"You do realize this is certifiably insane?" Sviya wriggled in the seat of the hover, but M'yu doubted she got much more comfortable. The rest of the vehicle was crowded with boxes of gleaming serving dishes, which had been recovered and lovingly polished by the Gold House servants. Both Sviya and M'yu sat squished between the stacks and the walls of the hover. They'd sent the vehicle ahead once already, filled with a few willing servants and another load of lidded plates.

M'yu didn't answer. He had enough doubts of his own to indulge hers. The Prav'sudja had arranged the Last Dinner almost immediately after Sviya sent in their notice. Tonight would be the dinner. Tomorrow would be the Washfall Trial.

And if this didn't work, Aevryn would be dead before the Trial even began.

The hover came to a stop inside the Prav'sudja's mouth. Outside, the rain pelted and splashed down in slushy puddles. A squad of Prav'sudja guards escorted M'yu and Sviya through the halls. M'yu snorted. A bit much for two teenagers. Meanwhile, Gold House servants retrieved the last of the prepared meals.

No one was in the courtroom when they arrived, but strings of empty tables filled the huge space, providing enough room for everyone who was to come. Sviya's nose wrinkled. "How disrespectful."

M'yu glanced at her as they took their seats on either side of the table's head, where Aevryn would eventually be seated. She smoothed out a napkin in her lap. "They didn't even lay cloths over the tables. They're treating him like a common criminal."

"A common criminal with a lot of friends," M'yu said wryly.

Svi raised a brow at him. "They're not his friends."

M'yu turned away to stare at the entrance.

Soon, people began trickling through, House by House, group by group. Sviya's popularity and her uncle's influence showed. She'd been able to personally invite everyone from their year, as well as several of the upper years. Then, on M'yu's command, they used Evriss's years of information to leverage all the Houses' soft spots. To everyone who'd ever been targeted by the Tsaright, Sviya had promised that supporting the Tsaright's enemy in his dying moments would be safe, sweet revenge. To the curious, she'd promised gossip. To the greedy, she'd promised a dinner worth remembering. To the fearful, she offered just a taste of what was to come: It doesn't have to be this way. Come. Come and see.

The room filled quickly, and the air hummed with subdued, macabre anticipation. This was a dead man's dinner—the largest, Evriss had said, the city had seen in decades. Chills prickled the air, even while outside, warm rain thrummed against the roof.

A dinner of death tonight. An arena of death tomorrow. By the next nightfall, the world would be a different place, and everyone could feel it in the air. With their own eyes, they were all seeing history.

As the last guests walked in, M'yu let out a pent breath. The Mercury House had come. They walked through the door in tight ranks. Ruslan didn't meet M'yu's eye but took his seat along with everyone else. 

Aevryn's servants laid silver trays on the table, their lids still on. They slid back to the room's edge just as the antechamber doors—doors M'yu himself had walked through just that morning—opened. Guards marched Aevryn through.

The prince stiffened and stopped as the crowd grew quiet. The guards nudged him forward. M'yu met his eye and dipped a careful nod. 

Aevryn took back up his walk, pace as even as if he were headed to dinner from the library. He stepped to the side, waiting for one of the guards to pull back his seat for him. Their lips twisted, but Aevryn just stood there until one yanked the chair back.

He sat, and the whole room held its breath. "Well, boy," he rumbled. "I see you brought a few friends."

A soft smile lit M'yu's lips, but Sviya stood up and pulled a piece of paper from her handbag. She presented it to a guard. "We have a right to a private Last Dinner."

The guard snorted. "You invited half the town."

"Be as that may. We have the right to enjoy his last moments without any physical or digital interference or eavesdropping from anyone not included in the official guest list. That includes representatives of the Prav'sudja," she said, eyeing them.

He smirked at her. "You're not even a lawyer, girl."

Sviya drew herself up. "I don't have to be a lawyer to know my rights. Nor do I need be one to know that anyone who denies our right to privacy will have blatantly broken a law, be open to criminal charges, and be able to be prosecuted by anyone who passes the Trial tomorrow." She smiled sweetly as the guard's smirks fell. Scowling, they signaled to the few guards left in the room, and they all exited together.

