“I serve Gen Stalbraid,” Taru says without hesitation and with the firmest of resolve. “I always will.”

“Good, then that’s settled. If you feel seeking this man out and taking him into our confidence is a mistake, tell me and I won’t do it.”

“I am… uncertain, Te-Gen.”

“Well, when you are certain, let me know so I can either stop walking or hasten my speed.”

Taru frowns. “I do not understand why you are so quick to trust him. I… find it highly convenient he was the Aegin to respond to our request after you were attacked. That we should meet the one honest man to wear that tunic.”

“You are right to be suspicious, Taru. Of course you are. Perhaps I want to trust him. Perhaps it is because he reminds me very much of Brio.”

“He is not Brio, Te-Gen,” Taru insists with a resentful edge.

“Of course he isn’t. No one else is. However, Brio was the one honest man in a sea of predators and cheap opportunists. He chose scarcity and the scorn of lesser pleaders over playing their game and using the people of the Bottoms as pawns for his own personal gain. Such men do exist, though they be few and far between. If you had met Brio now, not known him for so much of your life, you might think him too good to be true, as well.”

Taru seems to unwillingly consider that scenario. “It is… possible I would think that, yes.”

“I want to believe this Daian is a man like my husband. Yes, we met at an opportune time. Yet so much has gone so disastrously wrong as of late I choose to believe we were owed a small victory, if even by accident or pure chance.”

Taru almost laughs at that. “I suppose we were due.”

Lexi’s expression, however, turns very serious. “I may be wrong, Taru. I may be fatally mistaken, in fact. But here and now I choose to hope. Am I mad?”

“No, Te-Gen.”

“Then you are with me still?”

Taru can’t help but grin. “I follow your lead, Te-Gen. You’ve seemed to know precisely what you’re doing thus far.”

Lexi laughs hollowly. “I only wish.”

The Kodo is where the Capitol’s guardians of day and night go to receive training in the application of Crachian law and learn Aegin methods and procedures. The building itself is a three-tiered structure of bamboo and ceramic filling a corner only a few blocks from the Spectrum itself. A bright red awning falls over each tier, and upon each of those roofing layers is painted the Aegin symbol of the owl’s claw.

“Perhaps you should wait out here while I inquire,” Lexi suggests to Taru.

Taru frowns. “I have no fear of Aegins in any number, Te-Gen.”