Of course. They would never keep her on after this.

“We had a cable just now from the sitting minister,” said Honora, “and … well, I’m afraid we have to let you go.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, as if reading from a script. “I understand.”

“Thank you.” The relief Honora breathed into her end of the line turned the words ragged, and Lillian pulled her cheek away from the receiver. “I truly am so, so sorry. If it was up to me…”

Lillian would still be sacked, but someone else would have made the call. “Goodnight,” she said, and rang off.

In the silence that followed, she heard a faint tap at the window. Then a second, building to a glassine susurrus that shifted with the wind. It had begun to sleet. Ice struck the windows like small ordinance. The smell of Solstice evergreen still lingered in the air as she sat facing another catastrophe from which she would have to rebuild her life. At least she had plenty of practice.

If someone had asked Cyril, an hour ago, if he planned to stay in Gedda, he’d have shrugged. He might even have said no, though he wouldn’t have been able to say where else he might go.

Now, he felt as if he had grown roots.

There was every possibility that he would die if he stayed. Lillian had made that very clear.

“Your—our—only hope of thriving, even surviving in Gedda was predicated on keeping things quiet,” she told him. “If one of the candidates decides to run with this banner behind them—and at least one of them will, believe me—it will probably turn into a tent show. You could end up on the scaffold. In front of the squad. And if somebody takes matters into their own hands before that, do you think I’d have any chance of justice?”

He hadn’t said it to her, then, but he had thought it: What about everyone else’s chance at justice? What about the people who had fled or fallen or died because of him? What about Cordelia?

For the first time in a long time, purpose filled him. A heavy one, and not the one he might have chosen for himself, but a purpose nonetheless. And it was such a relief to look up and see a satisfying end to this whole parade of horrors.

Who would be hurt by that? He had only ever inconvenienced his sister when they came close enough to interact. She probably hadn’t wanted him here for Solstice in the first place. And now look how his presence had embarrassed her.

He didn’t think she was completely heartless—it would hurt to lose her brother. But might it not also be a relief? Like the death of an aging parent or an expensive invalid.