“Well, of course Mara didn’t, but the cane was strictly medical. Telemetry, that’s all. Gave us a vague sense of your location. I wouldn’t have known you were in the library if Gavin didn’t tell me.”

“Gavin.”

“What can I say? Your friends worry about you.”

“You killed her,” she said. If she hadn’t used that word already in this conversation, she might not have been able to use it now. “Mara.”

“Oh, gods, no.” The suggestion shocked him. “No, Kai. Don’t. I mean, how could you even. Mara was scared. So scared, when she realized what she’d done. We had to have our talk again, that’s all. I explained our duty, and hers.”

“She never forgot her duty to our clients. To our future.”

“She forgot her duty to this.” One arm thrown wide, he embraced the view beyond his window, the island in fullest green. “Makawe and his sisters left for the God Wars, and trusted us to watch their island for them. We swore to keep it safe.”

“By destroying everything it stands for.”

“What are half-formed gods next to the lives of men, and women? Next to the lives we’ve built here? Mara was confused, that’s all. She needed help. So I helped.”

“I went by her house yesterday. She hadn’t been home since her meeting with Ms. Kevarian in the crèche. Since you caught her.”

“We talked, after I found you. I showed her the contract she’d signed. I explained the situation. She needed rest. Protection too, in case the Grimwalds and their Craftswoman came after her.”

“Where is she?”

“Here. In the mountain.”

“Show me.”

He pointed to the scroll on the desktop. “Sign this, and I will take you to her. I answered your questions. I was wrong, to keep you out of the loop. Can you forgive me that?”

She nodded, once, slowly. She couldn’t forgive, but she didn’t want him to stop talking. The longer he went on, the more time she had to decide what to do.

“Sign this, and join our circle. You’ll forget this entire affair unless I bring it up. You’ll return to the mountain with honor. Direct reports. Salary increase. You can help me analyze the pool, find out why idols are waking up, and stop them. Sign, and help me help us all. I’ll take you to Mara, and we’ll talk. What do you say?”

She’d expected the offer, the temptation, and was surprised to find herself not weighing options, but looking for the right words. In the end she settled on, “No.”

Jace sighed. “Okay.” He replaced scroll and pen in his desk drawer. “I’m getting worse at this in my old age. Scared and sentimental. A bad combination. I look forward to retirement.”

“You expect to last that long?”