Since your last visit, I have not had an opportunity to send for you again. My jailors have been whispering amongst themselves, and for a while I suspected they were plotting to find some ingenious way to dispose of me and then claim an accident had resulted in my death. I have been very careful of stray knives and unfamiliar foods, you can be certain! But now it appears that they had other gossip to convey to each other.

I had a visit this morning from Ariana Bayless herself, telling me she has decided to set me free. I’m afraid I was very cool and insolent with her, which probably made her want to change her mind, but I cannot be otherwise with such a smug and self-satisfied blueshi. So I said, “I see your sense of justice has finally triumphed over your desire for vengeance.” But she is very cool herself. She said, “You are a choifer in a game much more complex than you know, and it suits me to release you.” Arrogant, yes? So I said in my turn, “We learn that no mere mortals know the position of every player on the board, and last time I checked, you were still one of them.” She actually laughed. I cannot recall anyone I have ever hated as deeply and unwaveringly as I hate her, but I have to confess I laughed as well.

So—amazing news, is it not? I had begun to lose some of my usual optimism, for I have been here so long and heard no news. And I do know that much of the recent violence in the city has been laid at my door. Perhaps Ariana Bayless thinks I will be calmer once I am free again and that I will direct my efforts to more peaceful negotiations. What I know is that I will be more careful once I am released.

And being more careful means restricting myself to the smallest possible group of confederates. I must not let anyone know where I am staying—not even my father. I have thought and thought, and I have been unable to devise a safe way to have you brought to me. I think it is possible that we may never see each other again.

So the great love that has sustained me for so long comes to an end in this fugitive way. I tell myself that the times may change—governments may change—the world itself may change—and you and I will one day be together again. But my future looks blurred and uncertain, and I do not believe any of my own words. What can I say except that I will always remember you and always love you? You cannot reply, but I tell myself that you would say exactly the same words to me.

Jex Zanlan, of the clan Zanlan