Before the Tower, humanity believed in saviors. Singular individuals who were so charismatic, so persuasive, so hopeful, that those around them became infected by their cause, choosing to see the world as it could be, rather than as it was. They’d devote themselves to this person and their newfound cause, risking their lives in the hopes that their self-sacrifice would further the dream of a better world. In turn, their saviors would care for them, support them, and sometimes, if their hearts were true, sacrifice their own lives for them.

Sometimes their causes would bear fruit and bring about a change so great and profound that it sent shockwaves rippling through history. Sometimes the changes were subtler. But never were these changes, these causes, insignificant. And neither were the champions who took up the fight on their behalf.

Before the Tower, humans put faith in those they believed had their best interest at heart. Now, they did the same—only they turned to a being whose longevity was fundamentally tied to the Tower itself: Scipio, the Master AI, created to be our savior, protector, and champion, all rolled into one. He was better than human; he was eternal. He was programmed to protect the people inside the Tower… and they trusted him implicitly.

Because none of them knew the truth: that he was dying.

Then again, it seemed like a lot of people were. First Cali and Roark, then six men who had been in pursuit of Tian, the youngest member of our group, and now Ambrose Klein, the man my friends and I had been blackmailed into protecting. I was surrounded by death, and I had actually been arrested for the latest one.

Ambrose. Oh God. Ambrose.

My brain fumbled for meaning in the chaos, but all it could settle on was pointing out each of my flaws, and highlighting them in vivid technicolor. The timeline neatly laid out in my mind led directly to me: Quess’s call about Tian being chased, followed by my decision not to tell Maddox, for fear this was a trap to lure Ambrose out.

How careless I had been. How blind.

He hadn’t been any safer in his own home than he had been inside the Tourney, and I had left both him and Maddox defenseless in order to go after Tian. My stomach churned violently, bile rising to the back of my throat.

And my problems ran much deeper than just the guilt that was eating at me. Keeping Ambrose alive had been part of the deal I had made with Lacey Green, Engineer of the Mechanics Department—or Cogs, as we called them. She and Praetor Strum, the head of Water Treatment, had initially approached me to assassinate Devon Alexander… and then helped me and my friends beat the charges for doing so by manipulating Scipio’s memories to corroborate my story.

But there had been a catch. In exchange, Lacey had wanted me to keep her cousin alive so that he could become the next Champion of the Knights. If I did as she asked, she said she would continue to keep us safe. But if I failed…

I had failed, and now Lacey could make good on her threat, and turn over (false) evidence that showed that we had tampered with Scipio in order to get away with murder. As soon as she found out that Ambrose was dead, she’d start hunting us down one by one. Hell, she already had access to Zoe and Eric, who were in the condensation room with her at this very moment, trying to track down whatever had killed those men and taken Tian!

You should’ve called Quess to warn them, an angry voice hissed inside of me. Another failure.

I dragged my gaze over to Leo, who was marching next to me, also cuffed. It was hard looking at him without my heart aching, but that was understandable—considering he was actually an AI that had been implanted into the body of my boyfriend, Grey. Grey had been injured during our fight with Devon, his net overloaded by an electronic charge, his cerebral cortex burnt. The damage had been catastrophic. Grey had been unmoved by my hoarse cries for him to come back to me.

But Leo had bravely downloaded himself into a specialized net developed by Lionel Scipio, the founder of the Tower, and Leo’s creator. The net had special healing properties, and Leo had been confident that he could use it to repair the damage to Grey’s brain.

Now I’d never know.

After we’d rushed back to the Citadel to find Maddox badly beaten and Ambrose dead, we’d been arrested by Lieutenant Zale, Devon Alexander’s second in command. He’d never even given us a chance to explain, but had taken one look and ordered our arrest. Now he was marching us through the halls, no doubt leading us to the cells buried in the bottom of the Citadel. My skin crawled just thinking of that level—the long hall, full of viewing chambers that contained tables with sharp objects and tools jutting out of them. And the rooms the hall led to, which were bisected by a glass pane, so Knights could watch as they gassed those they deemed undesirable.

They called it “expulsion”. I called it murder. And it had been learning about those rooms, and the murders, that started me on a path of turning my back on the Tower. Grey had offered a chance of escape and protection, and I had leapt at it.

