Chapter 83 of 89 · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Chapter 83 — Psamathe confesses

Book: This Inevitable Ruin · Part: The Peeling of Larracos · Previous: Chapter 82 — Ursensus · Next: Chapter 84 — And then there were two · Floor: Floor 9 — Faction Wars · Series: the series

Opening

“Okay everyone. We have about an hour left to figure out the issue with Louis before the s

Summary

An hour before Retribution takes the Dream castle. Edgar convenes: the organs are a symbiote; ripping them out kills Louis. Victory and Fopsy return from a virtual Syndicate Council: a No Confidence vote on Glory; everyone accusing everyone of being Reaver agents; Tagg on the post-physical path — the Dream feed the galaxy, the Reavers build the rest, 'a mega-monopoly'; Glory knew; Dream and Syndicate security shooting at everyone; spacecraft crash-landing on Earth; if the vote goes one way Fopsy is Prime Minister again. 'I don't give a shit. I just want to help Louis.' Rules: Tagg dies when the castle falls; he could forfeit by leaving the floor but Louis cannot; he cannot abdicate, he is the last one. Louis's chest is healed shut under a blood-stained Donut Holes shirt. Tagg's terms: take him to the eighteenth, grow bodies, swap; or finish the brain implant at the Reaver castle (Fang refused it), put Louis's brain in a jar so he 'will cease to be a crawler', and go with the NPCs when the Zerzura spell takes Larracos to the twelfth floor — he does not know the Reaver castle is gone. Stall him; he demands Retribution out of his throne room. Samantha bites Carl's nose: her child is dead, she thinks, in the acid — 'I was too caught up in my own lust and anger' — it is Tish's fault and she will plant the nuke she stole from Buster at the college; Carl has a nuke-dog too. Her plan: the flesh-golem body of Princess Lunette in Carl's inventory has a good heart and lungs. 'Holy jeepers […] that's actually a great idea.' Juice Box's Fleshmancer: a tall dark male; chest spreader and potions; Donut has a Special Brew. Carl wonders whether the Scavenger's Daughter the war mages took is Samantha's child, and Samantha the scavenger. She gives up the body: 'Louis deserves it more than I do.' 'That makes you a hero, Samantha.' 'I'd like to think maybe I can be a good influence […] which is what King Blaine said to me and what my father said to me and what my mother said to me before they all cast me out […] I used her, my daughter, to get what I wanted.' 'It's okay to be a work in progress.' 'I may have had an indirect, possibly direct hand in the death of Geyrun, but a girl can find forgiveness, right?' 'You did not just fucking say that out loud.' 'Emberus has entered the realm.'

Characters

• Samantha — Gives up her body; confesses to Geyrun aloud.
• Epitome Tagg — Terms from inside a heart; in the dark about his allies' castle.
• Baroness Victory — No Confidence on Glory; a mega-monopoly.
• Fopsy — Possibly Prime Minister again.
• Juice Box — A male Fleshmancer.
• Mordecai — 'Holy jeepers.'

Locations

• Larracos — The field hospital, an hour on the clock.

Motifs

• The Scavenger's Daughter — Samantha's lost child? Samantha the scavenger?
• Princess Lunette — Signet's mother's golem, a heart and lungs to spare.
• The Syndicate — A No Confidence vote; ships falling on Earth.
• The death of Geyrun — 'a girl can find forgiveness, right?'