Stab, or slice?

Her blade wavered.

She remembered Sophie’s screams when the Penitents caught her. Remembered the Blue Lady’s dying breath. Remembered her mother, and her father, and the fire. The priestess at home, in the village square, and the sound of the knife across her throat. She’d never wondered how it felt to hold that knife, and now she would know. Dying, Margot had sounded like a draining bath.

One death equals one death.

Did it?

Was this justice?

What had she seen? The woman talked to Margot. Talked to the Watch after. A Penitent came, and killed. A chain of events. She imagined Cat asking her: Did you see this woman kill? Do you know she was at fault? Justice is like math: anyone can think she knows the answer, but not every answer is right.

She’d gone this far to make sure of the death. Knife at the woman’s throat, all her weight ready to press down. Why not make sure of its justice, too?

The woman trembled on the edge of waking.

Izza touched the knife to her skin.

Two black eyes snapped open. Swollen pupils sought and found Izza’s face.

“Tell me,” Izza said, “why I shouldn’t kill you now.”

Chapter 43

43

Not a woman, Kai realized, but a girl. Fourteen, maybe. Gleblander. Short cropped hair. Thin, gaunt, coltish, angry. Sharp big black eyes, brown skin. Sweat crusted. Brown ragged tunic. Wore a pearl on a leather string around her neck. Wiry legs clamped Kai’s arms to her sides.

All these details tossed under utter panic. Half of Kai’s body tried to buck the girl off, and the other half to burrow into the mattress, away from the blade at her throat. She felt its tip as a coal.

“Stop, or I’ll do it now.” The knife pressed further, and Kai felt her skin tear.

Drowning sailors on the battered raft of her mind threw sacrifices to the adrenaline storm: snatches of poetry, school rhymes half-remembered, and at last, despairing, an image of a beggar girl on the sidewalk in front of Edmond Margot’s apartment. “You’re the girl from Margot’s place.”

The knife kept still.

“Tell me why you did it,” the girl said. Urgent, low.

“Did what?”

The pressure returned.

“He’s.”

“Dead,” Kai finished, seeing the shape of her anger. “Margot’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Why did you kill him?”

“I didn’t.”

“Don’t lie to me!” The knife danced over her skin as the girl’s hand shook.

“I’m not. I’m not. Swear to whatever gods you want to name.”

“You don’t know the gods I’d name,” the girl said.

“I tried to save his life.”

Shadow welled through the narrow slits of the girl’s eyes. “You went to the Watch.”

“To protect him.”