He pressed his fingers together in front of his chest as he turned. “Gods spare me from priests. The Iskari have lobbied two decades for their cathedral and every year they get closer, no matter how many times I tell the council their gods’ presence would warp our idols beyond repair. And the Iskari aren’t the worst, either. You should see my inbox. Alt Coulumb keeps petitioning us to return a bit of their goddess they say we have. Same claim as all the others: back in the God Wars someone stole from them and stored it here. Their gargoyles ship us these big slabs of granite carved with their demands. Return the shards of Seril. I wish someone’d tell them paper was cheaper.” He laughed. “I’m sorry. I love my job. How are you?”

“Ready for work,” she said.

“What work?”

So that was the game. Since he wasn’t sitting behind his desk, Kai saw no reason to stand in front of it. She joined him by the window and watched him oscillate, toward her, then away. “Building idols. Structuring trades. Solving problems. Your doctors have kept me prone as a roasting turkey for a month, and if you had your way they’d probably truss me like one. I’m ready to do my job.”

“This isn’t a job. It’s a calling.” He reached the apex of his round, and stopped, half in shadow and half out. “You’re feeling well?”

“I am.”

“You can walk without the cane?”

She tapped the bamboo against the floor. “Not for long. Physical therapy is slow.”

“You haven’t cooperated, I hear.”

“It’s hard to take seriously.”

“You could have died. You almost died on the operating table, and before.”

“I almost saved her.”

“Saving her wasn’t your job.”

“This isn’t a job. It’s a calling.”

“You plan to snap back at me. In this conversation.”

“If you had good news, you would have told me; if you wanted to commend me, you would have. You owe me straight talk, Jace. Don’t walk me through it like I’m some slave you’re trying to teach math.”

“I don’t think you’re a slave.” His voice softened, and he approached her. His fingers trailed over the varnished surface of his desk. Easy to forget that he was a father, a lover, a leader. Easy to forget he was anything but a master. “I think you’re dangerous.”

“This is about Kevarian. And the Grimwalds.”

“Of course.”

“They won’t win. We acted in their best interests, all the way through—Shining Empire debt looked like a safe investment, especially with the People’s Congress coming up. No one expected the Helmsman to try to open the soul exchange over his own cabinet’s heads. And we—I—went above and beyond to save their idol. I almost did.”

“You would have died.”

“I felt her healing.”