The Ila lifted her hand, motioned, and from a shadowed curtain an au’it came, holding her book, and scurried to sit at the Ila’s feet—their au’it, dusty and soiled as she was.

“Marak Trin,” the Ila said.

He walked forward, three paces, four, until the guards at the Ila’s far left and right reacted, until the Ila herself, in the same moment, turned to him the back of her uplifted hand. Stop. So he stopped. Hati and Norit stopped somewhere farther back.

The Ila looked at him, assessing what she saw, or realizing what she saw: Marak had no idea, in the quarrel between Luz and the Ila, how much either knew of the other. For everyone else’s sake, he waited, asking himself where to find the right words, the few words that might catch her attention, and her belief.

“What have you found?” the Ila asked.

Where to begin? Most desperately—where to begin.

“There’s a tower off the edge of the Lakht,” he said, “ruled by a woman named Luz. She says she’s your cousin.” He saw the Ila’s breath come in, deeply, and go out. That was the only sign of emotion she gave. “More,” he said, risking everything, “she speaks through us. I think she sees through us. She guided us a new way through the storms. The mad stayed there at the tower… with Luz… but they’re no longer mad. There’s water. There’s sweet water, and tents, and all the madmen that ever wandered away from the villages are camped around the place, as sane as…” As the rest of us? he almost said to that white, implacable face, and stopped himself in time. “She chose us three, and took us into the tower. Its doors open with no one touching them. Lights burn without fire. She talked to us. She gave us a message for you. She sent us because it’s not too late.“

Rocks hitting spheres, and pools of fire. Luz was aware at this very moment, aware of all three of them, he was sure of it. Luz was looking out through Norit’s eyes, and dared he make the Ila aware of that fact? What would she do to Norit if she knew?

“Nanoceles,” Norit said from the back of the chamber, taking every guard by surprise, and she strode forward. Men started to move, but the Ila lifted her hand and stopped the drawing of weapons, stopped their rush to prevent Norit, who took her place at his side.

“You understand that word,” Norit said in that cold, clear, terrible voice. “You know what you’ve done, you know what your predecessors did to the world of the ondat. In revenge they’ve begun to reshape this world, but with us, your cousins, they have peace. And I came here to offer you a choice that they allow me to offer you.”