Being the Champion was not exactly how I had imagined it would be, especially because I had to delegate the jobs I really wanted to be involved with so I could focus on the actual minutia of running the Tower. In the several hours since my first council session had ended, dozens of items marked for my attention had flooded in. Cornelius had kept them off my plate for as long as possible, but once Maddox left to go consult with Astrid on the realities of being a Lieutenant, he had seen fit to notify me.

Instead of heading back to the war room to handle them, I remained seated on the sofa and used the wall screen. I didn’t want to interfere with whatever Leo was doing with Jang-Mi, or Quess’s quest to eliminate the schematics that didn’t match his memory of the Core, but that didn’t leave me with much to do toward progress on any of our goals. Still, delegating those two tasks to them had freed up some time, which meant I could stay on top of my actual job.

I skimmed through messages from my new Knight Commanders—most of which were congratulations messages that relayed how excited they were to work with me. One was a complaint against Maddox being named the Lieutenant, citing her former undoc status, and I pressed my lips together when I saw who it was from: Frederick Hamilton. He’d been another competitor in the Tourney, and had almost made it to the end. I had also learned that he was a descendant of Ezekial Pine—the man who had murdered Lionel Scipio. Lacey said that her family had eradicated Pine’s early on, but overlooked Frederick’s line. He might not know of his heritage, but we couldn’t be sure, and that made him a potential enemy.

I stared at his message for a second, and then forwarded it to Dylan and Maddox. I’d have to fill Tian in later, as she didn’t have an official messaging system like we did, but I wanted to make sure that they knew what was going on. Frederick could just be a bigot, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

I did, however, verbally compose a reply, letting Cornelius transcribe. “Frederick, if you have a problem with my selection based on her performance, then feel free to message me. But if your complaint is based on her status as a former undoc, let me remind you that the only reason she was given that status is because her mother was forced to flee for her life from Devon Alexander, a traitor and a criminal. In addition, Scipio chose to overlook Maddox’s previous status and restore her as a citizen of the Tower, so I suggest you take it up with him. Sincerely, Champion Castell.”

I sent it immediately and then archived the file, moving on to the next one. There were a few more that had been marked as resolved—issues raised by Elites that I was tagged in for monitoring purposes, but required little from me. Their Knight Commander would kick it up to me if they thought I needed to weigh in, but ultimately they would handle it (or had, as the case may be). I skimmed through those, and then archived them into a separate folder marked for issues like that. I set an alarm for eight p.m. every night to check in on them so I could stay informed on the issues and keep from looking inept, and then moved on.

Next I zeroed in on a message from Sadie Monroe, marked important, and clicked on it, wondering what she wanted to talk about.

Champion Castell,

You better have a good explanation for your vote today. It is well within my rights to request an investigation of Scipio if I feel there is still a potential threat to him, and I find your reticence to allow me to do my job alarming and revealing. Are you somehow an expert in intelli-coding and viruses? It would certainly explain how you were able to breach the defenses of the Core and steal several nets from our stores, but I somehow doubt it is the case. If you were secretly trained in my department, then you would’ve learned how to research council protocols, and perhaps even learn that voting to block my investigation implies that you feel I have a conflict of interest—or that I am the cause of the problem, and that you have no confidence in my abilities. I suggest that you spend the next week doing said research, and should you need any assistance on the finer details of the law, contact me immediately. I’ll make sure that you know your place in the grand scheme of things.

CEO Monroe.

“Daaaaaaamn,” I said slowly, both amazed and alarmed by the snide and condescending attitude seemingly carved in the sharp angles of the letters. I had no idea that voting “no” on the expulsion chamber decision doubled as a vote of no confidence in her abilities as CEO. That made me look at the voting in a whole new light, and I realized that if I wasn’t careful, I could wind up offending some of the other councilors, to the point that they wouldn’t work with me.

I grated my teeth together, frustration pouring through me. What happened if other departments asked to table the vote until they had performed a check of their own, or brought up some reason for a delay? I could be waiting weeks, if not months, for a final decision, and all the while, ones would continue to be rounded up and dumped into those disgusting chambers below.

I swallowed, sickened by the thought of all those people needlessly losing their lives while the council stalled and delayed, and realized I needed to do something about it on my own. I had to stop the expulsion chambers now—otherwise people would continue to die.

But Lacey had warned me not to. And now I needed to know why.

I dismissed Sadie’s message without a reply, and then asked Cornelius to request a vid call with Lacey. He was silent for several seconds—long enough to make me wonder if Lacey was rejecting my call—and then a second later, Lacey’s face filled the screen, her expression thunderous.

“You better have something regarding Ambrose’s death,” she snapped. “Although if you had it within a day, I’d be really surprised.”

