“But they brought you comfort.” People all over Ravka, and maybe now Fjerda too kept relics that had supposedly belonged to the Saints. Finger bones, a fragment of spine, scraps of an ancient garment. Nina’s power told her that the bones Joran had purchased weren’t even human.

“She was a soldier,” he said, almost pleading. “She saved people. Fjerdans and Ravkans alike.”

“Is that what you want?” Nina drew a little closer. She could hear voices in the hall. She needed to get out of here, get back out the window and down to the ice moat with Hanne. But she also needed Joran to trust her. If he mentioned her presence here to Brum, she was done for.

“I want to be … good.” He shook his head, fighting his own logic. “Soldiers aren’t good. They’re loyal. They’re brave.”

He had never seemed so young. She forgot sometimes that he was only a boy really, not even seventeen.

“They can be good too.”

“Not us.” He looked at her then, his blue eyes haunted. “Not me.”

“Alina Starkov wasn’t just a soldier,” she said very quietly. “She was Grisha.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, head bowed as if ready to take the beating he knew he deserved. “I know.” His voice was harsh. “I know it is sacrilege.”

“Not necessarily.”

Joran’s eyes snapped open.

“Maybe Grisha power isn’t quite what we’ve been led to believe,” she said. They were Matthias’ words from so long ago. They’d been a balm to her, a gift that had helped her heal and accept who she was. “Maybe their power is a gift from Djel, one more way he shows his strength in this world.”

“No … no, that’s blasphemy, that’s—”

“Who are we to say we know the mind of god?”

Joran peered at her as if he could find the truth somewhere in her features. “Does the commander … does he know you think this way?”

“No,” Nina said. “It is not seemly. But I cannot help the pattern of my thoughts.”

Joran placed his hands to his head. “I know.”

“Are there others among you who feel this way?”

“Yes,” said Joran. His jaw jutted forward. “But I will not give you their names.”

“I didn’t ask for them. I never would.” She wasn’t going to inform on Joran—why would she? But after failing so thoroughly tonight, knowing that the religion of the Saints had spread to the ranks of men trained to hate Grisha was a tiny thread of hope to hang on to with both hands.

“Can you help me get back to the White Island?” she asked.

“Why do you not wait for Brum if he is your … if you are his…”

A dark bubble of mirth rose in Nina. How easily these men played with bloodshed and suffering, but at the mere thought of pleasure, their minds went slack.