فصل 26

26 A Receptacle for the World’s Hatred

Rowan did not know any of the things that had transpired during his three-year absence. Unlike Citra, no one briefed him. Anything he picked up, he learned in passing. He did know that Goddard was in charge of most of North Merica now—which wasn’t good for anyone and was definitely not good for Rowan.

Now he stood tied to a glass column in the center of Goddard’s crystal chalet. Wasn’t there an expression about glass houses and throwing stones? Well, if he had a stone, he wouldn’t throw it. He’d hide it until he could use it for something more effective.

He had been revived the day before, just as High Blade Pickford said he would be. Death was not good enough for Scythe Lucifer. Knowing Goddard, his end would be filled with much pomp and pageantry.

Goddard came to see him with Scythe Rand by his side as always. The expression on Goddard’s face was not one of fury. It was actually welcoming. Warm—if a cold-blooded thing could ever be said to have a warm expression. It threw Rowan for a loop. Made him uncertain. Rand, on the other hand, looked worried, and Rowan knew why.

“My dearest Rowan,” Goddard said, arms wide as if moving in for a hug, yet stopping a few yards away.

“Surprised to see me?” Rowan asked, as flip as he could force himself to be.

“Nothing surprises me about you, Rowan,” Goddard said. “But I’ll admit I’m impressed that you managed to come back after the sinking of Endura.” “Which you sank.”

“On the contrary,” Goddard said. “You sank it. That’s what the record shows and will always show.” If he was trying to get a rise out of Rowan, it wasn’t working. He had already made his peace with bad publicity. When he chose to become Scythe Lucifer, he knew he’d be hated. Of course, he just expected it to be hatred among scythes. He never thought he’d be despised by the rest of the world.

“You seem happy to see me,” Rowan observed. “That’s probably because of the physiology of the body you stole. Tyger’s body reacting to seeing his best friend.” “Perhaps,” said Goddard, glancing at Tyger’s hands, as if they might actually grow mouths and say something to him. “But the rest of me is happy to see you as well! You see, as a boogeyman, Scythe Lucifer is a nuisance. But as an actual man, he’s someone I can use for the betterment of humankind.” “The betterment of Goddard, you mean.”

“What’s good for me is good for the world—you must realize that by now,” Goddard said. “I see the larger picture, Rowan. I always have. And now, by showing the world that Scythe Lucifer is subject to judgment, it will help people to rest a little easier.” Through all of this, Scythe Rand said nothing. She had taken a seat and was watching. Waiting to see what Rowan would do. What accusations he’d make. After all, she was the one who’d set Rowan free on Endura. He could be quite a fly in her ointment. But that would be no better than throwing a stone.

“If you’re hoping to be remembered, don’t worry, you will be. Once you’ve been gleaned, your name will be an eternal receptacle for the world’s hatred. You’re infamous, Rowan—you should embrace that! It’s the only fame you’ll ever have, and much more than you deserve. Consider it a gift for all we’ve been to each other.” “You really are enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”

“Oh, immensely,” admitted Goddard. “You can’t imagine how many times I’ve stood here pondering all the ways I could torment you!” “Who will you torment when I’m gone?”

“I’m sure I’ll find someone. Or maybe I won’t need to. Maybe you’re the last thorn in my side I’ll ever have to deal with.” “Naah—there’s always another thorn.”

Goddard clapped his hands together, truly tickled. “I have so missed these conversations with you!” “You mean the ones where you gloat, and I’m tied up?”

“You see? The way you get to the heart of the matter is always so refreshing. So entertaining. I’d keep you as a house pet, if I didn’t fear you’d somehow escape and burn me to a crisp in my sleep.” “I would, and I would,” Rowan told him.

“I have no doubt. Well, rest assured you won’t be escaping today. We no longer have the blunderings of Scythe Brahms to deal with.” “Why? Was he devoured by sharks like the rest of them?”

“Yes, I’m sure he was,” Goddard said, “but he was dead before they got to him. Punishment for having allowed you to escape.” “Right.” Rowan said nothing more about it. But he did catch Rand out of the corner of his eye shifting in her chair as if it had suddenly grown hot.

Goddard came closer to him. His voice became softer. “You might not believe this, but I really have missed you, Rowan.” There was an honesty to this simple statement that transcended Goddard’s habitual showmanship. “You’re the only one who dares to speak back to me anymore. I have adversaries, yes, but they’re all pushovers. Easily bested. You were different from the beginning.” He took a step back and looked Rowan over, appraising him, the way one might appraise a faded painting that had lost its allure. “You could have been my first underscythe,” Goddard said. “An heir to the world scythedom—and make no mistake, there will be a single world scythedom when I’m done with it. That would have been your future.” “If only I had ignored my conscience.”

Goddard shook his head in pity. “Conscience is a tool, just like any other. If you don’t wield it, it wields you—and from what I can see, it has bludgeoned you senseless. No, the world needs the unity that I offer far more than it needs your simplistic understanding of right and wrong.” The thing about Goddard was that he always came close enough to making sense that it was demoralizing. He could twist your own thoughts until they were no longer yours, but his. That’s what made him so dangerous.

Rowan found his defiance and fortitude draining away. Was Goddard right about anything? A voice inside him said no, but that voice was spiraling deep into its shell.

“What’s going to happen to me?” Rowan asked.

Goddard leaned close and whispered in his ear.

“A reckoning.”

