“Exactly!” Carlyle agreed at once. “I have no idea what you were discussing, I was just—”

A kick from Ockham brought the prisoner to her knees. “That’s one warning. You don’t get two. Your bash’ is half Humanist, you think I haven’t looked you up? I run security here, I check every molecule that passes through my door, and you’d do well to remember that I have the right to exercise lethal force on intruders I judge to be resisting.”

“But not to assassinate innocent people at the President’s command,” Carlyle shot back, braver, perhaps, than you imagined. “Or to drive your old sensayer to suicide when they found out.”

Ockham’s sigh did not weaken his grip on the prisoner. “You did understand.”

“Crap,” Kat or Robin groaned. “Now what do we do? We can’t bump off two sensayers in a month, even an idiot would notice.”

<¿thiz, you have those memory drugs, right?>

“¡Have you been snooping in my bedroom!”

<sorry.>

“Wait!” Carlyle cried. “It’s better that I know! I’m not going to tell anyone. I can’t tell anyone, I’m your sensayer! I’ve taken a vow to hold all parishioners’ secrets secret, no matter what they are.” The captive twisted in Ockham’s grip. “I can help you. I’ve helped murderers before. You think they sent a novice in here after your last sensayer killed themself? You murdered your ba’pas, don’t you want to talk about your guilt?”

Pride made Sniper draw its pistol too, though Lesley had to support its arm with hers. “We can do it now,” Sniper suggested, “say we shot them before we realized who it was. It’ll seem natural enough after the break-in two days ago.”

Cold sweat broke out across the sensayer. “You don’t need to kill me. I’m here to help. Look at Cato! How many times has Cato attempted suicide this year, a dozen? They need me! You all need me! Having a sensayer who knows the truth may be the best thing that could happen to this bash’.”

Ockham held his prisoner fast. “Not if it leaks.”

“You don’t believe I can keep your secret?”

“I believe that you think you can, but—”

“Leave Carlyle to me.” Thisbe rose, slowly, letting the softness of her house self fall away.

“That may not be the best way, Thiz—”

“Ockham!” She spoke it urgently, her black eyes blacker with warning. “I’m not going to kill them. We all want a sensayer we can trust, who knows our real work, so we can have proper sessions, and don’t have to go through all this again. That’s better for all of us, right?”

A quick debate of glances flashed among the bash’mates, Lesley wary, Sniper suspicious, Cato petrified, but a contaminant tainted their cautious instincts—a contaminant called hope.

Faces alone told Thisbe she had won. “Then leave Carlyle to me.”

The others backed off as Thisbe stomped toward the prisoner, her Humanist boots pressing contours of grass and roads into the carpet, a continuation of the landscape whose labyrinth wound its way across her boots’ false leather. She snatched Carlyle’s scarf from her brother’s hands as one snatches the collar of a wayward pup, and dragged the staggering sensayer down the stairway to the depths of her secluded room.