"They'll stay just outside," she muttered to M'yu as she sat. "You won't have long before they declare the dinner over."

Aevryn looked to M'yu, brow raised, but everyone else, all down the length of the tables, was also looking this way, hushed and expectant. M'yu offered Aevryn a smile that might have trembled more than encouraged. Drawing a deep breath, he stood.

"You all come here today to partake in a final meal with an innocent man." Electric candles alternately lit the crowd's faces and threw them into shadow. "An innocent man that will die, not for his crimes and not even, truly, for mine. We have all lived under the reign of the Tsaright and the looming shadow of the Magnate. We all know the true reason that tonight will be his last meal.

"And so we have a choice." M'yu left his seat, walking down the rows of tables, meeting one person's eyes after another. "We can eat the meal that's been served to us and fear which of us will sit in Aevryn's seat next. We can wonder who will gather their family to them one final time, who will lose everything they hold dear because it's more convenient for our rulers. Or—"

M'yu turned, now at the other end of the room, and set his hands down on the table. "We can go hungry." 

Angry and confused murmurs rose among the champions, and M'yu raised his hands for quiet. "We stop feeding ourselves the poison out of the Tsaright's spoon for one meal. We stop feeding each other poison. We go hungry for one day so that tomorrow, tomorrow—" 

He held his hand in the air, gaze sweeping over them all. His cheeks flushed, but he held the silence, waiting until every eye gathered to him, until every person was waiting with him. He lowered his voice. "Tomorrow, we flush the poison out of our system once and for all. Tomorrow, we don't live in fear. Tomorrow, no one dies."

People drew back, looking at each other in confusion. Someone—one of the older Mercury House boys—laughed. "Tomorrow is the Right to Die. The floor will be slick with blood."

Others murmured in fear and agreement, and M'yu jumped up onto the table. Everyone looked up. "The floor will only be slick with blood if we fight," he said. "And that's what the Tsaright expects us to do—fight each other for power, wear each other out, tear each other apart. But what if we didn't?"

Scoffs rang across the room. Someone called out, "Would that even work?" Others ridiculed and discussed in whispers with their neighbor. 

"Of course it wouldn't!" the Mercury House boy called.

"Actually." Aevryn's chair scraped back as he stood, and the room stilled. "It would." He met M'yu's gaze and gave him a single, deep nod. A lump thickened in M'yu's throat.

Aevryn surveyed the room. "It's called the Right to Sheathe—not the Right to Die—for a reason. The idea was that men should spend more time with their blades put away than put to violence."

Sviya stood. "And there's provision for it in the law." She pulled a reference book out of her handbag and flipped it open. "I quote, 'Having passed the Right to Stand, all remaining champions shall move on to the Right to Sheathe, where ranking order among the Houses shall be determined by tournament. Should for any reason there be formed a consensus of no-contest in the Right to Sheathe, it shall be understood that the champions trust the ruling parties to assign merit fairly, rather than by competition. In this case, the order among Houses shall be ranked by the Tsar." She looked up over the edge of her book. "'And if the Tsar is not present, his closest relative by blood shall assign merit in his place.'" The pages snapped shut, and she slipped it back into her purse.

"That's the original law," M'yu called. "It's not a loophole. It's not something that got added later on. The Tsar's intent was never for us to tear each other to bits. We've always had the right not to fight. Not to die."

The Mercury House boy snorted. "You mean we've always had the right to give the throne to your master."

"The master that's on death row for me?" M'yu locked eyes with the boy, whose gaze dropped.

M'yu turned to the rest of the room. "I'd take that master any day over a man who steals my money, who deals in poison and secrets, who'd just as soon smile as stab you. If you fight for the Tsaright, you fight against yourself. But if you fight for Prince Aevryn"—he spread his hands again, imploring them with his eyes—"Prince Aevryn will fight for you."

