“You see,” Jace said, “I find it interesting that, after sending me a nightmare, you sent one to your friend, asking him to come to the pool in secret. He came to me first. He was worried for you, you know. Your sanity. Now. I hope you asked him here to arrest our friends in the pool. Because if you were betting he would arrest me, well. I think you’ll find that of the two of us, you are the greater threat to our island. And Claude is a child of the Penitents first: he must guard Kavekana from threats foreign and domestic.”

Jace stepped back out of Kai’s reach. Not that Kai considered trying to tackle him. The Penitents would reach her before she could do damage.

She thought she saw the beginnings of an apology in Claude’s eyes. He was sorry for what he was about to do, but he would do it anyway.

“So, which is it? Did you come to join us, or destroy us?”

*   *   *

“Hello, Izza,” the green man said.

Izza heard his voice in her bones. At first she saw him as a collection of stars, no different from the others that filled the nothing through which they fell. As she watched, his outline grew form, as if absorbing the attention she paid him.

She recognized his face.

“Margot,” she said, without moving her lips.

“Something like that.” He nodded to Cat. “Care to introduce me?”

“I don’t even know who you are.”

“A memory,” he said.

“Cat, this is a memory of Edmond Margot, a bard of Iskar. Edmond, this is Cat, from Alt Coulumb.”

Pleased to meet you.

“The pleasure’s mine.”

“I saw you die,” Izza said.

He bit his lower lip. “You said I should hide. I did. In the page, in the ink. Deeper. I found my way here.” He waved his hand at the gods and at the empty space above. “She saved me. Saved part of me. So much I can’t remember. I don’t remember what I don’t remember. Of course.” He grimaced. “But she needs me. Us.”

“What do you mean? Who needs? Who saved?”

He spread his hands, and raised them, and she saw.

*   *   *

“Neither,” Kai said.

Jace raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“I hoped you would turn yourself in. Resign. Maybe you meant well at first, but you’ve made bad decision after bad decision. You’ve angered gods and Craftsmen. I hoped Claude would see the threat you pose.”

If a hint of tension crept into Jace’s shoulders, Kai saw none. “I’ve done the best I could. And in a few minutes, the problem will be resolved. The last witness taken care of. The affair remains within our walls, and the danger passes.”

“Except for the Grimwalds’ suit.”

“Which will fail.”

“I think you underestimate their Craftswoman.”