initial mathematics.”

Camilla searched Zeta’s face for any scrap of emotion, any hint of what part of the plan she and the Warden may have spoken about, and saw nothing. Her cards were as close to her chest as always.

They sat in a circle comparing notes and double-checking math. Occasionally the Archivist would pass something to Camilla to proofread, patting her knee and saying, “You always had an unparalleled eye for the details,” before moving on to something else. The Warden didn’t have any of their months of notes and recordings, but of course he’d already memorized it all.

Finally the Warden said, “I think this is as close to certain as we’re going to get.”

“It’s going to work,” Camilla said. “The math is sound.”

The Warden nodded, then surveyed the half circle that had formed around them. “Can I have a moment with my cavalier?”

Kiki looked at Camilla, her head just slightly tilted in a question. Camilla said, “It’s fine. Go make sure our dads are okay.”

She nodded. “Find me again. Promise?”

“I will. Promise.”

Kiana pressed a kiss to her forehead, and then Camilla and the Warden were alone in the long, hollow lights of the tunnel. He pulled a little closer to her on instinct.

“Don’t get cold feet now, Warden,” Cam said.

“I didn’t say anything?”

“You didn’t have to.” He was kneeling in front of her chair now, his hand resting on her hand. She longed to stand. She felt so utterly undignified. She was a miserable wet puddle, unable to pull herself upright and look him squarely in her eyes.

“I know we’ve talked about this, Cam, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t belabor the point a little bit. This is — it’s very much like dying. There will be no more you and no more me.

Camilla said. “I’m dying anyway.” Camilla said. “When I die, you die. I can’t let that happen.” She squeezed his hand a little tighter, her only tether in a universe that was starting to feel unbearably vast. “And there will still be us. That’s all I need.”

“Cam —“

“It really is that simple, Warden.”

He laughed a little ruefully. “The metaphysical and philosophical questions involved are quite complex, Scholar.”

“Those don’t matter. We go out together, on our terms. We save each other and we save our House. That’s the ending I want.”

He held her gaze. She was aware, all at once, that the minutes she had to touch him, to hear him, to see him across from her, were dying into the dark. She tried to drink him in. She tried to remember what his eyes looked like in the body that was long gone. She found she could still conjure the image perfectly and sighed a little with relief.

He brushed a thumb across her cheek. “If you change your mind, or if you think of something else, or if you hesitate even for a moment, you have to let me know.”

“I will, Warden.”

“Alright. Let’s go find the others, then. I want to see Pyrrha and Nona first.”

In the end, it was the easiest thing Camilla had ever done.

Their family closed a tight circle around them, cutting them off from the tunnels oozing, hollow darkness.

Someone offered her painkillers. “No more medication,” she said. “Need my head . . . want it clear.” The pain felt small and far away now, anyway.

Pyrrha’s parting kiss tasted like dust, but it was unexpectedly soft. Camilla understood — it was the only way Pyrrha knew to say goodbye.

A ragged semi-circle closed around them. For maybe the first time in her life, she was glad she and the Warden were not all alone. It was right that these people — that Corona, that Pyrrha, that Kiana — were here to bear witness. To see these last, bright moments.

The Warden smiled at her, glowing through the dark. “Camilla, we did it right, didn’t we? We had something very nearly perfect . . . the perfect friendship, the perfect love. I cannot imagine reaching the end of this life and having any regrets, so long as I had been allowed to experience being your adept.

For the first time in a year and a half, she felt nothing but the comfort of the familiar — a perfectly worn in pair of shoes, familiar footsteps in the doorway, a book she’d read a thousand times — and she sobbed.

“Cam — dear one —“

“No. No,” she gasped, struggling for the words. “I’m crying because I’m relieved … Warden I’m so relieved.”

“Not long now.”

It hurt to breathe. It wouldn’t hurt much longer. “Warden,” she said, pausing briefly to consider the one witness missing from their ragged circle. “Will she know wo we are, in the River?”

“Oh, she’s not stupid,” he assured her. “In the river — beyond the river — I truly believe we will see ourselves and each other as we really are. And I want them to see us. I am not saying this was our inevitable end . . . I am saying we have found the best and truest and kindest thing we can do in this moment.” She’d always said he liked speeches so much that he’d write his own eulogy. Typical. “Tell me no,” he continued, “And we’ll go on as we have been . . . and we’ll go on unafraid . . . but say yes, and we will make this end, and this beginning, together.”

The last, lingering tension fell out of her shoulders. There was only one thing left to do, and then she would rest. She would finally rest. “Palamedes, yes,” she said. “My whole life, yes. Yes, forever, yes. Life is too short and love is too long.”

“Tell me how to do it, and I’ll do it,” he told her.

He made sure it was her choice, her call, on her word, right up until the very end. She could never live long enough to thank him for that.

Camilla said, “Go loud.”

The motions didn’t matter. There was nothing in the universe but his voice. “Not much longer,” he said. “Don’t look back. Whatever you do, don’t look back.”

When they rested their heads on each other’s shoulders, Camilla imagined they were in their shuck back in the juvie dorms a thousand years ago. She could see it perfectly, in the quiet of her mind’s eye.

She was warm, under blankets warmed by each other’s bodies.

The smell of gasoline faded into the smell of old books and dusty, recycled air.

They were tangled together, until she could no longer tell where her body ended and his began.

It was the end of a very long day. It was finally time to rest.

She didn’t look back.

In the end, it was as easy and peaceful as falling asleep.