“You have a lot of Blacksuits booked for an operation tonight. Cancel the op. Put them on the street instead.”

“No.”

“This is a big deal, Cat. We need the city safe tonight.”

“This morning Raz helped us catch an indenture-trader in a drug bust. That gives us grounds to seize and search her ship, to save those people. If we don’t take them tonight, her crew has standing orders to sail out of reach. You want that on your conscience?”

Cat wasn’t good at reading people, but even she could see the yes in the set of Tara’s shoulders, in the angle of her head and the tension at the corners of her mouth. And even she could see the woman recoil from that yes. “No,” she said.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s the right thing to do,” Tara told Cat, and herself.

Neither of them spoke for a while.

“Tara,” she said at last, “is it normal to hear gods in your head?”

“I’m not a person of faith,” Tara replied. “Sort of the opposite.”

“You know how these things work, though.”

“From the outside. But no, it’s not usual.”

“Seril talks to me, sometimes.”

“The gods.” Tara steepled her fingers, and in that gesture she recalled Ms. Kevarian, Tara’s teacher, mentor—and Denovo, too, the monster whose student Tara had been. “They aren’t part of time and space like we are. They’re second-order effects of humanity. We feel them. When we pray, or take the field against them, we … bind them into time. But they don’t do small talk. In general, only saints can hear their voices.”

“So I’m talking to myself.”

“I doubt it. We’ve changed. Take you, for example: you were a bit rudderless a year ago.”

“Hey,” she said, but didn’t mean it.

“And now you’re tied to a being who’s nothing but direction. Maybe that makes the difference. And Seril’s a smaller god, not spread between as many worshippers. So each one means more to her. Or maybe she thinks you’re a saint.” Tara shrugged. “I kill gods and guard them, and raise them from the dead when they die. I don’t pray.”

“But you’re hearing voices, too,” Cat said.

Tara drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. The wall clock ticked. She nodded, once.

“At least I’m not going mad alone.”

Tara stood. “Meeting’s at seven, at the Temple of Kos. Can you come? Please?”

“We sail at eight.”

“It won’t take long.”

“Why do you want me? This whole thing’s above my pay grade.”

“We saved the city,” Tara said. “We’re responsible for it now.”

“I wish someone had told me before I decided to save it.”

Tara laughed without sound. Then she shook Cat’s hand and left.

8

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