For a moment Nona could barely make heads or tails of it. It was lucky that it was House, which she and Pyrrha and Palamedes and Camilla spoke anyway, but not having anyone to look at foxed her. The voice was also saying a lot of words she had never before heard, in context or otherwise. She looked at Hot Sauce’s face instead, half-hidden beneath its hood, taut with listening.
“This agreement,” the voice echoed over the crowd, “is, as I speak, being transcribed and will be displayed in public in official local languages—how many do we have of those? Seventeen? Well, someone’s in for a long night—displayed in public across the city as soon as translations have been finalised. The agreement will, without further negotiation, be considered legally binding. However—as I mentioned at the start of this broadcast—there are conditions that must be met. Any individual or group who violates these conditions renders the entire agreement, I’m sorry to say, null and void. The population will consequently represent a legal entity that has damaged property, acted unlawfully, committed or been accessory to murder, and performed a coup. This is per the contracts drawn up between you and the Emperor Undying over seven hundred years previous when this settlement was created. His offer of a break in that contract … is entirely contingent on what you do now. Ah. Give me a second. It seems we’ve fixed the equipment. We were using it in a … barricade? How exciting. Anyway, we should have screen capabilities now.”
The hexagons writhed in agony, then resolved into a picture—what she was looking at, Nona could for a moment not tell. The heinous light bathed the crowd in white and rainbow colours. The screen made all the hues garish, ten times more saturated than they should have been: as though they were drawn by someone who only had certain colours in their pencil box. The camera swung back and forth a few times, which made Nona nauseous—there were brief flashes of boots and legs: of whites so white they looked yellow except where they were splotched with reds so red they looked orange, a multihued melange of faces and walls—before it settled on a desk. Seated at the desk, looking mildly annoyed but perhaps like that was their normal expression, a person came into focus.
Nona was charmed immediately by the clothing. The other boots and the other shirts and the other legs had looked dirty and shabby, from what she’d briefly seen, but not this person. Their coat was so spotlessly white that on the screen it looked blue; so was their neckerchief. The camera jumped a lot closer, focusing on this figure from the waist up now, and Nona could see that the neckerchief had a pretty gold pin sparkling in the folds. The person themselves was frighteningly pale of skin, and their hair alarmingly perfect in shape and form. Nona had never seen hair like that before. It was as though it had been sculpted, not grown. It was a rich middling brown, thick and shiny even beneath the strong lights that had been aimed at it. Most people under such lights would have shown at least a little scalp. The expression was one of intense boredom; their body language betrayed more interest. And their lips were a little too pale to be lips, but shiny like the hair, as though someone had applied gloss.
But their huge, screen-magnified eyes were quite pretty, Nona decided: blue, with brown bits. She had never seen eyes like that before.
“Good evening, New Rho,” said the person.
Nobody responded. The young, well-dressed, dead-white person didn’t seem to wait for them. They said instead, “Citizens, settlement refugees, and all other residents, here is a list of the Emperor’s conditions. One:
“That all violence of any kind directed at Cohort facilities ceases immediately, both the barracks and the surrounding residential area;
“Two, that all attacks on Cohort soldiers cease immediately, whether they are inside Cohort facilities or outside;
“Three, that all casualties belonging or suspected of belonging to the Emperor’s Nine Houses are surrendered and brought to the barracks gates;
“Four, that all members of the group calling themselves Blood of Eden cease operating in this area, and that anyone who comes into contact with Blood of Eden refuses succour, materiel, or weapons from them;
“Five…”
Here the beautiful pale person paused for the first time, though it seemed that it was less for not knowing what to say and more for the sake of waiting.
“That any member of House personnel who has left their post—disappeared into the population—arrived after the siege and failed to make themselves known to the authorities—that anyone who serves the Emperor, Cohort or otherwise, and who has made themselves absent without leave, present themselves to me immediately, at the barracks, during the next twenty-four hours. This is the amnesty period. Take it or leave it. Remember that it is in your power to turn Emperor’s Evidence and be granted the mercies of the King Undying.”