Hassan and Hector went over their plan one final time, picking at the last of their rations in Hassan’s old sitting room.

Lethia’s villa, abandoned after her return to Nazirah, had become their base of operation in Pallas Athos. It seemed when Lethia had left, she hadn’t intended to return—furniture had been removed, her personal effects were gone, and even the shelves of the library had been stripped bare. No servants had remained behind to maintain the grounds, and in the past three months, the gardens had begun to grow parched and overtaken by weeds.

“Time to get dressed,” Hassan said once they’d finished breakfast. He tossed the Sentry cadet uniform to Hector before disappearing into his old closet.

The uniform had been provided to them by the Lost Rose’s ally, the former captain of the Sentry. He had resigned the minute the Hierophant took power, and much of their plan today depended on the old man and the information he’d supplied them. Hector and Jude had been inside the citadel of Pallas Athos once, but their knowledge of the place was limited. They’d met the former Sentry captain once, too, when the Paladin Guard had first arrived in Pallas Athos.

“Honestly, I’m pretty sure he didn’t like us,” Hector had said of the meeting.

“He didn’t seem to like much of anything,” Jude had added. “Not us, not the Order, and definitely not the Priests’ Conclave.”

He also hadn’t seemed to like the three of them when they met in Lethia’s villa a week ago.

“You’re the ones who are supposed to fix this mess?” he had asked, his voice laced with skepticism.

Hector had looked ready to reply with some choice words, so Hassan had hastily cut him off.

“Do you see anyone else lining up to save this city?” he’d asked, leveling the captain with his most authoritative stare.

The Sentry captain had looked from Hassan to Jude and back before finally throwing up his hands. “Well, I guess you can’t make things much worse.”

He’d spent hours going over the layout and the day-to-day operations of the citadel. The Archon’s execution, he told them, would take place in an amphitheater perched at the very edge of the cliff overlooked by the prisoners’ tower. That was where Beru would be.

Hector had suggested that they could smuggle themselves into the execution along with the public, but the Sentry captain had shot down that idea. The execution wasn’t for the public to witness—it was for the priests and the other leaders of the city. A reminder of what would happen to them if they followed the Archon’s lead in defying Pallas.

“There won’t be a single soul there that wasn’t chosen to attend by Pallas himself,” the captain had said. “There’ll be no blending into the crowd.”