Anton had never been threatened by a twelve-year-old girl. He had also never been genuinely afraid of a twelve-year-old girl, but there was a first time for everything.

“You should already know what it is we do to Pallas’s followers here.”

“Wait,” Anton said. “Do you think we’re Witnesses?”

Lady Iskara leveled her gaze at him, and Anton had never seen so much ferocity on a face so young. “Don’t be coy with me.”

“I’m not!” Anton said indignantly. “We’re fighting against the Witnesses.”

Lady Iskara’s eyes narrowed. “So you claim.”

“We can prove it,” Hector spoke up. “We’re Graced. Well, not all of us, but—”

“Do you take me for a simpleton?” she asked. “Or is it my age that makes you think you can fool me so easily?”

“What?” Hassan said. “No, we—”

“We are well aware of Pallas’s new tricks,” Lady Iskara said. “Removing Grace and transferring it to his followers. If you do have Grace, it must have been gained through these monstrous means, and we will have you strung up outside our city walls as a warning to Pallas.”

“We’re not—”

“That’s enough,” the girl barked, her voice so effortlessly commanding that Hassan fell silent at once. “We will speak to you one at a time and find out the truth.”

Her cool gray eyes swept over the group of them. “You first,” she said, nodding at Illya. Two of the crossbow wielders pulled him toward the door, and Anton’s heart sank.

Of the eight of them, she just had to choose the one who actually was connected with the Witnesses. On the one hand, Illya was good at lying. On the other, if he was caught lying that would be it for all of them. From what Anton had seen of this girl, she was not going to offer them much in the way of leniency.

And a third thought occurred to him—that somehow Illya would find a way to save his own skin by tossing the rest of them to the wolves.

The door clanged shut behind them, Illya on the other side.

“I think I know where we are,” Beru said after a moment. “On a few occasions, Pallas mentioned a mining town in the Unspoken Mountains called Anvari. A stronghold against the Witnesses, one of the few left. He spoke of it as little more than a nuisance, but I could tell it bothered him. Just the idea of these people resisting his claim of power.”

“Well, that’s great, but it doesn’t help us if they think we’re on Pallas’s side,” Anton said wearily. “And honestly, I don’t see a good way to convince them.”

“I do,” Hassan said. Anton looked up as Hassan pushed himself to his feet. “We tell them the truth.”