“Our temple would have been glorious. At night the people of Alt Coulumb would climb here to learn the turnings of the world.”

“Where are the others?”

Aev raised her hand. The gargoyles emerged soundlessly from behind and inside blocks of stone, unfolding wings and limbs—worshippers who were also weapons, children of a dwindled goddess. Thirty or so, last survivors of a host winnowed by the war to which their Lady led them. Strong, swift, mostly immortal. Tara did not want to fear them. She didn’t, much.

Still, preserving her nonchalance took effort.

The Blacksuits could stand still for hours at a time. Golems spun down to hibernation. Only the faintest margin separated a skeletal Craftswoman in meditation from a corpse. But the gargoyles, Seril’s children, they were not active things feigning immobility. They were stone.

“I don’t see Shale,” she said.

“He remains uncomfortable around you. Even you must admit, he has his reasons.”

“I stole his face for a good cause,” Tara said. “And he tried to kill me later, and then I saved you all from Professor Denovo. I think we’re even.”

“‘Even’ is a human concept,” Aev said. “Stone bears the marks of all that’s done to it, until new marks erase those that came before.”

“And vigilante justice—was that carved into you, too?”

“I see you heard the news.”

“I damn well heard the news. How long have you been doing this?”

“Our Lady sent her first dreams soon after our return to the city. A simple offer of exchange, to rebuild her worship.”

“And your Lady—” Tara heard herself say the capital letter, which she didn’t like but couldn’t help. She’d carried their goddess inside herself, however briefly. “Your Lady controls Justice now. She has a police force at her disposal, and She still thought this terror-in-the-shadows routine was a good idea?”

Aev’s laugh reminded Tara of a tiger’s chuff, and she became uncomfortably conscious of the other woman’s teeth. “Justice may belong to Our Lady, but when She serves as Justice, She is bound by rules, manpower, schedules. Your old master Denovo wrought too well.”

Tara’s jaw tightened at the word “master,” but this wasn’t the time to argue that point. “So Seril uses you to answer prayers.”

“Seril is weak. For forty years the people of this city have thought Her more demon than goddess. Her cult has faded. Those who hold Her rites—rocks into the sea at moon-death, the burning of flowers and the toasting of the moon—do not know the meaning of their deeds. So we give them miracles to inspire faith. Lord Kos and His church preserve the city, but Seril and we who are Her children work in darkness, in the hours of need.”

“Some people wouldn’t like the idea of a goddess growing in the slums, feeding off desperate people’s blood.”