The question caused my stomach to twist in knots, a deep anxiety gripping my throat. They were all wondering what happened next, and they expected me to have an answer for all of our problems. I’d given each issue some thought here and there, but was paralyzed by a deep insecurity that I was about to make the wrong call. Like I had so many times before.

I didn’t even know which issue to address first, and the realization hit me like being splashed with a bucket of icy water. The entire room was expectant, watching me, but I was frozen, unable to even determine what we should do next. Find Tian? Plead with Lacey? Contact Mercury? Talk to Leo?

A sharp pressure started to weigh on my chest, and I realized that I needed to get out of there before I had another panic attack.

My mind fumbled for an excuse, and I was relieved to realize that Astrid had provided me with a simple one. “Before we do anything, I think I should probably go and see what my mom wants,” I said hurriedly. “If not, she’s liable to barge in here at any moment, and might hear something that we don’t need her to hear. I won’t be long. Maybe just half an hour.”

“I’ll go with you,” Leo said, pushing off from the wall and starting toward me.

“No!” I said emphatically, shaking my head for good measure. The last thing I wanted was for Leo to come with me. Things were still too weird after this morning, and I had no idea how to even bring up his behavior without causing deep embarrassment.

His eyes widened, and he looked away, one arm reaching up to grab his bicep in a self-conscious way. “You shouldn’t go alone,” he said after a moment, sighing.

“I’ll be fine,” I insisted, quickly spinning through a few ideas on how to reassure them that I was right. “My parents only live six floors up, and I can take the elevator at the end of the hall. Plus, the Citadel is on high alert right now. It’ll only take me a few minutes, half an hour at the most, and I’ll net if anything comes up.”

I was rambling, and slowly backing toward the door. Zoe stood up, her expression concerned, but I hit the button and slipped out, shutting the door with an “I’ll be okay.”

I quickly hurried down the hall, moving away from the apartment as if I had wings made of fire. I checked over my shoulder after a few seconds, and was relieved to see that no one had followed me. I was confident that Zoe had called them off, perhaps recognizing that I needed some time to get myself together—and I loved her for that, even if I was running away from her, too.

A deep gloom had settled into the Citadel. The hall felt quieter than usual, as if the entire structure was in a state of deep melancholy. Apprehension crept down my neck as I walked, and I couldn’t help looking around, paranoid that someone could sneak up on me at any moment.

This might not have been the best way to get alone time, Liana, a voice in my head chided me.

I ignored it and kept walking.

Oh, and by the way, you’re still in your undergarments and robe, the voice mockingly said in parting, and as I looked down, I realized it was right. But I wasn’t going back, so I drew the edges of the robe around myself, and kept walking. If anyone wanted to report me for being out of uniform, they could. I didn’t care.

The hall ended right at the elevator bay that ran through the center of the Citadel. I entered the reception area, considered the elevator for a second or two, and then moved around the twin circular tubes of the elevator shafts into the small, narrow space behind them.

In the Citadel, most Knights used their lashes to move up and down, exiting through the lashways that led outside. I knew for a fact that the lashways were sealed up—it was standard protocol when the Citadel was in lockdown mode—so everyone was probably using the elevators instead.

Which meant the stairs would be even more deserted than usual. Even with the lashways closed, Knights considered climbing steps to be mundane. And why wouldn’t they, with the lashes giving them wings? Here I would be guaranteed solitude, which would give me time to think.

I pressed on a panel on the wall, and gave the scanner my name and ID number. It ran for a long time, and I realized it was probably confirming my identity with Scipio before giving me access. I had just about given up hope that it would let me in when it suddenly beeped softly, and the door slid to one side with a pneumatic hiss.

The stairwell didn’t quite match up with the rest of the architecture of the Citadel. Instead of dark metal with beautiful whorls of lighter color through it, the entire thing reminded me of a grate or a cage, made of thin sheet metal with patterned holes. Lights ran along the walls, but on the outside of the stairwell, creating thousands of artificial sunbeams that poured in through the hundreds of densely packed holes.

I began to climb, shoving my hands into my pockets. I had to come back to my friends with answers and a plan or two for what to do, and that meant breaking each problem down and ranking the issues from most important to least.

