When I left the bathroom, Torres was smoking in the bedroom. A pte of savory biscuits and a water bottle waited on the windowsill.

  I dropped myself on the bed. Because I hadn't bothered to put on any socks and boots yet, I lifted my feet to the bed. He gave me the joint. I took a puff and inhaled deep. A hint of citrus, pleasantly refreshing. Not too strong, but enough to stop worrying for a couple hours. Too bad it didn't really go well with the beer. Though I shouldn't really compin. I was going to need my wits ter, and I was coming close to the limits of what I could handle.

  “This is your lover’s crop, isn’t it,” I said. I had only a blurry memory of the guy I meant, as I'd been too distracted by High Tomenedra and the Snakes during my st visit, but I was pretty sure I’d already met him a couple of months ago.

  “He's not my lover, just some guy I fuck.” Despite that, I could detect a hint of fondness on his words. Torres seems to get a bit sentimental when stoned. Maybe it was the age.

  “Then you should keep fucking him.” I passed him the joint and sat with my back to the wall, feeling my muscles rex. I really had a lot of pent-up tension. “Did you ever try monogamy?”

  “No.”

  “How about being with the same guy for a long long time?”

  “Why is that nothing ever stops you from running off your mouth?”

  “Just ‘cause.”

  “Well, the guy who gave you that bracelet is your problem, not mine.”

  “I told you, he's the King of the Dying Sun. His name's Vanth Umbra.” My mind was firing up, bouncing from one side of my skull to the other like an excited cavy, and I didn't want to start pondering Vanth. You never know what you might end up saying. “Hey, hey, still think I'm wrong?

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t ask about what.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It does though. It’s about what's going on in High Tomenedra. And the Snakes.” You could tell I was under the influence, because I was suddenly convinced Torres would have to see the really obvious truth of my words. And that's not something Torres ever did.

  “Of fucking course you're wrong.” He passed me the joint again.

  “Remember the murdered guard with a dog's head?”

  “The one your friend didn't even see.”

  “She wasn’t really a friend, I only met her that one time. Anyway, something gruesome happened to a guard. It don't matter if there was a dog head or not.” As I told him about the Tekitekis attacking Valentino at El Meandro, I returned him the joint. “And now the bck market went after Valentino, too. All that in what, ten days? Two weeks? It can't be a coincidence.”

  “Of course it's no coincidence. It means there's idiots everywhere. Soon-to-be-dead idiots.”

  “But why now?”

  “What do I know? Go ask an idiot.”

  I wasn't hungry yet, but I grabbed a biscuit anyway. They were good. A bit too salty, but that's good when the munchies hit.

  “Do you think the Megarchon could be dying?” I asked.

  He exhaled slowly, the smoke drifting past his face. “Yes. Like everyone else.”

  I tried to poke him in the leg, but he batted my hand away with the end of his right arm. “I meant about to die, like this year.”

  “Well, I try not to think about the Megarchon if I can help it, dead or alive. But I guess that fits, doesn't it?”

  “Right.” See, all of us had sworn an oath of allegiance to the Megarchon under pain of death, but we'd sworn it over the Imperium. So if the next Megarchon couldn't control the Imperium anymore, the oath was unenforceable. That expined why so many people had decided to rise against the guards. They weren’t the ones you really feared. That was the Megarchon—or rather, the Imperium. With no Imperium, there was very little to be afraid of anymore.

  Unless...

  “Yeah.” Torres passed me the joint. “Most likely, the Megarchon dies without a proper successor and the Imperium kills us all for no reason.”

  “If I was a Megarchon, I probably would want that to happen.”

  Torres hummed with approval. He could think about sudden inevitable worldwide devastation and remain calm. The idea still made me feel upset, but I could now consider the possibility without shying away from the thought. That's worth getting the munchies.

  “Good thing I'm going to the capital,” I said. “I'll find out what's happening and make sure the Megarchon won't bring anybody down with her.”

  “Only Vorsa.” Torres clicked his tongue. Vorsa would go down in the most literal of ways the second the Imperium wasn't propping it up.

