“Perhaps she poisoned you,” Norit said, “with her knife.”

He was appalled, and asked himself had Norit been there to see the attack. She had not. “To test whether Luz’s makers cure poison, too?”

“They can,” Norit’s lips said, while Norit gazed blindly at the horizon. “She knows that.”

“Would she take such a stupid risk?” Hati demanded angrily. “Would she poison the only ones who know the way?”

“It depends on the poison,” Norit said in that same distracted tone.

“What do you mean it depends on the poison?”

“She set her makers into you. But you still hear the tower’s voice. You still hear me. You still see your visions. She asked about the fever, and you reported it fallen. So she knows her makers were defeated and ceased fighting the makers from the tower. She knows she’s failed.”

“What, to have her makers give me voices in my head?”

“I frankly doubt she has that ability. The First Descended had the skill, but not the resources here. We, on the other hand, do. Yes, she tried a small contest against you, and now she knows she’s beaten. Now we can prove to the ondat that we can defeat her, and we can show them how. It also proves there’s no need for the star-fall, but they won’t stop: they wouldn’t even hear our protestations that we could prevent the need for it. They’re reshaping the world because they have the power, and frankly, too, it’s simply politics. Their people have to see their enemy utterly defeated, ever to feel safe. But she’s beaten, face-to-face and at her best.”

“Because your makers fought a war in me. And they won.”

“With the fever, they won, yes. It’s a very good thing she tried. She’s proven our surmise, that we can overcome her. We’ve also proven it to her, and she’s not happy about it.”

“You mean—” It was probably useless to look at Norit, but he did it instinctively, in outrage. “You mean you invite her into your refuge knowing she has these makers in her, and she’s going to try some other way to get them into all of us.”

“She may try several times. But she’ll lose—again. Oh, make no mistake. This will be a series of battles. She sent you out to us in the first place with makers that didn’t survive… as everyone in the world has her makers in them. She just now tried it again, with a direct effort, with the best she can create, and she’s lost again and her makers lost.”

He found there was a limit to what he wanted to know about this war in which his soul and his body were the battleground.

“You mean she’ll go on doing this, and you’ll try, and she will.”