M'yu jumped down. He spoke as he moved back toward his seat, and their gazes followed him. "I should be in jail right now. This should be my last meal. But it isn't. This man took me from the streets, forgave me when I turned my back on him, taught me when I refused to listen. He fed me hope. All the Tsaright is going to feed you is this." 

With a flourish, he pulled the lid off his serving tray. Ash and rubble filled the plate. Their blackened bits stared at everyone unflinchingly. People pulled the lids off their own plates and gasped. An acrid scent filled the air. 

"Magnate Tam, the purse of the Tsaright, burned the Gold House down today. What is on your plate is all that was left. Destruction. Decay. That's all they bring us. We're nothing but a field to them, a rotting plot to plant their du'chirep and reap the rewards off our dead bodies. You think because the Capital glitters that you're better off than the Gloam, but the Tsaright is killing both."

The silence pressed upon him, but even as M'yu's hand shook, he held his nerve and let them think. Their gazes flicked among each other, asking questions no one dared to say aloud.

M'yu's voice softened. "This isn't just Prince Aevryn's last meal. It's ours, as a society. If we eat what they've fed us"—he gestured toward the plate—"if we let them kill him tonight, if we kill each other tomorrow..." He looked at each of their faces, the worry there, the hope. They reminded him of Lania the night she died. Except this time, he wasn't asking anyone to fight for him. He wouldn't ever again. 

"If we fight now, then we're doomed to fight forever." M'yu put the lid back onto the plate, covering up the bits of burnt home. "But if we go hungry for a day, then we feast for a lifetime."

The Mercury House boy scoffed. "This is ridiculous." Everyone else stayed quiet. Their eyes were on M'yu, their hands folded, brows drawn, lips bit.

Beside him, Sviya's gaze shifted, heavy and intent, and M'yu followed it. Ruslan stared at her, his jaw tight. Please, Sviya mouthed. Ruslan's gaze broke. He looked to Aevryn.

A sad smile graced the prince's lips. Subtly, he turned his palm out toward Ruslan—the sign for yielding that the boy had forgotten to teach M'yu.

Ruslan's lips pressed together, and he looked away, clearing his throat. His chair scraped back across the floor. "I stand with the Prince!"

A handful of people looked startled, but others rose as well. "I stand!" they called until the whole room was on its feet and Aevryn raised his hands for quiet.

Everyone stilled, and M'yu's teacher looked to him. "Well, boy. What would you have us do now?"

Warmth blossomed in M'yu's chest. "Tonight?" He surveyed the standing crowd and blinked back sudden emotion. "Tonight, we protect you."

A flurry of preparations started immediately. The chaos was like being back on the street, organizing his gang as they secured their nightly hideout. Only now, the group was ten times as large, the people chasing them were ten times as strong, and the hideout they'd chosen had far too many entrances. Under his orders, people picked up their tables and barricaded all four doors on the ground level.

M'yu hurriedly waved on the group carrying a second layer of tables, right as the antechamber doors shook. Muffled cursing came through the door. It shook again, and light spilled through the crack. A girl squealed. The champions stepped back, and M'yu rushed forward. "Hold the door!" A third shake widened the gap. "If you want to live, hold the rotting door!"

The group at the exit surged forward to meet the next wave of battering. The doors opened a fraction more. Some of the champions stumbled back, but they drove forward again, straining against the propped table with their collective strength.

"Here!" M'yu waved the second table closer. He waited to the last second before calling, "To the sides!"

The people barricading the door scooted and ducked out of the way as others pushed the second table into place. "Forward!" M'yu called, straining with them. The door rattled again, but with more weight behind it now, it held its place. The two groups shoved the door closed.

M'yu turned. The rest of the room was muted chaos as the other champions scrambled to secure their doors before the same happened to them. Sviya and a group of other first-year girls struggled to lift their wooden table, and Ruslan rushed to the middle, hoisting it up with them. The Gold House servants carried with the best of them. Threading through the growing hum of panic, the servants voice's rang out. "For the Prince!"

