Nona started dry-heaving pitifully, and there was Cam with the wastebasket, pulling her hair back, saying gently, “There you go, don’t force it”—so it wasn’t Cam. Nona tried to be as sick as she could be, which took a while and a lot of effort. Afterward she felt better, but as though she had run up and down the street outside the Building five times in quick succession. And her whole body hurt.
“Oh,” gasped Nona, and she flopped back on the makeshift bed and shakily wiped her mouth with her arm. She was in a darkened room, right next to a long table with chairs. As she hadn’t seen it from this angle before, it took her a little while to recognise the meeting room in the Blood of Eden facility, same one as last time. The portrait of the redhead with the cruel eyes stared down at her from her thicket of dried-up flowers, as though contemptuous that Nona had had the bad manners to throw up in front of her. Her vision shimmered. She had to lay her head back again. Palamedes was looking at the contents of the wastebasket with a troubled expression, which was gross as well as worrying, and she knew the jig was up.
She whispered, “Are we alone?”
“Yes—but we won’t be for long. Nona, I need to make sure you’re all right.”
“Did the bullet come out my head?”
“No—I had to take it out, it got stuck.”
She was nearly too afraid to ask. “Hot Sauce—”
“Hot Sauce wanted to leave,” said Palamedes, “and—well, we let her leave, Nona.”
Nona’s heart felt that the bullet had got stuck there instead. Palamedes continued, “Blood of Eden brought us here to see We Suffer, which is fine, and I worked on you—under supervision. Most of Ctesiphon Wing saw the bullet in your head … and of course, nobody knew before how quickly you regenerate, because we hadn’t told them. So they shackled Cam and me, then locked you up.”
“Which made me mad.”
“Which made you mad.”
Nona said tentatively, “I made a big mess, didn’t I,” and Palamedes said briskly— “They should have bloody guessed. Every mistake they’ve made with us stemmed from a complete lack of trust—a cowardice and an unwillingness to let us in on the game. And now that I know what I know … or think I know … But, Nona, what’s more important is that I make sure everything in your body works, because if you’d been a normal human being we would be planning your funeral.”
“Don’t bother,” said Nona, affrighted. “It only made me angry—which I think was a pity,” she added, belatedly.
“Yes,” said Palamedes, distantly. “It was a pity. But, Nona … Nona, about that broadcast. You saw it, didn’t you? All of it? And you didn’t—recognise anyone you saw?”
The jig was finally up.
“Only the girl from my dream,” said Nona.
Palamedes breathed in through Camilla’s nose, then out through Camilla’s mouth.
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“You didn’t ask,” said Nona.
“Nona,” said Palamedes very, very slowly, “that was very important information—information that changes everything—the type of information we have schooled you for the last six months to tell us, instantly, and the type of information Camilla and I personally trusted you to prioritise.”
This was too much to bear.
“I’ve had things to think about,” Nona wailed. “I didn’t want to get in trouble.”
“Have Cam and I ever gotten you in trouble?”
“No, and I didn’t want to ruin that, Honesty always gets in trouble and it’s terrible,” said Nona. “And it’s not fair trying to talk calmly and sadly about my responsibilities when I know you’re thinking, ‘Nona, I want to beat you up with the broom handle.’ Just say, ‘Nona, I want to beat you up with the broom handle.’”
“I’d never use the broom handle on you,” said Palamedes.
Nona was mollified.
“You wouldn’t feel it. If Cam and I didn’t love you as much as we do,” said Palamedes, “we would take turns throttling you, then give all your magazines to charity.”
Palamedes had never said the word love before. More than anything—even the idea of her beloved magazines going to charity, as though others were more deserving than Nona, the most deserving person on the planet—this broke her.
“Don’t interrupt me. I’ve got to tell you something and I have to tell you really quickly,” said Nona, only she choked on the rough stuff in the back of her throat, and she said— “You know how I’ve been sick lately?”