I blinked at the contemptuous tone of her voice, and then decided I wasn’t taking that crap from her anymore. “You know what, Lacey, screw you,” I said hotly, my patience at an end. “I actually do have something on Ambrose’s death, although I don’t want to say anything until it pans out.”

“Then you called about council business,” she sneered. “I don’t want to hear it. Your job is to shut up and do what you’re told, and I ordered you to direct your questions to Strum. I do not want to talk to you.”

“Too friggin’ bad,” I retorted, bristling. I was not going to be her puppet, and she needed to realize that right here and now. “I’m not Ambrose, Lacey. I am not just going to do what you tell me. We may hate each other, but we are allies, damn it. I’m trying to help you, but I will not be your obedient servant. We’re equals, and you’re going to treat me as such, blackmail material be damned.”

Lacey opened her mouth to reply—then seemed to reconsider, and snapped her mouth shut so quickly that I swore I could hear her teeth clack together. She stared at me, her face a furious mask, and I suddenly felt like she was trying to make my head explode with the power of her mind.

But I didn’t back down. In fact, I went so far as to look directly at the small camera marked by a white circle in the screen, so it would look like I was meeting her gaze head on through her screen.

Eventually she made an aggravated sound and leaned back into her seat, rubbing her chin with her hand. “What do you want?” she asked finally. I noticed she didn’t say anything one way or the other about us being equals, but decided not to push it. My issue was more important than my pride. And if she didn’t understand we were equals, then she was going to be sorely disappointed when I continued to challenge her and Strum at every turn.

“To talk about the expulsion chambers and how to stop them while the council kicks around the decision.”

“You can’t do anything, Liana,” Lacey said, tiredly running a hand over her face. “If you defy the law, Scipio can have you removed as Champion. He’ll drop your rank to one. It doesn’t matter if we know the decision was tampered with or not. Until it is repealed, it remains in effect, and if you fight this, you’ll be yet another person lost to those things.”

I exhaled. “How long will it take?”

“Three months,” she replied. “Each department gets three requests to delay a vote for a week to conduct research, and we only convene three weeks out of the month. The councilors working against the change will draw it out as long as possible, taking advantage of the law, so when Sadie runs out of hers, the next one will start the process all over again. The Hands will delay because they’ll claim they need to run studies on how the loss of bodies will affect soil production in Twilight, and the Medica will delay it for studies into what to do with the ones once the law is repealed. If it is repealed, that is.”

I cursed, and turned away for a second. As disgusting as it was, I could already see the other departments trying to make an argument to keep the expulsion chambers around. And why wouldn’t they? The expulsion chambers kept things neat and tidy. Scipio told them who was bad, and the council was more than happy to eliminate the bad seeds. They didn’t want to waste time trying to understand or rehabilitate those individuals, and expulsion was a perfect and expedited solution.

“Cornelius, approximately how many citizens will be put through the expulsion chambers in the next three months?” I asked, almost afraid to know the answer.

“Approximately seventy-five,” he replied, and it broke my heart. Seventy-five people? That meant twenty-five people a month were being put to death.

Queasy and angry, I turned back to Lacey. “That’s unacceptable,” I whispered. “You have to know that’s unacceptable.”

Her brown eyes grew sad, and she nodded. “I know. But there’s nothing we can do. This is how the system works, Liana.”

Then the system is broken, I thought. “Lacey… we have to do something to knock them out of commission,” I said, suddenly determined to get them to stop. “Maybe we could sabotage the cells, damage them so that they won’t work.”

Lacey gave me a sad look and then sighed. “Okay, I’m going to give you a piece of advice here, Liana, and I mean it genuinely. I know you want to fix this problem, and given that you and I aren’t always on the right side of the law, I can see why your impulse is to do something drastic to get your way. But here’s the thing: you’re a councilor now. You’ve got to think long term. The crimes Strum and I commit are only to benefit us in our fight against our enemies. Everything else we do, we try to do legally, because doing otherwise would lead to the government breaking down. If we allow that to happen, then the Tower is lost. I know it seems awful. I know that you hate it, and I understand why. You do realize that about a third of those killed will be my very own people, right?”

I met her gaze through the screen, and then looked away. I heard what she was saying—recognized the wisdom of what she was saying—but my stomach churned viciously at the thought of letting the expulsion chambers go on for a second longer.

Lacey sighed through the screen and ran a hand over her face. “If that logic doesn’t reach you, I might add that if you destroy the chambers, the council will want an investigation into the cause. If they find out you were behind it, you’ll lose your seat and any chance of actually changing anything for the better. Just work with me and Strum, Liana. I promise that we can and will change this law. It’ll just take a little time, is all.”

I pressed my lips together, and then nodded. She was right on that count as well, and when the facts were that overwhelming, you just had to submit to them.

But as I ended the conversation with her, with a promise that I wouldn’t do anything, I couldn’t help but feel like it was an egregious mistake.