Rowan wrinkles her nose. “They were talking about their husband and my betrothed.”
Felix stares at the escaping women openmouthed. “You guys have polygamy on this world?”
“Polygyny, to be exact,” Dylan says.
Rowan’s upper lip curls as she looks at Dylan. “You’re so useful. Mor forbid we use the wrong term.”
“But is it true?” Felix demands, and I recall that Uzbekistan, the country on Earth that his family’s from, is supposed to have something along those lines. Or had—what little I know about this is from Ariel’s teasing.
Rowan bares her white teeth. “To put it in terms you can understand, members of the Parliament and other powerful male necromancers take multiple wives under the pretext of a eugenics-like program to increase the number of powerful necromancers overall. For better or worse, my own necromantic potential is high—which is allegedly more important than, say, intellect or looks. So yeah, I drew the short straw. And no, I can’t have multiple husbands; that would make some minds implode.”
Ariel stares at her in fascination. “And your hubby-to-be is named Keyser?”
“Yeah. I know. Like from The Usual Suspects,” Rowan says. “You’re about to meet him. He isn’t as cool as his name would imply. Kind of the opposite.”
No one speaks as we walk a few more blocks—that is, until Valerian’s LEGO letters appear, presumably for everyone except Rowan:
If things go south, we take one or more members of this Parliament hostage and get the puck off this world.
Fabian flexes his fists. I guess he realizes that with our current lack of weapons, he’s the most dangerous in the group.
We step onto a large circular plaza where a large building stands in the middle, and ten mansions are located along the plaza’s circumference.
“This is Decagon Square. The Parliament meeting room is in there.” Rowan points at the middle building. “And each member of the Parliament resides in one of those.” She gestures at the surrounding mansions.
As we head to the center building, I overhear Dylan talking to Fabian about the word decagon. She mentions such practical pearls of wisdom as “a decagon is a figure with ten straight sides and angles,” and “the name ‘decagon square’ is a contradiction of terms,” and last but not least, “each mansion is inside an angle that is exactly 144 degrees.”
The biggest zombies I’ve seen yet open the doors of the center building for us, and Rowan leads us down a posh corridor with walls decorated by creepy art à la the zombies’ masks.
“Through here is the Parliament meeting room,” Rowan says, nodding at a set of ornate doors. She peers at Stanislav again. “Seriously, what’s going on with your eyes?”
I follow her gaze and see what she’s talking about.
My heartbeat skyrockets.
There’s a tiny gathering of red moisture in the chort’s tear ducts.
Stanislav must see me whiten because he wipes at his eyes and stares at his fingers in horror.
It’s blood.
Chapter Twenty
I begin hyperventilating as a million thoughts rush through my mind.
I want to run. Barring that, I want to grab Valerian’s hygieia device and use it until its batteries run out—even though the rational part of me understands that we have our masks for exactly this reason. Both my mask and Stanislav’s should prevent any viruses from going in or out, so there’s double protection.
In fact, everyone—besides Stanislav—should be fine, even the maskless Rowan.
Still, it’s hard not to spiral. Stanislav was only briefly without the mask, yet he’s already having his first symptom.
The virus is extremely contagious.
I’m not the only one freaking out either. Everyone on the team is a little wild-eyed, their foreheads clammy. The only person looking more confused than scared is Rowan. Staring at the blood on Stanislav’s fingers, she asks, “Is that normal for your kind?”
Stanislav ignores her. I imagine he must be in shock.
“What do we do?” Dylan’s voice is barely above a whisper.
LEGO letters instantly appear in the air:
There isn’t much we can do. Let’s talk to this Parliament.
“Seriously, what’s going on?” Rowan demands.
“Long story,” Valerian says. “Just stay as far away from Stanislav as you can.”
“Uh-huh, sure.” She stares at us, and when no explanations are forthcoming, she heaves a sigh. “Fine. Ready to go?”
At our nods, Rowan has her zombies open the doors for us.
Stanislav trudges into the room. Rowan waits a few seconds to let him get far enough away, then follows—with the rest of us on her tail.
We end up in a room large enough to play football in, with a neck-straining, sixty-foot-tall ceiling.
Rowan’s zombies close the doors behind us.
Like the surrounding square, this room is decagon shaped, and in each of the ten angles stands a massive throne with a masked figure.
“These helpers were giants in life,” Rowan whispers, in case we couldn’t guess by the zombies’ size. “The masks are designed to look like each member of the Parliament.”