Scythe Rand thought all this was behind her. She had been on one of her construct-sanctum excursions when word came that Scythe Lucifer was alive and in Amazonia. The mission to retrieve him from the Amazonians took place without her knowledge. He was already en route when Goddard told her the “glorious news.” It was terrible timing. With more warning, she would have found a way to glean him before he reached Goddard, if only to keep his mouth shut.

But here he was, and his mouth stayed shut anyway. At least about her. Did he keep the secret just to see her squirm? Ayn wondered what his game was.

This time Goddard wasn’t so cavalier as to leave Rowan alone in his room. Two guards were assigned to be in there with him. They were ordered to keep their distance, and their eyes on him at all times.

“You’ll check on him every hour,” Goddard told Ayn. “To see that he hasn’t loosened his restraints or compromised the guards.” “You should render them deaf, so he can’t subvert them,” she suggested. It was meant as a joke, but Goddard took it seriously.

“Sadly, they’d heal within an hour.”

So instead of deafening the guards, silence was achieved the old-fashioned way. Rowan was gagged. However, when Ayn came to check on Rowan that afternoon, he had managed to work the gag off. He was all smiles in spite of being practically hog-tied.

“Hi, Ayn,” he said brightly. “Having a good day?”

“Haven’t you heard?” she quipped back. “Every day’s a good day since Goddard became Overblade.” “We’re sorry, Your Honor,” said one of the guards. “Since we were ordered to keep our distance, we couldn’t replace the gag. Perhaps you can do it.” “What’s he been saying?”

“Nothing,” said the other guard. “He’s been singing a song that was popular a few years ago. He tried to get us to sing along, but we didn’t.” “Good,” said Ayn. “I applaud your restraint.”

Through all this, Rowan’s smile didn’t fade. “You know, Ayn, I could have told Goddard that you were the one who set me free back on Endura.” Just like that. He just laid it out there for the two guards to hear.

“Lying will get you nowhere,” she said for the sake of the guards, then ordered them both to wait outside the room—which, in a place where so many of the internal walls were still clear glass, didn’t hide anything from view, but at least the room was soundproof once the door closed.

“I don’t think they believed you,” Rowan said. “You really didn’t sell it.” “You’re right,” said Ayn. “Which means I’ll have to glean them now. Their deaths are on your hands.” “Your blade, not mine,” he said.

She took a moment to glance at the two guards, oblivious on the other side of the glass wall. The problem wasn’t gleaning them but hiding the fact that it was her doing. She’d have to order some low-level scythe to do it, and then persuade the scythe to self-glean—and all in such a way that it wouldn’t seem suspicious. What a mess.

“Setting you free was the worst decision I ever made.”

“Not the worst,” Rowan said. “Not even close.”

“Why didn’t you tell Goddard? What possible reason could you have?”

Rowan shrugged. “You did me a favor, and I returned it. Now we’re even. And besides,” he added. “You undermined him once. Maybe you’ll do it again.” “Things have changed.”

“Have they? I still don’t see him treating you the way he should. Has he ever told you what he told me today? That you’d be the heir to the world scythedom? No? Seems to me that he treats you the way he treats everyone else. Like a servant.” Ayn took a deep breath, suddenly feeling very much alone. In most things, she enjoyed being a party of one, but this was different. What she really felt was a complete lack of allies. Like everyone in the world was an enemy. And maybe they were. She hated the fact that this smug boy could make her feel that way. “You’re much more dangerous than he gives you credit for,” she told him.

“But you’re still here listening to me. Why?”

She didn’t want to consider the question. Instead she ran through her mind all the ways she could glean him right then and there, and damn the consequences. But if she gleaned him, she knew it wouldn’t take. There was no way to render him unrevivable there in the penthouse, which meant Goddard would just bring him back to face the very specific judgment he had planned. And then, when he was revived, maybe Rowan would tell Goddard everything. She was bound just as completely as Rowan was.

“Not that it matters, but I just want to know,” Rowan said. “Do you agree with everything he does? Do you think he’s taking the world in the right direction?” “There is no right direction. There’s only a direction that makes things better for our kind, and directions that don’t.” “By ‘our kind,’ do you mean scythes?”

“What else would I mean?”

“The scythes were meant to make the world better for everyone. Not the other way around.” If he thought she cared, he was barking up the wrong tree. Ethics and morality were the hobgoblins of the old guard. Her conscience was clear, because she had none, and had always taken pride in that.

“He means to publicly end you,” she told Rowan. “And by publicly, I mean in a way that will leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that Scythe Lucifer is gone forever. Vanquished and extinguished for all time.” “Is that what you want?”

“I will not mourn you,” Rand told him, “and when you’re gone, I’ll be relieved.” He accepted it as true, because it was. “You know, Scythe Rand—there’s going to come a point when Goddard’s ego gets so far out of control that even you can see the danger of it—but by then he’ll be so powerful, there won’t be anyone left to challenge him.” Ayn wanted to deny it, but she felt gooseflesh rising. Her own physiology telling her that there was truth in what he said. No, she wouldn’t mourn Scythe Lucifer. But once he was gone, there would still be plenty to worry about.

“You really are just like him,” she said. “You both twist people’s minds until they don’t know which way is up. So you’ll excuse me if I never speak to you again.” “You will,” Rowan said with absolute certainty. “Because after he ends me, he’ll make you dispose of whatever’s left of me, the way you disposed of what was left of Tyger. And then, when no one’s listening, you’ll snipe at my charred bones, just so you can have the last word. Maybe you’ll even spit on them. But it won’t make you feel any better.” And it was infuriating. Because she knew he was right on every count.