I considered my problems, weighed them carefully, and then begrudgingly placed the nebulous situation with Lacey over finding Tian. I rationalized that everything that could be done there was already being done. I was certain that Quess, Mercury, and Alex—my twin—were all scouring the Tower, looking for her. I also convinced myself that if I didn’t try to get ahead of Lacey before she had a chance to move against us, none of us would even have a chance at finding Tian. Lacey would make sure of it.

I bit my lip, my heart aching for Lacey. I might not completely trust her, but I did like her, and I hated that she was suffering right now. I knew there was nothing I could do to make her pain go away, and that any attempt to apologize would be met with derision and possibly violence, so I decided to steer away from an emotional approach and focus, instead, on a logical one.

What could I offer Lacey that would keep her from turning her evidence over and having us arrested and expelled for committing a terrorist act against Scipio?

I considered it for a long time. My first instinct was to offer to hunt down Ambrose’s killers and take them to Lacey. I was certain that the idea would appeal to her; after all, whoever had ordered Ambrose’s death was working against her, and I had to imagine the information his killers could offer would be of great use.

Not to mention, I worried about Astrid actually making any headway in finding Ambrose’s killers. If her intentions were honorable, then that meant she had no idea of the legacy war that was just getting started. If her intentions weren’t honorable… then that meant she was working with the legacies herself, and that Ambrose’s murderers would get away with it. That was something I wasn’t willing to stand for.

But justice for Ambrose wasn’t the only thing Lacey wanted. She had asked me to protect Ambrose during the Tourney so that she and her group could get him into the position of Champion, and have another vote in the council. They claimed they were on Scipio’s side, trying to save him from the other legacy groups who were attacking him, though I only had their word on that. Regardless, Ambrose’s death left their plans for gaining some modicum of control over the council in tatters. And a very real possibility existed that whoever won the Tourney would be working for their enemies.

They needed that seat. Desperately. Right now, they were just two out of six members of the council, unable to do much in the way of enacting policy changes. Whether that was a result of the other councilors blindly following Scipio’s recommendations, or was for more nefarious reasons, was moot; the fact remained that they didn’t have enough power or allies inside the council. But if they had an ally in the position of Champion, they’d be able to stop any new laws or protocols that were dangerous and damaging to the Tower. Possibly even overturn a few of the more insane ones.

If that was what Lacey ultimately wanted, then the practical solution was easy to reach: find Lacey another ally, and help that person win the Tourney. That… wasn’t so easy.

Lacey had told me once that Ambrose had been the only legacy of theirs that she’d ever been able to successfully sneak into the Citadel. There wasn’t anyone else there she trusted, and who could blame her? She obviously didn’t trust Devon, who had been Champion for over twenty-five years—more than enough time to cultivate a legion of followers, if he were so inclined. And his followers would no doubt continue with whatever his plans were, which was against what Lacey wanted. That made it difficult for her to trust any other Knight inside the Citadel.

The more I considered finding someone to replace Ambrose, the less I liked it. I wasn’t comfortable with entrusting the fate of the Tower to anyone else, just like that. How could I ever be certain I had made the right choice? Tens of thousands of lives rested on that position, and if I put someone in there who wound up being an agent for the enemy, then it was the citizens who would suffer. I couldn’t live with that. Couldn’t even stand the queasiness that came with the idea of passing the reins on to someone else.

No, picking someone wasn’t going to work. It carried too much risk of going sideways—and then losing the Tower and Scipio for good.

And that left only one solution.

I stopped on the top of the landing and lifted my wrist up to my face, tapping my indicator. “Contact Zoe Elphesian, 17M-241.”

There was a pause, and then my net began to buzz as Zoe accepted the net. Good—I’d been a little worried she might not, after the way I left, although I knew it was a silly fear.

Are you okay? her digitally resynthesized voice demanded, and I could imagine everyone still sitting in the living room, watching her with bated breath, afraid I was under attack.

“I’m fine,” I said, resuming my trek up the stairs. “I took the stairs to give myself a little time to think. To be honest… I freaked out a little bit back there, and I’m sorry for that.”

It’s okay, Zoe replied automatically. I mean, you did it in a boneheaded kind of way, but I understand. So what’s up?

“I want you to reach out to Lacey on my behalf.”

Why not just call Lacey yourself?

That was a really bad idea. I had considered it, and decided it was better to avoid direct contact with her for a while, to give her some space to breathe without the constant reminder that I was alive, while her cousin was dead.

