Rather than saying anything, he did so. And there was a long and uncomfortable silence, as she stared straight ahead of her, while beads of sweat began to run down her forehead and she grew paler and paler with effort.

And then, just as he was about to tell her to stop trying for the moment, there was a clink, and two metal disks appeared on the table in front of him and skidded to the floor.

Delia swayed, and Isla’s hand appeared on her shoulder, steadying her. “Go lie down,” Isla told her sister, and Delia vanished from view.

“You are certain these—Dolls—can do what they say?” Isla asked, somehow managing to look both dubious and angry at the same time.

“As certain as I am of anything in this world,” he told her. “This will turn any Gate in the Duchy into a way to our refuge. And no one will be the wiser. Our mages won’t have to make any tokens at all, unless you want some more permanent ones, and from here we could make one for every man, woman, child, barge, or anything else we need to bring across.”

“Well,” Isla said, still smoldering. “I suppose that will be worth what you promised. To those of us who escape, that is.”

Unspoken were the words he had already thought. But it will certainly make those who stay into targets for the Emperor’s anger.

“I’ll try and think of a way to make things look like something else freed the vrondi,” he said, feeling a bit of desperation. “We’ve got a lot of minds over here. Maybe we can think of something.”

—

Kordas admitted to Star that he had trouble remembering every step and detail of the Plan, and Star reassured him, “We can remember it for you.”

“Wholesale?” Kordas replied. “It’s a lot of knowledge. There are two generations of planning in this. It isn’t getting any easier for me to keep track of it as the Plan is modified.”

“This one understands the burden of this and your other Plans upon you. We would be wise to visit with the Keeper of Records soon. The Keeper of Records speaks through this one often, to share insights and answer you with precision that this one does not possess alone.”

Kordas had always thought of vrondi as—in all honesty, as minnows, swimming in lovely schools, every one of them as smart as, maybe, a toddler. Now, his first impression of Star as being particularly intelligent was challenged. What if every minnow was part of a greater mind, instead of being a thousand little minds? What if they had a collective memory? Then he recalled the sound of Star’s voice when the Doll pleaded to be set free. Maybe that wasn’t the emotion of just one Doll he’d heard in that plea—it was, perhaps, a cry from all of them.