Inaya placed her hand on his. His hand was cool. She saw the terror in his face. These were men and women who had killed for her, and for themselves. They risked death and dismemberment each day in the fulfillment of their duties for the Fourré. Yet here they were, in shocked terror at the idea of doing the one thing that may set them free: speak the truth of what they were.

“There will be a great many of us. The priests can stop a rill, but they cannot stop a river. We must show them our true numbers. Our true strength,” she said.

His eyes filled with tears. He pulled his hand away and he wept openly in front of her, like a child or a priest. He was so young—nearly the same age she had been when she fled Ras Tieg, terrified and newly pregnant, running toward an uncertain future that, she believed, held nothing but death and dishonor.

“You tell us to be brave,” he said. “You tell us not to be violent, but I heard about the murdered priests.”

“It was a rogue act. The boy is no longer part of the organization. It will not happen again. We will not tolerate further violence.”

“I don’t want things to go back to what they were. We lived in so much fear before you came to us, Madame. So much terror. You showed us we have power. Now you want to take it away.”

“No. I want to give you real power. Lasting power. Violence is a not a true tenet of our faith.”

“The priests would say otherwise.”

“I am not a priest.”

He grinned through his tears, and wiped his face with his sleeve. “No, you are not.”

“Come, now. You had faith and trust in me five years ago. We have come far since then. Now it is time for our final act. It is time to take our place in Ras Tiegan society as true equals. You must have faith, Hynri.”

He touched his breast, the space between his ribs where she guessed a saint’s pendant hung. “I will trust it, Madame. But the others… I don’t know how successful I’ll be.”

“In three weeks’ time, we will be holding an event.”

She saw his eyes widen. “Event” was the euphemism they used for some violent act—a bombing or kidnapping or raid.

“I will be asking all of our cells to reveal themselves. And all of their shifter allies. We will walk onto our streets, and we will shift. Together. We must show them how many we truly are.”

“They will murder us, Madame.”

“They may. They may murder a good many of us. But we cannot go on as we are.”

If they went on as they were, it would all end in blood. She could see a bloody civil war, a revolution, on the horizon, and she had seen enough bloody revolutions.