“Anointed Honor,” I said, parting the birinsinku veil, “it’s me. We’ve come to get you out.” My smile faded at Thaddace’s empty stare. A sharp ammonia smell rose from buckets at his feet, and a threadbare tunic, pulled up like a hood over his head, served as his only protection from weeks of beating sun and wind. Livid burns speckled his pale skin. His hair and beard had been recently shorn—more mercy than humiliation, where prison lice were considered. I wondered who had snuck him the razor, and why—though the thought sent me shivers—he had not used it to end his misery.

He uncovered his ears. “I told you,” rasped the former High Lord Judge, “not to come.”

“I’ve never been good at following directions,” I reminded him, and fumbled with the ring of keys, racing through the guards’ stolen memories. An image of the correct key surfaced in my mind. I held it to the lock . . . then yelped and dropped the key ring, sucking my blistered finger.

“Really?” I accused Thaddace, gaping in shock. “Using your heating Hallow on the iron? That’s low, Anointed Honor.”

He said nothing, green eyes dull and sullen.

“You could have melted the whole lock,” I said then, realization dawning. “All this time, you could have freed yourself!”

“I have not spent my life,” said Thaddace in his thick Mewish brogue, “enforcing the laws of this empire to flout them now. In a few hours, I will lay my head on that chopping block. And so help me gods, I will settle my debts at last . . .” He trailed off as his gaze fell behind me, where Mbali and Kirah stood.

The former High Priestess removed her veil. “And what about the debt you owe to me?”

The resolution in Thaddace’s jaw crumbled, like a pillar of salt in water.

“What of your siblings, who have suffered enough?” Mbali asked, reaching through the bars to stroke his weather-scarred face.

They tried to speak without words, eyes filled with mute longing. But no energy crackled through the air—no sparks crossed the space between them.

They don’t even have a mental bond anymore. Kirah Ray-spoke, her horror sharp in our mental bond. I guess their Ray abilities disappeared when the old Emperor died. Tar . . . that just doesn’t seem fair.

No, it didn’t. I was still reeling at how quickly the old Anointed Ones had been stripped of their power. After Emperor Olugbade’s death, Arit law required his council to be permanently exiled from An-Ileyoba so that the our council’s new power would go unchallenged. Olugbade’s Eleven now resided at a cloistered temple just outside Oluwan City. After a complicated series of disguises and bribes, Kirah and I had just managed to smuggle Mbali back into the palace, knowing she was our only hope of coaxing Thaddace from prison.

Thaddace and Mbali can still be together, I pointed out to Kirah, trying to comfort myself as well. They don’t need the Ray to survive.