“You’re serious,” she said. “Even if we get there, which we won’t, what are you planning to tell Naumoriel? ‘Sorry we fucked up, can we have another shot?’”

“More or less. I’ll have time to work on the wording.”

“You’re crazy.” Kit sat up, and for a moment her old smile flickered across her face. “And that’s me saying so.”

“I can’t go backward,” Gyre said. “Not now.”

Kit stared at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing.

“Plague it,” she said, running a hand through the blue spikes of her hair. “What the fuck. Why not? Tramping through freezing tunnels is as good a way to spend the last few weeks of my life as sitting in a tavern with a bucket of rum and a pretty boy’s head between my legs, right? Don’t answer that.”

Gyre found himself smiling back at her. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

Chapter 16

Someone had apparently drawn the line at actually throwing Maya into a cell.

Tanax had taken her haken and panoply belt, and she’d been escorted back to the Spike by a quartet of Legionaries. Once there, though, they hadn’t taken her to the dungeons. Instead, she’d been marched gently but firmly back to her own room, where two of the white-armored soldiers settled in beside the door as guards. Another, she noticed, was stationed outside to keep an eye on the windows.

Treason. She could see how it might look that way to Tanax. She’d disobeyed his orders and attacked Auxiliaries, and no doubt Raskos had been on hand to explain why his private warehouse was stuffed full of illegal arcana. But he won’t get away with it. It was obvious that an investigation by an unbiased inspector was called for, and whoever it was wouldn’t be fooled by the dux’s justifications. He’s not going to wriggle out of this one.

With deiat gone and adrenaline fading from her veins, exhaustion slipped over her like lead chains, but sleep still seemed distant. She found herself walking up and down her too-large suite, replaying the conversation with Gyre, trying to imagine what she could have said to make him understand.

I didn’t realize Va’aht hurt him so badly. She’d remembered Gyre standing up to the centarch, and that something had happened afterward, but she hadn’t imagined anything like the scar that sliced across her brother’s face. It’s no wonder he hates us. She hadn’t seen Va’aht since he’d brought her to the Forge and given her into Baselanthus’ care. Now she wondered if that was deliberate, if he was ashamed to face her.