“It’s for Lexi Xia,” he says, “also of Gen Stalbraid. It’s from Brio. I’ve been conscripted into the Savage Legion and Evie has found me. I’m alive and well and I need her to know there’s a merchant ship that docks in the Capitol for two days every fortnight. It’s a Rok vessel named The Black Turtle. The captain is a very old friend of my father’s. Her name is Staz. There are few people I trust more. She’s carrying the decrees and dispatches I found that prove everything about the Savage Legion.”

“And that’s all I need to tell this fine Te-Gen of the Capitol?”

Brio nods. “She’ll know what to do from there.”

Evie gently squeezes Spud-Bar’s hand. “Can I ask you to leave tonight, right away?”

Spud-Bar nods. “Hai. Probably best I do, before the crazy wears off.”

The armorist stands and chucks the whetstone into a bucket hung from a nail in the wagon. Spud-Bar returns the ax to one of the over-encumbered racks of rusted, secondhand weapons.

“Why can’t we go with your new friend here?” Brio asks Evie, quietly.

“Because we will all be executed if Spud-Bar is caught with us. You can deny carrying a message. Two people in your wagon is much more difficult.”

“You’re right, of course,” he says. “Spud-Bar is risking more than enough already.”

“We’ll find our own way,” Evie promises him. “When you’re healed.”

“I believe you.”

Evie walks over to where Spud-Bar is quickly hitching their small team of mounts to the wagon.

“Thank you for this,” she says.

“Don’t expect I’ll see you again, at least not like this” is all Spud-Bar offers.

“Do you feel like I lied to you?” Evie asks.

“Nah. I knew you weren’t what you seemed the second I spied you goin’ through my blades.”

“My name and my clothes may be false, but the rest is me. And I do consider you a friend. I wouldn’t ask such an important thing of you if I didn’t.”

Spud-Bar remains noncommittal, lashing the final bridle to their horse. “That’s good to know, I suppose.”

“Would you like to know my real name?”

Spud-Bar appears to think about it for a moment.

“No,” the armorist says, and walks away.

A PEBBLE IN A MAZE

THREE MORNINGS AFTER PRESENTING EDGER with her invention, Dyeawan awoke to the first task.

It was sitting atop the blanket as if someone had brought her breakfast in bed while she slept. The sack was small, but bulging, made of silk cloth the color of dead violets and tied off with a midnight ribbon that shined in the morning sunlight. When her rapidly blinking eyes first took it in there was panic, the errant thought that it must be something bad, like a message, perhaps the Planning Cadre’s way of telling her she had to leave.