The apartment was quiet that night, the kind of quiet that settled after a day of blood and cheering, the arena had emptied into the Caldmore streets, after the cleaning crews had scrubbed the platform clean of blood that had been spilled in the name of competition.
Dominic sat at the table with a cup of tea cooling in front of him and Wobbly on the table beside it, its glow a steady blue pulse in the dim lamplight, its little vest slightly crooked, its body rounder than usual from the mana crystals Theresa had been feeding it all evening.
He'd crossed the first name off his list today. Reyes had begged. Reyes had named Victor in front of eighty thousand witnesses. The accusation was public now, and somewhere Celia was writing letters and making plans and calculating how to contain the damage. But that was a problem for tomorrow. Tonight, Dominic was trying to let himself feel something other than the cold satisfaction of a task completed.
