He clenched his jaw so hard it hurt. He wanted to tell Orest to mind his own business, but that would mean he would have to pull wingleader rank again, and that ploy was growing weaker by the moment.

“Don’t you think you ought to give her the chance?” Orest continued, even less helpfully. “It’s only fair.”

He glared at Orest and decided to bring up family instead. “Lord Ya-tiren wouldn’t thank me for putting her in danger. Neither would Lady Iris-aten.”

He’d hoped invoking both parents would get Aket-ten to reconsider. Unfortunately, she was made of sterner stuff than he’d thought.

“I’ll get his consent,” she said, clenching her own jaw. “When he gives his consent to anything, Mother simply steps aside and lets it happen. If I get his consent, will you assign this to me?”

Dear gods. Well, at least Lord Ya-tiren won’t be able to put the blame on me for sending his daughter into danger. He’ll know it was all her own idea. “And Lord Khumun’s,” he replied, transferring his glare to her.

She traded him glare for glare. “And Lord Khumun’s,” she agreed. She sounded confident. He only hoped that confidence would be shattered.

“If both of them give their consent, then you can go,” he said, sure that even if she could convince her father, Lord Khumun would never agree.

Lord Khumun agreed.

So did Lord Ya-tiren, although he was not at all happy about it, which left Kiron without any reason to forbid her. He even went to Heklatis to beg something that would make her feel too ill to fly; the Healer stared at him as if he thought Kiron had gone mad, and simply answered, “Are you daft? It would be worth my life, because you know she’d know I’d done it. No. Absolutely, positively, no.”

And Kaleth was no help either; he simply shrugged, opined that no one could hope to stop Aket-ten from doing anything she really wanted to do, and repeated that he could not “see” past the Magi interference, not into the city, and not into the future.

So, despite his misgivings, despite the nebulous feeling of dread in the bottom of his stomach, there was nothing Kiron could say or do, reasonably, to keep her from going. All he could do was to make her swear to be cautious.

She and Menet-ka were going to drop sandbags with messages in them into the inner courts of the Healers, messages detailing what the Jousters already knew, and advising them that when there was a huge distraction, the Healers should escape by whatever means they could.