And then everything had fallen apart, and since then, no matter how many different ways I tried to pick up the pieces and keep them together, everything kept breaking. It left me feeling dejected, depressed, and… hopeless.

And I hated it. I hated the vulnerability it caused in me, and the complete lack of control I was being given over my own life.

But at the end of the day, it also filled me with a cold determination—which helped break through some of the hopelessness that had descended on me like a curtain. I couldn’t give up. Not now. Remembering all the ways I had failed only served to remind me of how far I had actually come. There was too much at stake for me to give up.

I could break down later, after I got us out of this. After I figured out how to handle Lacey. After I got Tian back.

First, I had to figure out how to get these cuffs off. I looked down at my hands, which were bound together in front of me, just below the hand that was tightly gripping my forearm, the whiteness of it a stark contrast to the crimson uniform I wore.

The same one he wore.

He was a fellow Knight, but that might not mean much. There was every chance that he had been in on the former Champion’s plans. Before I had publicly acknowledged killing him. On Scipio’s orders.

Now, the last part wasn’t true, but he didn’t know that.

What I didn’t know was how deep Lieutenant Zale’s loyalty to Devon ran. Traditionally, the position of the Lieutenant was meant to keep the Champion’s power in check. But Devon had been no ordinary Champion. He had been a part of a legacy group—one that had been working to bring Scipio down.

And I suspected that the Lieutenant might have been working with him the entire time, which meant he could still be working with Devon’s allies. They knew I had killed Devon, and likely suspected that I was working with another legacy group in opposition to them, given how Lacey and Strum had affected Scipio’s memories. That made me a threat, and one that he could now be moving to eliminate, quietly, before anyone could stop him.

I needed to do something to get us out of here. As soon as possible. Right now, in fact.

I turned my attention to the Knight holding me, continuing with my train of thought. Zale might be working with Devon, along with several other Knights, but that didn’t mean all of them were. If I could produce enough evidence in front of them that proved, definitively, that Leo and I hadn’t attacked Maddox and killed Ambrose, he’d have to back off.

Providing not all of these Knights were on his side. It was a gamble, but it was all I had.

Now, to find evidence.

I couldn’t use Lacey as an alibi; the moment she found out why I needed one, she would deny everything. Not to mention, the truth would lead them to the site of a violent murder that would lead to an investigation, which would get in the way of any chance we had of finding Tian without getting noticed. No, I needed something else. Something that would prove without a shadow of a doubt that we hadn’t done it.

My eyes shifted back to my bound wrists, my brain boiling as I searched for something—anything I could use. Maybe I could call Zoe and Eric? I could have them act as my alibi and tell them that we were…

No; a quick glance at the indicator on my wrist showed a diagonal red slash across the bright blue ten there. My net permissions had been turned off. I must have missed when the Lieutenant had ordered that.

Crap.

Dejected, I lumbered forward, staring at my indicator, at the number there. A simple line and a circle standing side by side: my ranking inside the Tower. All my life, that stupid number had been held over me as a standard of behavior, a real-time reflection of my usefulness to the Tower. Scipio ranked everyone based on data collected from the nets implanted in our heads. The happier and more dedicated you were to the Tower, the higher your rank.

But the lower your rank… the worse you were for the Tower. And that felt particularly true in my case; even with a ten awarded by Scipio, I failed to make the Tower safe.

Failure after failure after failure. I couldn’t make anyone safe. Couldn’t keep Ambrose alive. Couldn’t warn my friends. Couldn’t stop staring at those stupid numbers on my wrist.

Then, quite suddenly, that cold determination snapped me back out of the growing bleakness of my thoughts, carrying with it a simple realization: the ten on my wrist was supposed to keep me safe from these sorts of things.

The ranking system had only been implemented in the last one hundred years or so, but had been in place for so long that society had adapted around it, and eventually started using it to determine who was good and safe… and who should not be trusted. That meant anyone with a rank of ten was held in the highest respect, while someone with the ranking of one was likely a dissident and a threat to the Tower.

The nets that were implanted at the base of our skulls used specialized wires to monitor activity on the cerebral cortex, tracking our emotional states throughout the day. And negative emotions that lasted for some time would force a person’s rank downward. Anger, depression, envy… all of those would affect the rank. The more severe the emotion, the less time it would take.

