Outside, Ehri and her grandmother conversed beneath the night sky. Makhi had been taken to Leyti’s coach, where she was being guarded by the Tavgharad, who no longer served her, because she was no longer queen.
Bergin took a sip of water. The tremors had left his body, and though he still looked frail, his gaze was bright with anger. “Take us to the capital and let them see what Queen Makhi calls science.”
Mayu thought Tamar would speak up to agree with Bergin, but she only shook her head.
“Look around you,” she said, her hands resting on the Grisha captive’s bony wrist, monitoring his pulse. “This is one laboratory. Our intelligence suggests there are more. I know there’s one near Kobu, but we need the other locations.”
“The doctor can give them to us,” said Bergin.
“That isn’t the only issue.”
“Then what is? I’ve spent nearly three months here in a state of delirium, being dosed with parem and forced to do the unspeakable. The only thing that kept me human was Reyem.”
Their eyes met, and Mayu sensed the strength of the bond between them.
But Reyem looked down. “I don’t know if I’m human anymore.”
Mayu wasn’t sure either. It wasn’t just the wings and the monstrous pincers, but some spark in him had been extinguished. Or maybe replaced with a different kind of fire. Who are you now, Reyem? What are you?
“You spoke Fjerdan and he came back to himself,” Mayu said to Bergin. “How did you do it?”
“I didn’t know I could,” he admitted. “The work of conversion is grueling. It was painful for both of us.”
Reyem’s big shoulders shrugged. “I hated you, just as I hated the doctors and the guards. Until I saw that you were suffering too.”
Bergin rested his head against the metal frame of the bunk. “Most times, there was just the pain and the work. They made me…” He hung his head. “I’m sorry, Reyem.”
A silence fell, weighted with the horrors Bergin and her brother had seen.
Mayu touched her good hand to her twin’s, and he took it gently in his. Tamar and Bergin had done what they could for her other hand, and the pain had receded to a low throb.
Quietly, she said, “You told the queen you died a thousand times.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “To have your heart stopped in your chest, your flesh torn from your bones, to fall into oblivion, then wake to nightmare again and again and again. All for the sake of being reborn as a weapon.”
“I started teaching him Fjerdan,” said Bergin. “To distract him from the pain. Swear words, mostly.”
“What did you say to get him to wake up?” asked Tamar.
Bergin grinned. “You don’t want to know. It was incredibly filthy.”
Ehri entered the lab. Her face had been washed clean, but she was still covered in sludge. “We can’t stay here any longer. It will be dawn soon. There’s a small summer palace between here and the city. Queen Leyti commands that we travel there. We can eat, bathe, change our clothes, and figure out what we’re going to do.”
Bergin struck his fist against the bunk. “There will be no punishment for Makhi, for any of them. Just watch.”
“Why not?” Mayu asked. She felt naive asking, like a child trying to keep pace with her brother once more.
“Because they’re all Taban,” said Reyem. “A mark against one is a mark against all of them.”
“Not Ehri,” said Mayu. “The people love her. And they know she would never do anything like this. There will be justice.”
She looked to the princess, but all Ehri did was gesture to the door. “Come. There will be time to talk when we’ve eaten and rested.”
It took a while to sort out the laboratory. Tamar brought the doctor back to consciousness and he, in turn, woke the other khergud as Queen Leyti and Ehri looked on. There were four including Reyem, but none of the others remembered their true names. They asked no questions, made no requests. They simply stood—some with wings, some with horns, some with claws—waiting for orders. Perfect soldiers. Had they been further along in their transformation than Reyem? Or had none of them had a Bergin, someone to remind them that they were more than pain and anger?
Mayu watched as they locked up the laboratory, and Bergin and Reyem took their last look at this nightmare place. It was evidence and would be left intact for now.
But I’ll come back, she promised herself. She might never banish the emptiness from her brother’s eyes, but she would pull this place apart piece by piece if she had to. She would watch it burn to the ground.