“But I don’t have anything to give her.” I sighed. “My position remains the same—I am a slave worth little beyond what I offer Maram. But I need access to that tablet.”

Rabi’a’s eyes lit up. “What if … we could take care of two problems at once?”

She came to her feet and walked to a side table. Her hand pressed against its glass surface and a rendering of the planet appeared in the air above it.

“The king has a complicated and global network of spies, a large part of which has cropped up in my province. Some have peeled away to deal with the problems in the east, but … It’s made up of Andalaans, the Vath, and off-worlders. Journalists, bakers, soldiers—all of them report what they see to the crown.”

A web of lines appeared on Andala, spanning the whole of the world, across cities and mountains and through deserts.

“It’s quite sophisticated,” Rabi’a said. “We have had a hard time tracking those in our province and a harder time still because we cannot kill those we identify. It would be seen as moving against the crown, even though technically and in the archives this network does not exist.”

“I don’t see how this solves our problem.”

“You will have to give her people.”

“What—” I began, breathless.

“We can doctor the information so that it looks like Mathis’s spies are working against the empire. You give the information to Nadine, and she will do the rest.” Rabi’a continued. “If you promise her information—spies she believes she can hand over to Mathis, endearing herself to him—she will likely give you anything you ask.”

“She dismantles your spy network and becomes convinced that she needs the information I have. Now who’s terrifying?” I grinned. “Where do we begin?”

Rabi’a’s message came at last, two days later. The spy we’d chosen—a minor Vathek lord named Marcus—had been a thorn in Rabi’a’s side for years. He paid no taxes to the province, and every year he petitioned to grow his borders. The evidence against him was in place. All I had to do was relay this bit of information to Nadine. Despite the confidence I’d displayed in Rabi’a’s parlor, my stomach churned. The last time Nadine and I were alone she’d struck and strangled me. I had no idea how she would react to being summoned, and as ever I was forced to gamble on what I believed would be the most reasonable expectation.