As for the Corporalki, the only Heartrenders on the training floor were Tamar and her massive twin, Tolya. I owed them my life, but the debt didn’t rest easy with me. They were close to the Apparat, charged with the instruction of the Soldat Sol, and they’d lied to me for months at the Little Palace. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of them. Trust was a luxury I could ill afford.

The remaining soldiers would have to wait for a turn to fight. There were simply too few Grisha. Genya and David kept to themselves, and weren’t much for combat, anyway. Maxim was a Healer and preferred to practice his craft in the infirmary, though few of the Apparat’s flock trusted Grisha enough to take advantage of his services. Sergei was a powerful Heartrender, but I’d been told he was too unstable to be considered safe around students. He’d been in the thick of the fighting when the Darkling launched his surprise attack, had seen the girl he loved torn open by monsters. We’d lost our only other Heartrender to the nichevo’ya somewhere between the Little Palace and the chapel.

Because of you, said a voice in my head. Because you failed them.

I was drawn from my bleak thoughts by the Apparat’s voice. “The boy oversteps.”

I followed his gaze to where Mal was moving between the soldiers, speaking to one or correcting another. “He’s helping them train,” I said.

“He’s giving orders. Oretsev,” the priest called, beckoning him over. I tensed, watching Mal approach. I’d barely seen him since he’d been banned from my chamber. Aside from my carefully rationed interactions with Genya, the Apparat kept me isolated from potential allies.

Mal looked different. He wore the peasant roughspun that had served as his uniform at the Little Palace, but he was leaner, paler from time spent belowground. The narrow scar on his jaw stood out in sharp relief.

He stopped before us and bowed. It was the closest we’d been allowed to each other in months.

“You are not the captain here,” said the Apparat. “Tolya and Tamar outrank you.”

Mal nodded. “They do.”

“So why are you leading the exercises?”

“I wasn’t leading anything,” he said. “I have something to teach. They have something to learn.”

True enough, I thought bitterly. Mal had gotten very good at fighting Grisha. I remembered him bruised and bleeding, standing over a Squaller in the stables of the Little Palace, a look of challenge and contempt in his eyes. Another memory I could do without.

“Why haven’t those recruits been marked?” the Apparat asked, gesturing toward a group sparring with wooden swords near the far wall. None of them could have been more than twelve years old.

“Because they’re children,” Mal replied, ice in his voice.

“It’s their choice. Would you deny them the chance to show fealty to our cause?”

“I’d deny them regret.”

“No one has that power.”

A muscle ticked in Mal’s jaw. “If we lose, those tattoos will brand them as sun soldiers. They might as well sign up to face the firing squad now.”