“Lacey’s too emotionally fragile for that, Zo,” I informed her. “If I reach out to her, it could really upset her, and she might decide to turn us all over to the Knights for the stuff that went down at the trial. But you? You’re one of her Cogs. And you’re as empathetic as they come.”

So, what, you want me to talk to her and try to convince her to back down? The implant in my ear canal managed to convey that she thought it was a bad idea.

Luckily, that wasn’t my plan. “No. I want you to tell her that I’ll do it. I’ll stay in the Tourney and compete to become the next Champion. That way, she and Praetor Strum will get the support they need.”

I stopped talking in an attempt not to ramble, and waited. I’d made it all the way up to another landing by the time she responded.

You want to become Champion? she asked, incredulous. Have you thought this though?

I sighed, trying not to feel irritated by the doubt in her voice. I knew she knew that I didn’t make decisions on a whim. This was just her way of asking for my rationale.

“Yes, I have,” I informed her dutifully. “Look, Lacey needs someone who’s willing to work with her and Strum on the council. And she isn’t going to be able to find anyone she trusts before the next challenge. So it has to be me.”

There was another long pause. I see. I suppose having you as Champion would open a lot of doors for us, as well as helping us keep the Knights off our backs while we start working out ways to leave.

I hadn’t considered that. But there was a very good reason I hadn’t: I had decided I wasn’t going to leave with my friends. Instead, I was going to stay and help Leo on his quest to fix or replace Scipio. Even though I had told him that I could only worry about the seven people in our group, it had been a bald-faced lie. I couldn’t abandon the people of the Tower to death. It was unconscionable.

But I wasn’t ready to bring that up to Zoe yet. I hadn’t even had the chance to tell Leo.

Thinking about him made me immediately flash to the kiss from this morning, and I carefully pulled away from the memory.

“Something like that. Listen… when you talk to Lacey, tell her that if she accepts my proposal, I’ll help her find Ambrose’s killers. But tell her I also expect her continued help in finding Tian. And she needs to tell us what’s going on with that legacy net, and how to fix it.”

I added the legacy net as an afterthought, because I realized I was going to need full access to it if I was going to fully understand what was going on in the Tower. It would help me learn about which issues Lacey and Strum were concerned about, and confirm once and for all that they were working to help Scipio, as that net contained tangent memories of the previous users, as well as information on the world before the End.

All the nets had been like that at the beginning of the Tower’s history, but the IT Department had phased them out, insisting that they needed to for both security purposes and because the resources necessary to create them were too rare to spare on them. Supposedly.

I was certain tacking on demands was a bit gauche, but I doubted Lacey would entertain the idea of telling me more about the legacy net otherwise. Besides, I was certain Zoe would boil the language down into something softer and more palatable on my behalf.

All right. I’ll net her and see what she says. Do you have a backup plan for if she says no?

I thought about it for a moment and then sighed. “Not really. I can’t be certain that it will keep us safe, but the position brings power, which brings security. And… honestly, I don’t think she has any choice. I don’t think we do either. Running isn’t an option anymore, Zoe. We have to take a stand.”

Zoe was silent for a long moment, long enough for me to wonder if I was pushing them too far on this.

You’re right, she announced eventually, and I exhaled, relieved. There was a slight pause, and then, Leo thinks we should reach out to Strum as well, and I think he’s right. Lacey’s distraught, but in all likelihood, Strum is not. If we can convince him, he can reach Lacey.

“Are you sure?” I asked. I knew they were allies, but I’d only seen them together a few times, in our first couple of meetings. Everything thereafter was handled by Lacey. That didn’t smack of closeness. If anything, I worried that his interference could send Lacey over the brink.

Trust me, they have history. I think he can reach her.

I stopped in front of the door that led to my parents’ floor, my fingers hovering over the panel. “If you think it’ll work, then do it. Also, get Quess back to the apartment if he isn’t back yet. I want to go over all the evidence we gathered from the condensation room next, and see if we can’t figure out a way to find Tian.”

He’s already on his way back, she replied. I called him right after you left. I’m glad you seem to have worked through what you needed to. Get to your parents, we’ll get to work here, and you can rejoin us when you’re finished there. Also… good luck.

“Thanks,” I replied dryly.

The buzz of the net in my skull came to a sudden stop, and I breathed a little easier. I took a moment to try to relax the tension that had built up… then opened the door, and stepped into the hall.