"Is he hanged now?" "Now that he pulled you down? I should hope not. We gave him a jammer to shut off their ancient cameras. He did the work of a ghost." Uncle Narol. HeadTalk, but drunk as a fool. I always thought him weak. He still is. No strong man would drink like him or be so bitter. But he never earned the disdain I gave him. Yet why did he not save Eo? "You act like my uncle bloodydamn owed you," I say. "He owes his people." "People." I laugh at the term. "There is family. There is clan. There may even be township and mine, but people? People. And you act as though you're my representative, as though you have a right to my life. But you are just a fool, all you Sons of Ares." My voice is withering in its condescension. "Fools who can do nothing but blow things up. Like children kicking pitviper nests in rage." That's what I want to do. I want to kick, to lash out. That's why I insult him, that's why I spit on the Sons even though I have no real cause to hate them. Dancer's handsome face curls into a tired smile, and it's only then that I realize how feeble his dead arm really is—thinner than his muscular right arm, bent like a flower's root. But despite the withered limb, there's a twisted menace to Dancer, a less obvious sort than that in Harmony. It comes out when I laugh at him, when I scorn him and his dreams. "Our informants exist to feed us information and to help us find the outliers so we can extract the best of Red from the mines." "So you can use us." Dancer smiles tightly and picks up the bowl from the cot. "We will play a game to see if you are one of these outliers, Darrow. If you win, I will take you to see something few lowReds have seen." LowReds. I've never heard the term before. "And if I lose?" "Then you are not an outlier and the Golds win yet again." I flinch at the notion. He holds out a bowl and explains the rules. "There are two cards in the bowl. One bears the reaper's scythe. The other bears a lamb. Pick the scythe and you lose. Pick the lamb and you win." Except I notice his voice fluctuate when he says this last bit. This is a test. Which means there is no element of luck to it. It must then be measuring my intelligence, which means there is a kink. The only way the game could test my intelligence is if the cards are both scythes; that's the singular variable that could be altered. Simple. I stare into Dancer's handsome eyes. It is a rigged game; I'm used to these, and usually I follow the rules. Just not this time. "I'll play." I reach into the bowl and pull free a card, taking care that only I can see its face. It is a scythe. Dancer's eyes never leave mine. "I win," I say. He reaches for the card to see its face, but I shove it in my mouth before he can take hold of it. He never sees what I drew. Dancer watches me chew on the paper. I swallow and pull the remaining card from the bowl and toss it at him. A scythe.