"For the Prince!" M'yu called back, even as he searched for Aevryn. His eyes flicked over the court floor, but his teacher wasn't at any of the exits. Nor should he be, M'yu thought, scanning the bleachers. Safest thing would be for him to hide out of the way.

A flicker of movement caught his eye up in the stands, and M'yu blanched. "Hold here!" he called to the group. Another assault began, but the group held fast, shoulders to the barricade, teeth gritted. After flicking one last glance over everything, M'yu ran off.

Dashing through the bleachers, he climbed up toward the balcony. There, Aevryn fiddled with the arm of the throne. A panel hung open on it, and a spark flew up from some circuitry beneath. Aevryn hissed, drawing his finger back. "That liar!"

M'yu darted past the throne to the private exit behind. "You do realize there's a door back here, right?" Leaning against it, he scanned the space. The door was carved into the stands, in a narrow hall some ten feet deep. No way we're getting a barricade up here.

"The Prav'sudja has full power," Aevryn called back. "I knew that auxiliary systems line was nonsense."

Cries of alarm rang out as, across the way, the Prav'sudja started its assault on a second door. "We need to get you hidden before they try this one," M'yu called.

Aevryn leaned over the chair, prodding the circuit. "Do you think when the full might of the Prav'sudja arrives, there'll be anywhere to hide?"

The door on the ground floor bucked, and M'yu bit hard on his cheek. Scrabbling through his pockets, he pulled out Aevryn's linkcard. "We can lock the doors."

Aevryn glanced back. "Temporarily. The techs will be fighting you the whole time. No, we need full access. We need this." He slapped the throne, shook his head, and went back to tinkering.

Biting his lip, M'yu hurried forward and handed Aevryn the linkcard. "Try inserting it. The AI might recognize you." With a nervous glance at the Tsaright's exit, M'yu scrambled back and left Aevryn to it.

From the middle of the arena, the giant Peitros holodisplay flared to life. Champions spooked, and the doors shook harder. They pushed back, glancing over their shoulders. "Permissions for throne room access are not set," the ghost of the Tsar said. "New permissions must be set on the bridge." The hololights zapped out.

Aevryn hit the throne again, running his hand back through his hair. "Every once in a while, could you not communicate in riddles?"

"It's not a riddle." Another crash rang out below, and M'yu's heart thudded in his chest.

"What?" Aevryn turned.

"The bridge." Another crash. "I know where it's talking about." Dusty halls and abandoned consoles danced through his mind, along with his bone-crushing, claustrophobic escape. "But there's no way we'll make it."

Aevryn swept his hand over the court and the struggling champions. "Do you think we're going to make it all night here?"

M'yu's heart crept up his throat. "We're supposed to protect you."

Aevryn met M'yu's eye, and for a moment, in the half-light, he looked like Peitros. "And we're supposed to protect them."

Calls of fear and encouragement rang out down below. People stumbled as a third onslaught began; they picked each other up and pressed against the door, fighting.

M'yu swallowed. "You better have a rotting good map on your linkcard."

Aevryn strode over and unlocked it. "I doubt I have access to the port anymore."

"Doesn't matter." M'yu took the card from Aevryn's hands and walked back through his memory—the tight space of the hover drawer, the blue light of the linkcard, the fear and anger in his bones. A number flashed in his eyes—three thousand five hundred and two. But no, that was the amount in the first guard's bank account. The room rattled below, and M'yu squeezed his eyes shut. This was a much longer number, one he'd typed out character by character...

Eyes closed, his fingers flew over the display, writing out the port address just like he had the night everything went wrong. The linkcard chirped.

LIMITED CONNECTION GRANTED.

"We're in," M'yu said. He pulled up the map of doors and lights, and then over that, the map of linkcards. The area they were in glowed like a colony of fireflies, all the champions below and the guards opposing them. The Tsaright's exit was clear, though. For now. 

M'yu looked up at Aevryn. "If we're going to leave and get back, we'd better hurry."