“Stop speaking to me,” Dyeawan orders the sour-faced agent, and surprise more than anything else momentarily silences him. “Maybe Edger enjoyed dueling you with words, but I don’t. I find you very unpleasant, and I refuse to endure unpleasant, malicious men any longer. I don’t want to hear your complaints or your opinions or your accusations. Edger created you as a tool. You will act as one, and you will speak only as much as one of Riko’s vise grips from this moment forward.”

Oisin stares incredulously down at her.

“You impudent little—”

“There is nothing you can do to me. Nothing. Unless you are willing to take out your dagger and kill me here and now, you will do exactly as I say. You will do it because I am the only one left who knows what Edger knew and truly understands his methods. No one else has seen the whole of the picture. They only have pieces. No one else can replace him.”

“You think my only option is to murder you? Do you realize who I am? Do you comprehend the resources at my disposal?”

“You are a specter created by a dead man to frighten the ignorant, and nothing more. What will you do, Oisin? Rally the Protectorate Ministry to overthrow the Planning Cadre? What do you imagine occurs in the wake of such an act? Crache would fall apart. You know how to protect secrets and make people disappear. You haven’t the slightest idea how to maintain the machinery of Crache, whether this rebellion in the east you refer to succeeds or not. Not to mention you would have to rule openly. The people would rise against you before your first year saw its end. The Protectorate Ministry only functions in the shadows. Standing in the light of day you are powerless, and you know it.”

Oisin’s eyes are smoldering, but there is a tight-lipped recognition of the truth in her words, even if he isn’t ready to consciously accept it.

“You forget you are not the only planner in this keep. You are not even the—”

“Yes. The old men and women who wear this pendant would certainly side with you. Perhaps they hold enough sway in the Cadre to cast me and the other young planners out. What will you be left with when they are the only ones seated at this table? Every worthwhile idea they’ve had has been realized. They are equally worthless to you. Edger knew this, that’s one of the reasons he gave me this tunic, to drive them out. Planners, Oisin, don’t rule Crache. Leaders rule it. You have no leaders. You have no one to comprehend the shape of things, let alone reshape them as needed.”

“Is that what you are, little girl? Are you a leader?”

“I will learn,” she says, her resolve brooking no dissent. “I am very good at that, Oisin.”