“I don’t know.” Maya flopped back on the bed and closed her eyes. “It all has to be connected, but I don’t see quite how. But we can find out. We have to find out. And I’ll find Jaedia, and … and Marn, and …”

She trailed off, and there was a long silence. Beq fiddled with her spectacles, lenses shifting and whirring.

“You’re sure the Council will act?” she said. “Nicomidi’s a Kyriliarch. And the Dogmatics will say it’s a Pragmatic plot.”

“They have to do something if we have proof,” Maya said. “If we give up on that, we might as well give up on the Order altogether.”

“I’ll find the rest of the codes,” Beq said.

“Thank you,” Maya said. She raised her head. “You’ll be careful?”

Beq nodded. She lapsed into silence again, hands pressed together in her lap. Maya sat up, blood rushing to her head and making it spin. “What’s wrong?”

“I …” Beq swallowed and took a deep breath. “You’ll beat him, won’t you?”

“Tanax?” When Beq nodded, Maya put on her best grin. “Of course.”

“Don’t just … laugh it off,” Beq said. “I don’t know how you centarchs measure one another, but I saw what he did in the tunnel. He’s …”

“He’s dangerous,” Maya said gently. She got off the bed and knelt in front of Beq. “I know. But it’s a duel, not a fight to the death. We’ll wear panoply belts.”

“But if you lose, you’ll be sent away,” Beq said. “That’s what the master arcanist told me. If you challenge the centarchate and lose, you forfeit any chance of ever becoming a centarch, and the Order will bury you away in the middle of nowhere. For the rest of your life.”

“Probably,” Maya said. “It’s up to the Council, and there’s not a lot of recent precedent. But they can’t have people who can access deiat running around loose.”

“I don’t care about the reasons,” Beq said abruptly. She took a deep breath and swallowed hard. “I would never see you again.”

“I …” Maya found her own throat thick. She managed a quick nod.

“That would make me … very unhappy,” Beq said. “I was sitting in my room thinking about it, and I realized just how unhappy. I think I would … I don’t know.”

“Beq …”

“Ever since we got back, I just …” Beq shook her head. “I kept thinking about … that. And other things. And then it felt like I was going around in circles and I didn’t know how to stop and I couldn’t sleep and can I please kiss you?”

“I … um.” Maya felt her cheeks start to burn as her brain caught up with her ears, and her own voice sounded distant. “Uh. Yes?”