“And then I told her she should go wipe someone else’s ass.”
Their laughter is ugly. I sit silent like a statue, while Arthur rests beside me, equally silent but infinitely more comfortable.
I want to frown. I want to tell the scarred bastard to shut his crooked-toothed mouth.
But he keeps talking, teeth bared in a grotesque parody of joy.
“Man, Eriksson. Long has it been.”
He claps him on the shoulder.
The red girl stands close to the disguised noble—Eriksson.
He’s said that exact phrase five times already.
I squint at Arthur, whose eyes meet mine like knives crossing.
“Shall we now begin with our actual plan?”
Arthur’s voice is dry, deliberate, cutting through the forced camaraderie like a guillotine blade.
It works. The room falls quiet. Greens, Oranges, that lone Red girl—all of them feel the change in the air.
Earlier, I felt sick enough to crawl out of my own skin, retching in the back room of the filthy bar. They told me just enough about the missions they wanted me to finance. Enough to bait me with promises of formulas and rare blood. Enough to make me play along for the access to ingredients only I could supply from my family’s gardens.
Arthur had already told me all of it before.
Now I sit among them.
Their eyes glint like predators spotting prey, and I’m the rabbit with my throat exposed.
I know what they are.
Killers forged in the empire’s worst wars.
Men and women who fought against Yellow-blooded alliances and survived.
Nobody even knows how so many of them escaped the Imperial frontlines and ended up here.
Now they stand before me.
Greens. Oranges. But capable of so much more.
I swallow my fear, trying not to show it, as silence settles like a thick, choking fog.
Valea’s voice breaks it––if I’ve heard her name correctly. She’s the orange-haired woman, hair so dark it’s nearly brown, though with that foul orange sheen at the roots.
She looks at her boss—Harmon.
The one who embraced Eriksson like a brother.
My gaze fixes on Eriksson himself.
I swallow a mouthful of spit that feels like acid on my tongue.
“Yes,” Harmon says, smirking. “We were going to introduce ourselves once everyone was here...”
He pauses deliberately, not because he’s out of breath, but because he wants to.
“But a few couldn’t make it. After all, some cannot be seen with us at all. Their reasons will become clear to you soon enough. Everything comes with time, boy.”
He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t look away.
He wants me uncomfortable.
“But for now, what matters...” His gaze pins me to my chair. “...what matters is that we are called the Order.”
My heart beats somewhat faster, my hands knitting the snow-white tablecloth.
“The name means nothing to most. Not to you, not to your family. There’s no black market whisper, no underground code. Nobody except us. We work unseen, and for justice.”
His burning eyes flick to the little Red girl beside Eriksson.
I notice the shattered teacup on the low table in front of me, untouched.
My breath hitches under the weight of the moment.
It makes sense. Discipline. The cold efficiency. The lethal silence.
They’re the ruling and military class. Even if their blood is in the social order in the lower classes, they are still green and orange, they are upper in Elisia—dangerous, trained, relentless.
But then Harmon’s words hit me with the force of a slap.
“We act for justice, and therefore against the injustice set upon the Reds.”
It feels like it circles my ribs before plunging deep into my gut.
I force the word out on a shallow breath.
“Yes,” Harmon says flatly, his eyes not blinking for a single moment.
He just watches the girl with an expression that’s—gods damn it—almost melancholic.
I don’t understand it.
“Yes, boy,” he repeats, like he’s spelling it out for a child.
Everyone is watching me.
Sunlight spills cold and pale through the windows, illuminating every set of unblinking eyes.
“We, the Order, have been working on a plan to rescue as many Reds as we can.”
Instead, I look up at the ceiling, searching for a reflection of my own expression.
I find nothing but blank, empty light.