“What does that have to do with anything? We need to be able to talk to that thing inside of you as soon as we possibly can. The whole reason it’s taking an age is because you have a deplorably low magical capacity.”
“Deplorable? Really? Well, certainly when compared to the likes of you...and perhaps, yes, okay, it’s an undeniable fact, but still...”
“Eat together, sleep together, do it all—just do everything together. The processing or analysis will likely finish quicker that way, and the sooner you can communicate with that girl the quicker we can get to the next steps.”
“What...?!” I exclaimed.
“That’s not going to work for either of us,” said Reinald. “Be more realistic.”
Oh, Reinald brushed away that idea real quick...
Reinald was blunt, but Six wasn’t about to back down either. He seemed to be simmering where he stood, his features expressing feelings I’d never seen on him before.
“I don’t care if it’s not realistic, I need you to just do it! You either keep her with you, or you come here and stay with her. Yes, people will gossip, but what else is new? You’ve never been the sort to care about what others think anyway!”
Six had risen from his chair. Stress was written all over him. Reinald remained steadfast, which only seemed to frustrate the mage even more. Perhaps even Six himself had been trying not to think about the potential fate that awaited him in the worst-case scenario.
“Six, calm down,” said Reinald.
“Calm down?! How do you expect me to do that?!”
Six’s shouting shocked Black Bird awake, and it flew through the air, but the mage couldn’t have cared less.
“They’ve found a way to lock me away!” he seethed, running his hands through his hair. “At this rate, I’m going to be stuck there again, completely and utterly alone! No feelings, no nothing! Nothing to see, to touch, or to smell! And not even death. All that exists in that box is solitude, and no human with any ordinary lifespan can even pretend to know anything about what I’ve been through!”
I had never heard more grief in a person’s words. Probably ever, if I’m being honest. It was the first time I had ever seen the ever-mischievous, disgustingly blithe Six look scared. The mage’s hatred for humans and his desire to see so many of them dead were directed straight at Reinald, but unfortunately for him, Six had nobody else to turn to.
“What do you expect? You do nothing to understand me,” Reinald said, “and so I treat you the same way. Have you forgotten that we are both using each other for our own ends?”
Reinald didn’t flinch. He even seemed to lord this moment over Six. I’d always thought that Six knew Reinald quite well. They looked like friends to me, but perhaps in truth it was not quite so. Six had called Reinald his “comrade” in the past, but that was only insofar as it concerned the destroying of the box Six was trapped in.
Six clicked his tongue and looked down at the floor. He was at his wit’s end.
“I mean it when I tell you that we have to hurry,” he said. “It’s happening gradually, but the box is being sealed. That can only mean that the ruin’s original powers are being restored. It won’t be long before I simply won’t be able to hide anything from Karl.”
“I understand. I can tell that Wilhelmina is up to something too.”
“Karl knows better than anybody that you stand in opposition to him. And if the truth comes to light, your sister is right there waiting to swoop in and handle things—even if that means committing the former crown prince to life imprisonment.”
“Terrifying indeed,” Reinald agreed. “The man deserves to be kept alive while he is slowly dissec...”
It was an off-the-cuff remark, but Reinald held off from finishing his sentence when he remembered that I was there with them. I did my best to stop myself mentally finishing his sentence or imagining the particular outcome that came with it. Six reached out and picked up Black Bird, who had until that point been rolling around on the table.
“Do not forget that, if I cannot obfuscate the truth, I will have to tell Karl all about the troops you are amassing and the iron you are stockpiling in secret,” said Six, stretching Black Bird out as though it were a piece of mochi. “So as I keep saying—hurry.”
All of this was very new to me. Reinald’s eyebrow raised slightly.
“You’ve a loose tongue,” he said.
“You mean because of her? You’ve already let her into your inner circle—she was going to find out eventually.”
I had lots of questions, but there was one I wanted to hone in on in particular.
“I’m curious about something,” I started. “You said you can’t disobey the imperial family, Six. What does that mean, exactly?”
“Everything. Whatever they say. I can’t disobey anything.”
“You’re lying,” I said. “If it were an absolute truth, there’s no way we could consult you about the plans to destroy the box. We couldn’t even be having this conversation.”
I also seemed to remember Reinald saying at some point that it didn’t matter if Six happened to overhear us, because he wouldn’t tell the emperor anyway. Then there was the matter of the underground waterways. If Six had been entirely at the emperor’s mercy, then all the emperor had to ask was “Is somebody scheming to see your box destroyed?” and Six would have no choice but to spill the beans.
“That’s exactly how it was when I first emerged from the box,” admitted Six. “Even if I tried to hide something, they simply had to ask me for the details, and I’d tell them. It didn’t matter what I thought or how I felt about it. My mouth moved in answer to their questions regardless.”
“But it’s different now?”
“With the box damaged, some of what binds me has weakened. I still can’t kill my masters, but lying is now possible. That said, the act of lying comes with intense pain. I’d actually come to believe that pain no longer existed for me, but when I lie it feels as if my limbs are being forcefully torn from my body.”
Six had only ever told Reinald about this, and he had kept it a secret from the emperor. The reason was obvious—as far as the emperor was concerned, it didn’t matter how much Six despised the empire; he was still under its complete control. If it came to light that Six could lie and conceal information, the status quo would be shattered. The emperor would be in a panic to see the box repaired far quicker than the present rate. Keeping this truth quiet allowed Six to buy time, but it was also a sort of silent middle finger to the emperor at the same time.