  “Maybe not. I mean,the Imperium can keep the city afloat while she's asleep. It don’t really need a Megarchon for that.”

  “Maybe there won’t be an Imperium anymore, though.”

  “That's right, but it existed before the first Megarchon. Maybe it'll exist after all Megarchons are gone.”

  Torres shrugged, conceding the point to me. Honestly, it's less that he agreed with me and more that he was too stoned to give a shit, but I counted it as my victory. I celebrated by grabbing the tray and eating another biscuit.

  “You're not going to do anything stupid, right?” Torres asked.

  “Of course not.”

  He snorted, then exchanged the joint for the tray. “I don't mean your idea of stupid. I mean mine.”

  I hated that Torres wouldn't be fooled even if he was high or drunk. Friends are so inconvenient.

  “You're really interested in all that shit with the guards,” he insisted.

  “Yeah. And?”

  He took the joint from my hand. “You're gonna go looking for those Rainbow Snakes. Why dontcha go looking for dancing vipers? They're as real and you won't end up in a cell.”

  “There's a difference though.” I ate a couple more biscuits.

  Torres propped up his head on his hand and stared at me. “No there's not.”

  “Well, see.” I had to gather my thoughts for a moment. They kept trying to run away, and the salty biscuits kept making me reach for the water bottle. “You know why people made up dancing vipers, right?”

  “They're funny to think about.”

  “Other than that. You never lived in the hills, right? People want children to stay at home during siesta time, instead of going into the hills. So they tell them there's dancing vipers in there.”

  “Heh. I see.”

  “But they didn't make up Rainbow Snakes to scare anybody off. Because the Megarchon can't be scared off just like that. People wanted something like the Rainbow Snakes to exist, so they made them up. That's why you can make Rainbow Snakes real. Because people want that.”

  Torres exhaled a stream of smoke at me. “You're high and you should stay outta any business with guards and you're not going to and you're gonna get killed. And then I'm gonna be sorry 'cause you're a nice kid. But not sorry enough not to say 'I told you so' when I light you a candle.”

  After that, I ate all the remaining biscuits and followed Torres to the kitchen for a couple gsses of lemon water. I’d started eating biscuits straight out of the can when Valentino knocked at the door. Torres opened as I licked salt from my fingers.

  “Hey, Sergeant Vargas!” I said. “You're real handsome.”

  “Thanks, Your Excellency.” He had tied his hair back instead of rebraiding it, and it really looked good on him. “Is Your Excellency able to put his socks and boots back on?”

  “Yeah.”

  He searched for them, not a hard task in that small apartment, and brought them to me. “How is Your Excellency feeling?”

  “I'm in reasonable working order.” I still felt woozy and too calm for the circumstances, but that wasn't a bad thing. I wished I could get high again. That wasn't going to happen though. “What time is it?”

  He checked his pocket watch. “Nearly eight o'clock.”

  “We really should go catch our train.”

  Valentino bowed to Torres. “Thank you for keeping His Excellency safe.”

  Torres nodded. I stood up, now socked and booted. Before I could leave, though, Torres grabbed my head with his hand and pnted a kiss on my lips. He tasted salty.

  “Watch out,” he said.

  I didn't like the way he said that. As if he thought he wouldn't see me again.

  “I can take care of myself.” And I didn't like the way I said that, as if I was a kid who just figured out there's no dancing vipers.

  The sun hadn't disappeared yet, but the moons were out and the air was cooling down. I followed Valentino as he walked slowly, making sure not to lose our way in the unfamiliar streets.

  “Are we going to the station?” I asked. “There’s a shortcut.”

  “No, Your Excellency. The mayor wants to talk with you. They’re waiting in the main avenue.”

  “This way, then.”

  He followed me. “I need Your Excellency to know the situation wasn’t pleasant.”

  “I see.” More precisely, I expected that, but I couldn't bring myself to say it out loud. As you see, I really was in working order.

  “They still haven't finished cleaning up the streets. If Your Excellency will be upset—”

  “It's fine, I can handle it.” And this time, my voice was way too upbeat for someone discussing dead people. “Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like that.”

