“Maybe,” he said, and looked into the fire. She did not like his expression when he did that. He looked like a man with secrets.

Nomi stood and approached Ramus, and though she felt Serian eyes upon her, this was about the two of them. “Ramus? Don't you dare go quiet on me now, not with what you've said.” She reached out—to shove or to touch, she was not sure—but he looked at her hand with contempt.

“Admit it,” he said.

“Admit what?” Through the flames she saw Beko watching them, his face quivering and melting in the heat. She wished she could see his eyes properly, take strength from them.

“Admit you want to be a little like me.”

Nomi smiled. Grinned. Laughed out loud. And with every heartbeat she saw the bitterness in Ramus's expression increasing. If I keep laughing, she thought, it won't be long until he hates me. The idea was ridiculous and absurd, and it made her laugh some more.

“I know about Marquella of the Guild,” Ramus said.

His voice, so quiet that the crackle of flames almost swallowed it, cut into her laughter and killed it at the source.

“Marquella?” she said. But there was no way she could deny her treachery. Not with Ramus, because he was too sharp for her to win such an argument. And not in front of these Serians—and Beko—because to do so would make it all seem worse.

“Marquella!” Ramus said, turning to the Serians and acknowledging their attention for the first time. “Very high up in the Guild echelons. He was a Voyager himself, many years ago, and a great one too.”

“Ramus, don't do this,” Nomi said, trying to remain as dignified as she could. “Please?”

“Please?” he repeated, glancing at her only once. “Piss on you, Nomi. Piss on you and your pathetic jealousy. You can't undo your wrongs with ‘please.’ ”

“Can we at least talk about this?”

Ramus nodded. “We are! We're talking about Marquella, and how you persuaded him to refuse a voyage plan I had submitted. It would have been my greatest! Once I heard whispers of what had happened, I tried to find out exactly how you persuaded him, but it wasn't as if I could ask Marquella himself. By then he would barely acknowledge me in the Guild buildings. Looked at me as though I was something he stepped in at the markets.”

“It wasn't like that,” Nomi said.

“Then what was it like? Tell me the reason you had to destroy my plans.”

Nomi shook her head, and she realized that she could not tell. Because there was no reason.

“Envy?” Ramus said. “I told you I was planning a voyage to the Poison Forests, and over the weeks you got wind of the fact that the Guild was about to sanction it, with a full complement of Serian guards and porters. And that was more than they ever gave you, so . . . ?”