Morning came gray and stained to the city of Ivath. Sena had sat at the table until the candle burned down to a stub, then sat through the stub’s last flare, then through the moment the wick died and the room belonged to the pale wash of dawn from the window. Her slate lay before her with smudged routes and revised routes and the marks of decisions that had once been hers to make.

  They had given Catherine what she demanded, because the alternative was Catherine taking it anyway and leaving them blind.

  She listed the following: supply lines. Food stores. What corridors still held. Which stairwells had collapsed. Who controlled what quadrant. Which captains had turned their men loose. Which Brighthand still answered to vows. Which answered to appetite and fear and Isabelle’s sermons about what the city was owed.

  Beneath it all ran the ground’s restlessness. The tremors came without warning now, and each time the floor shivered, Sena felt the Underveins shifting under Ivath like a living map being rewritten. She pictured her slate, the water Catherine had smeared across it.

  Catherine had absorbed names and routes as if she were turning a key in a lock.

  Now she stood by a window, coat still immaculate, hair contained, the whole of her held in a posture that suggested she could stay awake for days without trouble.

  Rhalir clasped his hands at the table and fixed his gaze somewhere beyond the slate. A brisk and functional knock roused him from his stupor. The latch lifted before anyone answered. Two of Catherine’s soldiers entered, and between them they held Captain Callahan.

  A bruise over his left eye pulled his expression into permanent anger. He tongued his split lip. One arm hung close to his side as though the shoulder couldn’t bear movement. His cloak had been dragged into shape over his uniform, but it sat wrong on him, as if someone had dressed him against his will.

  He took in the room in one sweep.

  His eyes hit Sena and paused, and for a moment his face loosened with relief. It lasted only long enough for him to register the details. Sena’s place beside the table instead of at its head; the soldier too near her shoulder; Rhalir positioned behind Catherine rather than beside Sena. The thread of authority that once tied the room together had gone slack.

  Callahan’s gaze narrowed. The relief curdled on his face, sharp and personal.

  “Warden,” he said, half gratitude and half accusation.

  Catherine turned from the window as if the title had been spoken to her.

  “She advises,” Catherine said. “She does not command.”

  Callahan stared at Sena, then turned back to Catherine. “You’re not Ashborn,” he said.

  Catherine’s expression stayed composed. “No.”

  Callahan’s glare deepened, as if he were choosing which insult would be worth the pain in his ribs. “Then why am I in your quarters being handled by your men?”

  “Because you command a quadrant of Ivath,” Catherine replied. “Because your city guard has become a hinge point for this city’s survival. Because you have acted outside your vows and I would like to know whether you did it out of necessity or opportunism.”

  Callahan gave a short laugh that turned into a wince. He steadied himself rather than allowing either soldier to do it. Catherine’s gaze held him with the patience of someone who had never needed to hurry a confession.

  “You are Brighthand,” she said. “Anointed guard of the Dagorlind. You swore oaths. You accepted authority that did not originate from the city’s streets. And yet you aligned yourself with Ashborn command, you assisted Ashborn supply distribution, and you offered your men as escorts to Kelthi. Why were you disloyal to the Dagorlind, and why should I treat you as anything except a compromised captain who cannot hold his quadrant?”

  Callahan’s gaze flicked to Sena again. The look he gave her made his meaning plain: I followed you, and now I’m being asked to justify it to someone who will use it against me.

  He turned back to Catherine. “I wasn’t disloyal,” he said. “I was outnumbered.”

  “Explain.”

  Callahan’s voice roughened. “My men are split. Not a philosophical split. I have men who still believe Dagorlind rule is divine. I have men who believe the Dagorlind brought Ivath to its edge and deserve to fall with it. I have men who have decided that if the Spire is gone, vows are gone.”

  He shifted his weight, favoring one side, refusing to show the full cost of pain. “And then there is Isabelle.”

  Sena watched Catherine’s eyes register the name again, a small inward click.

  Callahan’s gaze hardened. “She has been feeding the worst of them a story,” he said. “A story about Kelthi women, and what the Heat means, and what the city is owed. It gives men permission without the word being spoken. It lets them claim holiness while they hunt girls in alleys.”

  The soldier at Callahan’s left tightened his grip. Callahan kept his gaze on Catherine and spoke through the bruises like a man who had said this too many times to men who pretended not to understand.

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  “I brought proof,” he continued. “I brought one of the injured to our meeting hall. She wasn’t a runner, or a fighter, or a provocateur. She was a girl who should have been safe walking her route. She was attacked because she was Kelthi and because certain men in my quadrant decided that was enough.”

  He swallowed, anger held in check by discipline rather than gentleness.

  “The Dagorlind did nothing,” Callahan said. “They spoke about order while the city guard argued about procedure. They spoke about sanctity while Isabelle’s followers learned they could test boundaries and meet no consequence.”

  Catherine’s eyes stayed on him. “You are speaking as though the Dagorlind are a single creature. They are not. They have factions, councils, ranks.”

  ‘They have power,” Callahan snapped. “They had power yesterday. They have power now. If they wanted the attacks to stop, they would have made them stop.”

  Catherine’s eyes slid toward Rhalir, then returned Callahan.