  “It's not my pce to judge Your Excellency either way.”

  I got the feeling I really wouldn't have liked having Valentino's job.

  The avenue looked unpleasantly gloomy as dusk descended over it; the palm trees looked listless, the stone benches harsh. Not many signs of the fight left, other than a smell of ozone and ash and several unpleasant stains I didn't want to look at. And of course, the dead.

  Not only had they not cleaned up yet, as Valentino said, but they were gathering up the corpses right in the main avenue, a row of bodies loosely wrapped up in burp. A couple of secretaries in light grey suits took notes from a middle-aged guard that looked like the one in charge. If they stuck to the usual procedure, they'd try to get an identification before they chucked all the corpses into a mass pyre—and you can't bme them for torching them all, nobody wants zombies.

  The identification process, though, isn't always welcomed by the families of the victims. Being remembered as the retive of someone killed by the guards is even worse than zombies. It sticks to you. Next time the guards or the mayor or whoever needs someone to bme, they might very well choose someone reted to a known criminal.

  At least I hadn't seen any bodies of children in the row. A few of the corpses looked slight enough for teenagers, though that's to be expected. Good thing I was still a little bit stoned.

  Valentino put a hand on my shoulder. I'd stared too long.

  I smiled up at him. “Sorry, I'm fine.”

  He returned me a small smile. “If Your Excellency needs anything at all—oh.” He looked away; his eyes had been caught by a middle-aged white person striding toward us. “Mayor Retana.”

  I stood slightly straighter. For some reason, I didn't want to slouch in this company.

  It goes without saying I'd never met the mayor before. Administrative positions like this one were chosen by the governor, and therefore went to the best suck-ups or the best bribers or both, usually from the capital, rarely from the province they managed. El Meandro had a mayor in name only; none of us had ever seen them in the flesh. We suspected they weren’t real and Melibe pocketed their sary. Of course, any attempts to bring this to the authorities had to go through the official channels, which meant they'd get mysteriously lost in the way.

  And, to be honest, nobody had bothered attempting to bring the Melibes before the w because nobody cared which white person from the capital got the mayorship. At least the fake one stayed out of our way.

  Mayor Retana reached us and bowed to me. They wore a no-fuss lime green dress with a full skirt reaching down to mid-calf, a cravat, and a simple white pillbox hat keeping their hair covered—the style of the capital.

  “Your Excellency,” they said. “I'm so gd you're unharmed and safe. My guards couldn't find you anywhere.”

  Did I believe that? Actually, yes. Nobody wanted to be the one to tell the Megarchon one of her retives had died in their watch. Melibe would pin as much of the bme as humanly possible on Retana—he could be bmed for not being in the province at the time, but that was much better than being there and screwing up.

  Good thing I'd run off to hide in Torres's pce as soon as possible! I hoped Retana had worried for a long while before Valentino showed up.

  “Mayor Retana. I'm so gd you and your guards have contained this situation. And I hope Sergeant Vargas has been of help.” They'd probably gotten a whiff of weed coming off me, but I was articute enough they'd politely ignore it. Anyway, I knew for a fact it'd come from that one guy's garden, not the bck market, so it couldn’t harm me either way.

  “Naturally! There's very few situations where a Sabrewing doesn't prove to be a great help, don't you think?”

  Either that was one of the most meaningless strings of words I'd ever heard, or innuendo. I hoped for the tter—those fitted white-and-gold uniforms had inspired an endless stream of adult literature and art. Every once in a while, I acquainted myself with some of it.

  “Naturally. I'd love to assist you again, but I'm afraid we can't miss our train.”

  Retana nodded. “Of course, the situation has already been contained, and Your Excellency can't be detained any further, as much as I'd love to have you with us at the city hall tonight. I've already summoned a carriage for Your Excellency.”

  It felt so silly to get a carriage just to drive us the few blocks that separated us from the station. We would've gotten there faster on foot. Of course, getting there fast isn't the point, though rich people always compin and bme others when they're te. The point is making sure everyone knows you can afford a carriage.

