“Your king wouldn’t be pleased.”

“I’m not going to do it,” she lied. “I just enjoy thinking about it. It’s soothing, like humming myself a little melody. Besides, death is too good for you.”

“Is it?” He sounded almost curious. “What would make my atonement complete? An eternity of torture?”

“It would be a start. Though letting you live a long life without your power isn’t a bad beginning either.”

Now his face went cold. “Make no mistake, Zoya Nazyalensky. I did not live a hundred lives, die, and return to this earth, to live as an ordinary man. I will find a path back to my power. One way or another, I’ll cast out the remainders of Yuri’s soul. But the obisbaya is your king’s only chance to be free of his demon and for the world to be free of the Fold.” He leaned back against the seat. “I hear tell there was an attempt on your life.”

Damn it. Which guards had been talking? What had he over- heard?

“The more powerful you become, the more enemies you acquire,” he said. “And the Apparat is not a good enemy to have.”

“How do you know the Apparat was behind the attack?” They’d gotten little information from the assassin, but he was definitely one of the Apparat’s Priestguard. Zoya suspected the Apparat cared less about people calling her a Saint—though that was disconcerting enough—and more about eliminating her to weaken Ravka’s forces. His zealot followers had been happy to make the attempt.

A smug smile touched the Darkling’s mouth. “After hundreds of years, one becomes a very good guesser. The Apparat wants Saints he can control. A weak girl, or better yet a dead one. This assassination was meant to be your martyrdom.”

“I’m no Saint. I’m a soldier.”

He tried to spread his hands, the chains at his wrists clanking. “And yet, do we not make miracles?”

“Yuri really is still in there, prattling on, isn’t he?” This journey already felt interminable. “I’m not in the business of miracles. I practice the Small Science.”

“You know as well as I that the line between Saint and Grisha was once blurred. It was a time of miracles. Maybe that time has come again.”

Zoya wanted nothing to do with it. “And when one of the Apparat’s assassins slips through my guard or a Fjerdan bullet lodges in my heart, will I be resurrected like Grigori? Like Elizaveta? Like you?”

“Are you so very sure you can be killed at all?”

“What are you talking about?”