I blinked. There were several things about the thought that were relevant, but the most important one was this: murdering another human was not an emotionless act. At least, not normally. A sociopath could have done it without emotion, but sociopaths were singled out and caught early during their development. They couldn’t always be treated—though they could live normal lives inside the Tower, with Medica intervention.

Still, only a fraction of the Tower’s citizens were diagnosed as true sociopaths. I doubted very much that whoever had killed Ambrose was one. Which meant that whoever had killed him had taken a hit to their ranking—and was now bearing the rank of one.

But I wasn’t. Which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I hadn’t done it.

I looked up from my indicator, and blinked when I realized that we’d only made it thirty feet down the hallway. Thank Scipio; I felt like I had been searching for a way out of this for an eternity. If we reached the end of the hall or entered the elevators before I could mount my defense where enough Knights could overhear us, I risked the chance of my argument falling on deaf ears.

Motion at the end of the hall caught my eye, and suddenly a group of Medics was racing toward us, their white uniforms gleaming under the bright light of the hall. Lieutenant Salvatore Zale pushed us to one side, allowing them to pass. I watched them go, heartsick with worry over Maddox, and saw several other Knights standing in the hall in front of Ambrose’s door, watching us.

It was now or never.

“Lieutenant Zale, why are we under arrest?” I asked. I frowned. My voice had come out soft and exhausted, while I wanted it to be something cool and authoritative. But I would take what I could get.

Zale turned to me, his bright sapphire gaze spearing me with a contemptuous glance. “You were found with the body, and you are a known murderer.”

“If you are referring to Devon Alexander,” I said coldly, putting more power into my voice, “then I suggest you take that up with Scipio. As for Ambrose’s murder—” My jaw locked around the word, a shot of guilt piercing through the icy cold I had embraced. I swallowed it back, promising to give over to it soon, and focused on clearing my throat and finding a starting point. “—Grey and I were not here. But that isn’t even relevant. Do you know what is?”

I could tell that he was already angered by my challenge, but what was worse was that it hadn’t been nearly as biting as I’d wanted. That tiny moment of guilt had thrown me off, and now I felt like I was fumbling just to remember what words were, and saying them was like speaking the Divers’ tongue, Wetmouth, with cotton stuffed into my cheeks.

I half expected him to just order the Knights to keep shoving us down the hall, ignoring my question completely. But to my surprise, he rolled his eyes and said, “No.” The word was drawn out, extended to show his impatience.

I held up my wrists, indicator up. The Knight who had cuffed me had put the metal cuffs above the band, and the ten was still visible, glowing a soft, bright blue that drowned out the red cutting over it. “We couldn’t have murdered him without it registering with Scipio,” I snapped. “He would have immediately flagged the amount of rage and fear that goes into murder. And he would’ve dropped our ranks to a one as a result.”

I spoke the words clearly, not raising my voice, but it was like a switch being thrown—everyone in the hall suddenly fell silent. I heard the creak and shift of several uniforms behind me, and realized that a few of the Knights had come closer to see why we had stopped. They had heard the tail end, and now, suddenly, they had questions, too.

I had been right—not all of these men were blindly loyal to Zale.

Zale’s eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch, one of them twitching slightly, and he pressed his mouth into a thin line. “Be that as it may, you were still there, and we need to confirm your alibi. Protocol dictates—”

“What is going on?” a strong feminine voice demanded, interrupting him. I looked down the hall, past Zale, and to my surprise, saw Lacey Green marching toward us, her dark face holding a thunderous expression.

I froze when I saw her, realizing that this was it. This was where she turned us over to Zale for altering Scipio’s memory during Devon Alexander’s trial. She must’ve found out about Ambrose, somehow, and come up here to deliver the so-called evidence. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t actually altered Scipio’s thoughts. Lacey and Strum had. And it wouldn’t matter that they had also asked me to kill Devon in the first place. It was their word against mine, and they were council members.

If only I had been able to keep Ambrose safe. If only Tian hadn’t been attacked by a group of men. If only I’d spared five minutes to go and get Maddox and Ambrose, instead of racing off with Leo on my own. Would he still be alive? Had this all been a ploy to draw us away from him… and had I stupidly fallen for it?

Lacey stopped in front of Lieutenant Zale and speared him with a look. “What is going on?” she demanded again.

He gave her a considering look, his eyebrows drawing together. “Ambrose Klein has been murdered, and we found Liana Castell and Grey Farmless with the body after the alarm went off.”

