“She was right here? In the bloody steadholt? In this bloody room?” Raucus bellowed. “Bloody crows, why didn’t you raise the alarm?”

“Perhaps because Invidia would undoubtedly have killed her?” Phrygius suggested patiently. “Which was presumably why she approached the Countess instead of one of us?”

Raucus scowled. “I mean after she left. We could have brought the bitch down before she got back to her cave or whatever.”

“Perhaps you should let the Countess speak. That way, she’ll be able to tell us,” Lord Placida said mildly.

Lady Placida frowned and moved her hand as if to restrain her husband, but dropped it back to her side again. Old Cereus sat in a chair near the door, frowning.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Bernard said. “Love?”

“Invidia came here to try to make a deal.”

Everyone simply stared at her in shock, except for old Cereus, who snorted. “That isn’t surprising,” he said. “It’s stupid, but not surprising.”

“Why not, Your Grace?” Amara asked. She knew, but if any of the High Lords in the room hadn’t worked it out yet, it would better come from one of their own than from her.

Cereus shrugged. “Because for Invidia, life was always about pushing people around like pieces on a ludus board. In her mind, what’s going on right now isn’t that different from business as usual in Alera. More difficult, more degrading, more unpleasant, but she doesn’t understand what losing a loved one...” He cleared his throat. The old man’s sons had been killed during High Lord Kalarus’s uprising and the initial offensive of the Vord War. “What it can do to a body. How it changes things. Woman’s never loved a thing in her life but power.”

Amara nodded. “She seeks a more favorable bargaining position. To use whomever she can and abandon whomever she can’t.”

Phrygius stroked a hand over his roan red beard, musing. “I thought you said that she was trapped in the vord’s service. That big bug thing on her chest was the only thing keeping her alive.”

“Yes,” Amara says. “Which means that she knows or thinks she knows some way to overcome it.”

“What did she offer, Countess?” Placidus asked.

Amara told them about the conversation with Invidia. “She said that when we wanted to speak to her, we should send up green signal arrows from her in groups of three. She’ll contact us.”

Heavy silence followed.

“Do you think she’s serious?” Raucus asked. “Tell me you don’t think that bitch is serious.”

“I think she might be,” Lady Placida said slowly.

Phrygius shook his head. “It’s a trap.”

“Bloody expensive trap,” Lord Placida mused. “If that information she gave you is accurate, Countess, we can use it to hurt them badly.”