“What then?” she demanded, goaded to a burst of temper. “How can I gain your trust? I need allies. And I am guessing that you do, too, for you speak of opponents. Meanwhile, not all the Guardians are accounted for, are they?”

He began shaking, exhausted by the long years of running and hiding and by the terrible hope that this precious ghost girl would not turn away from him on the day she came fully awake.

“I’ll tell you this,” said Marit. She wasn’t one to give up easily. “Myself, that’s one. I heard of your existence from others, not from others wearing the cloak but from a reeve who spoke to a hieros, who spoke of how you came to the temple and claimed that girl. That’s why I sought you out, and how I found you. You’re two more. That makes three Guardians. Lord Radas makes four. And I have encountered three others who I believe are allied with Radas. One is called Hari, one is Yordenas. The third is a woman wearing a cloak of night. That makes seven. But there are nine Guardians. Where are the other two? What are we, if we are not the Guardians spoken of in the stories? If we are not the Guardians who sit in authority at the assizes, who guard the law on which the land is built? What happened to the real Guardians? Why did they vanish, and why are you and I here now? Do you know the answers?”

For once it was easy for him not to speak. Without trust, there can be no free exchange. Without trust, there can be no answers that have a hope of sounding out the truth.

“What can I do to earn your trust?” Her gaze burned, but he would be veiled to her just as she was veiled to him. The third eye granted to the Guardians by Ushara the Devourer allowed them to see into the hearts of mortal men, not into the hearts of other Guardians.

“Kotaru the Thunderer gave each Guardian a staff,” he said. “Where is yours?”

“I don’t know. I never had one.”

Maybe she was a very good liar. Maybe she was as ignorant as she seemed. He had no way of knowing, and no way of finding out.

How sad, really, that he sought to teach the girl to trust him, while refusing to trust this woman who was, after all, asking of him nothing more than he was asking of the girl. If she was what she said she was, then they might join forces. There was strength in numbers. There was hope in numbers. Alone, he and the girl could do nothing but run. Here she came, offering the thing he desired most. No doubt his enemies knew that. So easily they could tempt him, snare him, and destroy him. Take the girl for themselves. And plunge the Hundred so deep into the shadows that he couldn’t see how the land could ever recover.