Dumbfounded, Kylar stared at the sword. Frustrated at his stupidity, the ka’kari sought to sink into his skin of his hand and he let it, forgetting that it would destroy his disguise. As the black metal rushed into him, it revealed a pitted, half-devoured sword blade. Retribution was gone, replaced with a counterfeit that Kylar hadn’t noticed when they’d hidden the blade. It was impossible, but someone had stolen his sword before he hid it here, probably when he’d first been gawking like an idiot on the crowded sidewalks of Vestacchi.

Durzo was aghast. “Kid, you have no idea what that sword is. You have to get it back.”

Then Kylar felt Vi through his bond. She’d been nervous since yesterday, and now he could feel her starting guiltily as she felt his emotions. Vi knew, and she was hiding in the Chantry, certain he wouldn’t go there. For all his help, the Sisters had stabbed him in the back. They’d stolen Retribution.

“I know where it is,” Kylar said.

The closer Kylar got to the Chantry, the more his anger grew. He became more and more certain from Vi’s guilt that Elene was somehow involved too, and that lit a fire in him. He thought he could read her. Yesterday afternoon he’d gotten her note that said she had some things she needed to work on in the Chantry, and she still wasn’t back. The timing seemed strange, but there was no doubting Vi’s guilt as he came closer. Having the vastness of the Chantry against him blew his rage to a flame. They wanted him passive, tame, emasculated, obedient. He was sick and tired of it. Sick of being worked on by vast, remote powers he couldn’t understand or counter. The Chantry was like fate, like the Wolf, like Death itself, working inexorably on the world, on Kylar, and turning a deaf ear to his pleas.

When he stepped out of the punt onto one of the Chantry’s docks, two dozen pairs of eyes turned to him, scandalized. Some he recognized from Vi’s training sessions; others were more hostile. A Sister was lecturing a class of teens on the workings of the punts. Others were doing maintenance magic on the little bay itself, reworking the rain shield overhead. He ignored them and strode toward the double doors that led inside.

A white robed woman stepped forward, “Sir, no men are allowed here.”

He walked past her.

Before he could touch the double doors, magic bonds latched onto him arm and leg. “Please, sir, we don’t wish to harm you—”

Kylar shrugged the bonds off as easily as he might shoo a fly. He turned and looked at the faces of the two Sisters tasked with guarding the door. They were stunned. One of them was readying a lash of magic.