The two girls were of an age, Kesh thought idly and at random, both barely past girlhood and venturing cautiously into the bloom of young womanhood. But where Mai was sleek and cared-for, a well-tended garden showered with the constant rains of affection and admiration, the demon girl was all edges, no different really from the splintered doors hanging in tatters behind her.

She said, in her emotionless voice, “You did not harm me, Mistress.”

“Neither did O’eki. He is a slave, as you were. He must do what his master commands. You cannot hold blame to him for that. Please do not harm him.”

The mirror, still raised, shifted as the girl twisted it. Priya groaned, but the demon lowered her hand, hid the mirror’s face, and stared at Mai. “What the master commands. Where is Master Shai? Tell me where he is. Then I will go.”

And kill him were the words she left unspoken.

“Shai never touched you.”

“He was my master. He took coin into his hand in exchange for three to rape me. How is it different to murder a man with your own hand, or step back and allow another to do the deed for you?”

Chief Tuvi struggled to raise his bow, and she fixed her gaze on him until he wept. She looked at each of the others to cow them likewise.

Mai took another step forward. “Shai is not your enemy. He was foolish, perhaps, but he did not hurt you. You don’t know how many times he spoke to his brothers, asking them to take you away from Uncle Girish for fear and disgust at what Girish might be doing to you—”

The ghost girl gazed deep into Mai’s face, and Mai’s smooth façade crumpled as she moaned in pain.

“You suspected, but you did not know,” said the girl. “Girish tried to hurt you, too.”

Rubbing her belly as if it hurt, Mai said in a ragged voice. “Girish was a bad man, but Father never allowed him to touch any of us children. Shai tried to have you taken away from him because he pitied you. He pled your case—he did you no harm—I beg you—”

“North,” the demon said, as if the word had been spoken aloud. “He went north, with the scouts.”

She reined around the horse and rode away into the darkness of the house, broken lattices and shards of ceramics cracking under hooves.

Chief Tuvi shook himself, staggered upright, and loosed an arrow after her. Its thunk—burying itself deep in wood—woke everyone else.

Keshad’s gaze drifted, seeing now the outlander slave Sheyshi curled beside a lacquered tray as she scratched at her own face with her nails until she drew blood. Seeing now Priya sobbing disconsolately as she staggered over to embrace O’eki. Seeing now a young Silver man reeling backward as from a blow, hands groping at the turban wound tightly around his head as if he feared that the cloth had unwound to leave his hair naked to the sight of all.