“You vanished last night.” He stepped closer, and she stepped back. “We have to talk about Margot. The sky’s about to fall. The Iskari legate’s up the ridge, waving his holy symbol around and threatening to rain all hells down on the chief if we don’t get him answers. I’m on the line. I have to tell them something. The chief, if not the ambassador. Why did I go to Margot’s house before there was any report of fire?”

“Why do you ever go on patrol?”

“Yesterday, I went because you asked me to.”

“Not when I asked, though.”

“You wanted me to arrest a private citizen, Kai. A foreigner. It took me a while to set things up.”

“You arrest foreigners all the time.”

“Stowaway creeps caught peddling bennies in the Godsdistrikt. We don’t grab bona fide rent-paying residents. I put myself on the line for you.”

“And someone got killed.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t tell anyone the story, Claude, except for you. I told you, and you promised not to tell anyone else, and somehow Margot ends up dead.”

“You don’t think I…” He trailed off.

“I don’t think you killed him. But you told someone.”

The words struck Claude exactly like a slap—he barely moved. She’d slapped him before, and knew the signs. Shirtfront shifted as he flexed and relaxed his chest. “I didn’t.”

When Claude lied, silence was the best response. She walked past, and he did not try to stop her with anything but words.

“You made some wild accusations. I had to check.”

She kept her voice low. Security guards had already glanced their way. “I showed you proof.”

“You showed me a piece of paper. That isn’t enough. And you haven’t exactly been yourself lately. Irrational. Jumping at shadows.”

Her teeth ground. She forced the anger from her voice—without, it was level like a guillotine blade. “Who did you tell?”

“My team. The watch officer.”

“Who else?” Pulling him in two directions: duty to the watch, keeping silent, and duty to her, to speak. Duty was the cord that bound them. Not love. Maybe it never had been love.

“I sent a runner up the mountain. To ask if they knew anything about Margot.”

“To the mountain. To whom?”

“Jace,” he said.

“Gods.” After all her care to gather evidence, to give Jace solid proof. She closed her eyes and was back in the spider’s web, back on the bed, strapped in, tubes leading from her arms. “I told you not to tell anyone. And you told five people, at least. Who knows how many they told?”

“He trusts you, Kai. The reply came late, but it came. He said he trusted you. That was all I needed.”