I frowned. Now that he mentioned it, I realized I hadn’t heard the alarm that rang whenever anyone died unexpectedly. It should’ve been blaring through the entire section… but the halls had been silent when we arrived, and they were still silent.

So then… how had he known that Ambrose was dead?

Lacey picked up on it, too, and lifted a slim black eyebrow into an arched point. “Alarm?” she asked, looking around.

Zale frowned and blinked. “Somebody must have turned off the speakers on the floor,” he said. “I’ll have the techs look into it. In the meantime—”

“You’ll have the techs look into it,” Lacey repeated slowly. “This isn’t something you’d already thought of? Your investigation must be ongoing, then, if you’re still exploring answers to questions like that.”

“Yes, our investigation just started, but it seems to me that—”

“Seems?” she cut in, one brow twitching slightly. “I assume that whatever you tell me next will be delivered in the form of cold, hard evidence. Otherwise, I’m going to question your role in this investigation.”

Lieutenant Zale opened his mouth and then breathed deeply in and out, slowly, as if summoning patience. “Lacey, I do not appreciate—”

“It’s Engineer Green,” she spoke over him smoothly, giving him a faux smile.

I was impressed; she seemed so cool and unaffected, but I was watching her closely, and I saw the tightness around her eyes and lips, her face a touch paler than normal. She was keeping a lid on it… but Lacey struck me as a still-waters-run-deep kind of woman, and I could only imagine how much self-control she was using.

Why was she doing it? She had every reason to let Zale drag me away. I had failed to keep Ambrose alive. I had failed to prevent her cousin’s murder. And she had planned for this contingency—had fabricated evidence that I was certain would stick. She’d told me she had. All she had to do was turn it over, and she’d get her revenge.

Maybe that’s what she was still planning on doing, after she had an opportunity to gloat. A part of me hoped that was the case; at the very least, I would be able to plead for the lives of my friends.

Oh God, my friends. Zoe and Eric had been with her when I last saw them, and that had only been half an hour ago. They had still been looking for Tian after her panicked net transmission that someone was after her—which had led us to a mess of dead bodies. Leo and I had just made it back in time to discover that Ambrose was dead.

How had Lacey found out and made it up here so fast?

My eyes dropped to her overalls and shirt, and to my surprise, I saw a light dusting of sweat coating her neck and the exposed areas of her chest. The short-sleeved white shirt she wore had clear signs of staining around her armpits. That would have been fine on anyone from the Mechanics Department, but considering I had seen her not too long ago, in an entirely different part of the Tower…

My instincts told me she had run up here. But how had she known to do so?

“Engineer Green,” the Lieutenant said woodenly. “I appreciate your interest in this case, but this is a matter for the Knights. You’re out of your jurisdiction.”

“Correction, Lieutenant,” Lacey said smugly. “With the Tourney still going on, the council oversees the day-to-day operations of the Knights. We act as the Champion until a new one can be selected. Now, I assume at this very early stage in your investigation, you have at least gotten Ms. Castell’s and Mr. Farmless’s alibi. What do you need from me to confirm it? Will a written statement do?”

Zale’s frown deepened, and he blinked several times in confusion at her sudden shift in questions. “Confirm… it?”

I was equally baffled, and I looked up at Lacey, wondering where she was going with this. Concern rippled through me at the idea that she was going to reveal our relationship in order to save me. I had been with her before coming back and discovering Ambrose’s body. She had been helping me and my friends search for Tian—but that had been as a favor to us, to keep Tian out of the hands of our enemies.

She would risk exposing our relationship by admitting to being my ally, and I honestly couldn’t understand why. It was unexpected, really, really unexpected considering the circumstances, because it could expose her to her enemies. Especially if Lieutenant Zale was what I thought he was: Devon’s former ally. She had to have a better idea up her sleeve. She was clever.

And has just lost a family member, a voice inside me whispered, and I realized it was right. Lacey might not be thinking clearly. If she slipped up…

“Indeed. One of the Cog children wandered away from a class tour today, and his net malfunctioned. The child was lost, and I ordered my men and women to start looking for him, before he got hurt. Liana’s friend and one of my Cogs, Zoe Elphesian, reached out to her to ask for her help, and she came to do just that.”

It was hard not to gape at her. She lied beautifully, giving the information with just the right emotional tick—but not so much that it seemed forced. Almost tired, slightly annoyed, but mainly just matter of fact.

