“The cops did it. The Penitents. They’re all—” She broke off. Better to keep quiet than speak in that quivering quavering tone. Telling Kai had been easier. Izza knew Cat, and knowing her she felt the need to be strong in front of her.

“Tell me.”

“A Penitent came for him. He fought.”

“You saw it.”

“I did.” She paced angrily among rusted wires and broken barrels until she could come up with more to say. She didn’t say, I need you, would not admit that even now. “They killed him. They’ll go on and kill my friends. I can’t leave until they’re safe.”

Cat’s grip tightened on the broom, and she stared down into the scrapes its bristles left in the dust. She growled in that tongue Izza did not know, with words like breaking rock. Then she let the broom fall. It clattered on the floor. She stood. “It won’t be safe,” she said. “Not ever. If they killed Margot, they’ll hunt for anyone connected with him. That’s you. That’s the kids. Hells, that’s me. You should have stayed away.”

“I have a…” Gods, what should she call Kai? “A friend trying to help me find out what happened. To get to the bottom of this. Figure out what made the Penitents go crazy.”

“And then what? You can’t stop the Watch.”

“You could.”

Cat’s laugh was harsh, humorless. “One at a time, maybe. You’ve already seen how well two at a time goes for me.”

“What, then? We run away? Leave the kids in danger?”

“They always were in danger. You know that. They should all leave. But they have to figure that out for themselves.”

“And what about Margot? He was killed. He deserves justice.”

That drew a smile from Cat, but it wasn’t a kind one. “I’m not here as a cop, Izza. I had to leave all that behind.”

“I don’t want a cop.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I want you to help me.”

She’d shouted. She hadn’t meant to. Broken wood and rusted metal, fallen ceiling and shattered stone, should have eaten the echoes of her voice, but she heard them still, or heard her words in the silence their passage left. She heard the crackle of a burning village, heard the scream she’d been screaming for five years.

Cat watched her with green eyes like jade, like water.

Izza stood taut and sharp in the decaying room she’d chosen for her palace.

Cat walked toward her slowly. “You told me you wanted to leave. That you didn’t want to be responsibile for this island, for these children. You don’t have to.”

She was too close. Izza couldn’t move.