  As we waited, Retana presented me with a ridiculously oversized basket carrying three wine bottles nested in a whole armful of shredded paper. That bel had a sky-high price tag—real good wine though. I also got a bnket of the fluffiest vicu?a wool—I decided on the spot it couldn't compare with my family's bnkets—a carved wooden box containing something mysterious, and a flower bouquet wrapped in yellow paper that made a lot of noise at the slightest movement. The bouquet was as ridiculously oversized as the basket, and if the effect of that joint had faded just a little ter, I would've ughed out loud, even with the corpses still being lined up at our backs.

  Well, at least that more or less justified getting into a carriage. Valentino couldn't carry the basket, the bnket, and the wooden box all by himself, and I had my arms full with the bouquet. At first gnce I feared it contained roses, but I got lucky. Between that and successfully stifling my ughter, I'd gotten lucky twice in a row. That was enough to make me wonder what’d go wrong next.

  “You must tell me the address of your retions in the province,” Retana said, “so I can look after them.”

  That, though, took me by surprise. Which retions? I had quite a few spread out beyond the hills, though of course most people with the Mamani surname were strangers. Then I realized they meant my family—my grandmas and cousins and auntie and untie.

  Retions in the province? How dare they! That was my true family, not the Lemarezins! And what did they want with my family? It was bad enough they'd found a Sabrewing on their doorstep! As if anything good ever came out of having a government official looking after you. They should be left alone!

  “If you'll excuse me,” Valentino put in, “His Excellency is already tired from the journey. But he'll surely write to you after we reach High Tomenedra. That is, if Mayor Retana would be so exceedingly kind as to convey a letter of His Excellency to his retions.”

  Retana beamed. “Oh, of course! It'd be my pleasure.”

  Despite everything, I was happy to have Valentino with me. You could tell he was used to this kind of situation. I wouldn't have guessed Retana would ever want to handle my correspondence—that’s lowly secretarial work, isn't it? But maybe that’s not how they saw it in Vorsa.

  Mind you, that don't mean Retana was on my side. In fact, the harder they tried to look friendly, the more convinced I was my suspicions were right.

  The carriage appeared, turning a curve at the end of the avenue. I couldn't really tell a trendy new carriage from a well-mantained but outdated one, but I couldn’t believe anybody would take a new carriage out during the dry season. All that wind and dust, you know. It was pulled by ilimecs, though, so that gave it some respectability straight from Vorsa. They sure like the skinny things over there.

  If I was going to try to find out what Retana knew, this was my only remaining chance.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Without waiting for the answer, I started walking away so that Retana would have to follow me. “It'll be quick, I don't want to lose my train.” I lowered my voice. “Did you hear anything about Her Magnificence? I don't know what's going on in Vorsa, and with her summoning me so suddenly, well—I wonder if anything bad could've happened.”

  Retana didn't show anything other than polite concern. Guess I couldn't expect otherwise. “The official channels are silent.”

  Living in the Protectorate, you’d soon become acquainted with that particur non-answer. We weren't supposed to contradict the official channels, not unless you wanted to open yourself to accusations of treason. And we weren't supposed to talk about anything the official channels wanted to remain silent about.

  So Retana refused to entertain the possibility of the Megarchon dying, then? Fine. That don't mean they wouldn't encourage the rumors, so that the bck market crowd would fall for them, go after a retive of the Megarchon's, and give Retana an excuse to—well, I wasn't looking at the row of corpses across the avenue.

  That was way too complicated for a Dorontean politician. That shit was straight from Vorsa.

  I was beginning to suspect Retana had ambitions loftier than staying mayor of Omedura forever. Allowing a retive of the Megarchon's to be harmed would be terrible for your health, but on the other hand, keeping that retive safe and wiping out the infamous Omeduran bck market would be amazing for your career's health. If you were the kind of person who liked to take risks.

  Mind you, that was all just my guess. A pretty good guess, but as long as I had no proof, it'd never be more than that. Better to wait and see.

  I sighed, as if relieved. “Thanks. I've been so worried tely.”

  Valentino helped me into the carriage, where all of our gifts and belongings already awaited, and we set off toward the station.