Zale regarded her for a long moment. “There was no report of a missing child.”

“Because I thought it more expedient to move quickly, rather than file a report.”

“And did you recover him?”

“Yes,” Lacey said with a firm nod, not even batting an eye. “He was fine, and should be on his way to the Medica right now for a new children’s net. Now, would you like me to provide you with witnesses, or are you willing to admit that Ms. Castell and her friend here are victims of circumstance?”

Zale stared at her, and I held my breath, watching him and trying to get a read on him. If he was disappointed or angry, it could be a sign that he was working with a legacy group—and had failed at his attempt to fix their little “Liana” problem.

Then again, he could just hate me for killing Devon.

Either way, though, he wouldn’t fight her—that much was clear from the now-relaxed grip on my arm. The other Knight was still holding it, but barely, and I could have broken free if I wanted to. Lacey and I had together convinced the Knights, so if Zale pressed, he risked not only revealing his bias against me, but also his standing in the Tourney. Part of the Tourney was a popularity contest, and toward the end, the Knights would be given an opportunity to vote on who they wanted to lead them next.

If he insisted on arresting me, he would lose them. Because they’d realized he was wrong.

But his face never really moved beyond that slow, considering look. “I suppose they are,” he said, giving a nod to the Knights flanking Leo and me. Seconds later the cuffs were off, and I was rubbing my wrists. I wanted to give Lacey a grateful look, but knew that she hadn’t done it for us.

If Lacey wanted us free, it wasn’t because she wanted to be nice to us. It was because she wanted to punish us herself.

And I really couldn’t blame her. Ambrose was dead, after she’d gone out of her way to free me, to give me a new life and the mission of keeping him safe in the Tourney.

I had failed. She had every right to be angry.

Lieutenant Zale cleared his throat and gave her an expectant look. “Has the council been notified?”

“I am filling them in as we speak,” she replied, her tongue darting over her lips. “Scipio is processing and researching the protocols, but we’ve already decided that we will have to find someone else to run point on the investigation. You were Devon’s Lieutenant, and you’re a candidate in the Tourney, so the consensus is to hand it over to someone else.”

She spoke as if the conversation were really happening, and then I felt like an idiot, because of course it was. At one point in our history, citizens had had implants that allowed them to make net calls without using their vocal cords. But creating them was difficult, and the crystals they had used were hard to cultivate. They’d been slowly phased out over the years. My parents had received them when they became Knight Elites, but now they were only available to the highest positions in each department, and the council members themselves. Which meant that while she had been getting us freed, she had also been holding a completely different conversation with the other councilors. And we hadn’t even noticed.

Zale’s jaw tightened slightly, but that was it; the rest of his face might as well have been granite. “I understand. LaSalle?”

The Knight next to me took a step forward. “Yes, sir?”

“Please take over the investigation, and pass all findings on to Scipio for the council, until they notify you who will be taking point on the investigation.”

LaSalle straightened his back and saluted with a fist over his heart. “It will be done.” He spun around and marched back toward Ambrose’s apartment, already giving orders on how to properly collect the evidence.

Then he moved to one side, and the Medics emerged, a gurney hovering between the two of them bearing Maddox’s form.

They had put a mask over her face, and it was fogging up with her sharp pants. The Medics were leaning over her as the gurney moved forward, talking over each other as they administered aid.

“—Punctured a lung—”

“—Administering adrenaline—”

“—Air in chest cavity—”

“—Need to hurry—”

They raced by, their hands moving over her and opening her suit, and my heart leapt into my throat. Her one good eye was still open, a look of fear and confusion on her face. She kept reaching up toward the mask and gasping in sharp pants, but the male Medic pushed her hand away, keeping her from speaking. My heart ached, and I realized that she wanted to try to tell us who had done this to her, but they weren’t letting her. Which meant they didn’t think she was going to make it—not if they didn’t get her to the Medica quickly.

And then they were gone, racing down the hallway toward the elevator bank. My feet were already moving of their own accord, the compulsion to follow her, to be there with her so she didn’t have to go alone, too strong for me to ignore.

But I didn’t make it three steps before Lacey was in front of me, blocking my path. “You are going to tell me what the hell happened to Ambrose,” she ground out evenly, her eyes flashing with the promise of a great and terrible anger, the likes of which I had never seen before.