Your grip adjusted, you found it significantly less difficult to hold the sword pointed down than previously. You asked, “Why are you here? Why are you all alive? Why are you on the other side of the universe—in your own shuttle—innumerable years away from the Nine Houses? Why were your bodies not found at Canaan House?”

With her mouth a gruesome, stuck-together distortion, Deuteros had stood with a crutch shakily clutched beneath one arm, and was now hauling herself toward you with an uprightness of posture that belied her physical weakness. It was still the Cohort captain who silently approached, her dark eyes cold and level; you kept your bone-sheathed sword steady, though you would not in any case use it to kill her if you have to. The captain shouldered past an obviously reluctant Coronabeth—their eyes met, and Judith shook her head in a minute no—and she stopped about a step before you.

Then she grabbed a fistful of mother-of-pearl robes. You did not flinch. She said, “Nnnnngh—mmmmf—nghaaaagh,” as though sheer force of desperation could wrench coherent sound from a fused mouth. Camilla flew to her left side and Corona to her right, but she swung her crutch at them. Her grasp was surprisingly strong, and as she said, “Nnnghhh!” you unfused lips, tongue and teeth. You always were too curious for your own good.

“Ngghyaaar—warn him, Lyctor! He has been infiltrated, damn it, and I can do nothing! I am a prisoner of war! If you love him, tell the Emperor that the traitor has already—Nghhhyughh—”

This last nghhhyugh was nothing to do with you. Coronabeth, face set, had clasped her hand over the Second House’s mouth and manhandled her backward, which was very easy for someone of the Third’s stature to do to someone of the Second’s. Ianthe’s twin was stone-eyed, and the expression she and the captain gave each other was antagonistic, to say the least. Judith was humiliatingly bundled back within the confines of the shuttle—Coronabeth kicked a lever close to the door—the great shady overhead hatch started whining down, and you watched the darkness claim her and the furious dignity of the downed soldier beneath the cold gaze of that too-familiar portrait. Judith was signing something to you, but you could not make out Cohort signals. You’d never bothered yourself with the military.

Camilla was picking up the crutch. She said, restlessly, “Look, we should go. We weren’t meant to be here.”

You said, “You are a fool if you think I will let you leave like—”

“I evoke the rock that is never rolled away,” she said instantly. She was a quick study. “Let us leave. Tell no one we were here. Don’t ask any more questions. We’re not on the same side anymore, Ninth. I owe you. I owe you everything. But—things have changed.”