“Tonight.” Viktor took Calenne by the shoulder and eased her aside. “Tonight, and I’ll tell no one of your secret. Including the archimandrite.”

“Hark at you.” Yorvin snorted and turned away. “Keep my secrets indeed. Look around all you like, but you’ll find nothing.”

“Viktor . . .” said Calenne.

He ignored her. Time among soldiers had taught him how to gauge possibility. The company of councillors had taught him how to read truth in lies. “Have it your way, Master Proctor.”

Yorvin froze in the act of patting down his apron. Then he shrank inwards, just a little. “I don’t know what that means.”

“But you do. There’s no way the Proctor’s College would let you wander off into the Southshires, which means you fled. Which means . . .”

“Viktor! Leave the man alone.”

Again, he turned his gaze on Calenne. It was a stare that had shamed battle-hardened veterans into silence. Somehow, she met him measure for measure. Remarkable, considering she’d fainted at the sight of him barely two days prior. Viktor would have wagered a fair portion of his inheritance that poor Kasamor had never seen the steel at his betrothed’s core.

Or perhaps he had, and that had been part of the attraction. An odd thought, but not unappealing.

“Our friend the potter is a fugitive,” he said. “He has the gift of magic and should be wielding it in the foundry.”

“Making more of those monsters, you mean,” said Calenne.

“Kraikons and simarka are not monsters. They are weapons, and no more evil than a sword.”

“A sword can be evil. It depends on the wielder. And constructs are wielded by council lackeys.”

Her expression left Viktor in no doubt at all that the final venomous word referred to him.

“I am no one’s lackey.” He strove for patience. “Nor am I proposing to drag our friend back to Tressia in chains. I seek to remind him of his place in things.”

“Blackmail him, you mean.”

“Please,” said Yorvin. “I’ve lived here thirty years. I have a family.”

There was no resistance in him now. Just fear. Viktor felt a twinge of regret, but sometimes the breaking of a man was necessary. A gesture was needed.

He went down on one knee before the old man and bowed his head. Calenne’s eyes widened in surprise, occasioning an unfamiliar glow of satisfaction. Viktor put it from his mind and focused on Yorvin.

“And I mean only to see them protected. I apologise for my directness, but the Southshires is invaded. Your work may save lives . . . but only if it is completed tonight.”

Yorvin frowned and glanced again across the workshop. “I don’t see how. It’s just a toy.”

“That’s my concern. Will you help me protect your family?”

“And if I don’t, I suppose you’ll tell Makrov about me?”