  “Why align with the Ashborn?” Catherine asked. “Why align with a captain who does not answer to Ivath?”

  Callahan’s stare went back to Sena, and there it was again: the betrayal that wasn’t entirely fair and still landed like a blow.

  “Because she was the first to order search parties when the Spire fell,” Callahan said. “She was the first to pause violent engagement in order to allow for rescue of the injured. I witnessed her talk Ashborn and Dagorlind alike away from violence. She is the reason none have been killed in combat since the disappearance of Lord Balthir.”

  This felt like a call to action, a plea, one Sena could not bear. But she didn’t move. She refused to look away. She would not be reduced to a servant in front of him as well. She hadn’t realized just how important his respect was to her until this moment, and the grip of his quiet judgement was almost worse than Catherine's cool dismissal of her leadership.

  Callahan kept speaking, voice raw with the memory of days spent holding a quadrant together with treats and favors.

  “She expected decency from me and from others. She fed people. She kept routes moving when the city started collapsing in on itself. My men listened to her because she did the work.”

  His gaze snapped back to Catherine. “I aligned myself with the Ashborn because the Dagorlind were busy preserving their dignity while Ivath was bleeding in the lanes.”

  Catherine regarded him for a long beat, then glanced toward Sena.

  “The captain you aligned yourself with has been relieved of command,” she said.

  Callahan’s face changed. The anger fell into disbelief.

  Sena watched the inventory passing behind his eyes, the recalculation of risk. If Sena was not Warden, who was he risking his quadrant for? If she was not Warden, who was he standing beside?

  His voice came out rough. ‘“Is this true?” he asked Sena.

  Sena kept her spine straight. “Yes.”

  Callahan shook his head. “Then you have made me a fool.”

  Sena wanted to explain, and nearly did, but realized each word of it would only sound like excuses. She would not offer excuses. She would offer nothing that sounded like kneeling.

  “I haven’t made you a fool,” Sena said. “You chose to bring your men to the right work.”

  Callahan’s eyes flashed. “The right work,” he echoed, as if the phrase tasted bitter now that Catherine held the city.

  “This is useful,” Catherine said. “Your rationale is irrelevant. Your quadrant’s compliance is what matters for the future of this city.”

  Callahan’s head snapped toward her. “Compliance,” he said, and the contempt in the word snaked through the room.

  “You will enforce my terms,” Catherine said. “You will order your city guard to stand down against Ashborn and against my soldiers. You will identify Isabelle’s primary agitators. You will give me names of captains in the other quadrants who refuse coordination, and you will assist in bringing them to heel.”

  Callahan stared at her as if he were examining a new kind of enemy. “You cannot disband the Brighthand.”

  Catherine’s expression stayed steady. “I can remove anyone who resists my army’s movement through this city,” she said. “Call it whatever brings you comfort.”

  Callahan’s shoulders rose with a breath he fought to control. “If you remove Isabelle without understanding what she’s done to the Brighthand, you’ll turn the quadrants into a riot,” he said. “If you seize her in the street, her followers will call her a martyr. If you kill her, she’ll be sanctified.”

  Catherine watched him with interest. “Then tell me how to take her,” she said. “You have been living with her influence and failing to contain it. Redeem yourself.”

  Callahan flinched at the word redeem, because it came from a mouth that did not worship what he worshipped. His gaze found Sena again, hungry with the need for an ally.

  Sena met his eye and understood the bind Catherine had built. If Sena spoke too forcefully, she would confirm she was still trying to command. If she said nothing, Callahahn would feel abandoned, and the small alliance she had fought for would rot under Catherine’s heel.

  Catherine assessed Sena. “Advise,” she said. An order, dressed as permission.

  “Isabelle is not the center,” Sena said. “She is a mouthpiece. If you pull her in public, you give her shape. If you pull her quietly, you leave her followers with a vacuum they’ll rush to fill.”

  Callahan watched her, anger and relief battling across his face.

  Sena continued. “You take her through her supply. You take her through her trusted hands. You take her through whatever she has been using to gather men into rooms that don’t officially exist.”

  Catherine’s eyes narrowed slightly, interest tightening. “Names,” she said.

  “Fine,” Callahan said. “But I want one thing clear.”

  Catherine waited.

  Callahan’s eyes cut to Sena once more. “I did not follow Ashborn because of some fascination with antlers. I followed her because she was leading. If you strip her and keep asking me to trust the structure she has built, you’re asking for loyalty while you cut out the only part of it that people believed in.”

  Catherine regarded him as if he’d offered her a piece of information, rather than an argument. “And now you see the problem you created,” she said to Sena. “By making yourself the structure you leave none intact when you leave. Any assault or assasination would have ended the fragile control you had over this city.”

  Sena’s cheeks grew hot. She could have pointed out that Morgan had done the same, that the man Catherine had pledged herself to had put her in this position in the first place. But such squabbling would get her nowhere.

  She stood upright, and turned to Callahan, and said, “Lady Catherine’s views align with our most important beliefs, Captain. Let’s use this opportunity to handle Isabelle.”

  Callahan stared at her, injured and furious and trapped.

  Then he nodded, and began to speak.