“No.”

“Nor should the powerful twist justice to serve their own ends.”

“Of course not.”

“If those in power will not shift, what then is to be done? Have you a question, Ramit?”

Marit rubbed her jaw with the back of a hand. This unstable ground might collapse beneath her feet. Best to change the subject entirely. “What am I?”

“Ah.” A keen look took her in from top to toe, with her threadworn, mismatched clothing, and her short sword, which naturally the woman could not know Marit had stolen from a sergeant in High Haldia. “You hold your sword close.”

“I trust it, that’s true.”

“You are a soldier? One of the Thunderer’s ordinands?”

“That’s right,” Marit lied. “I’ve had training. But I meant, what am I now?”

“You are a Guardian.” She touched, again, the odd assemblage of objects on the desk: a serviceable dagger; a sharpened green stick cut from hollow pipe brush; a narrow wooden box that likely contained writing brushes.

Remembering how this woman had written on paper, and two reeves had fallen dead, Marit found her resolve strengthened. “Then why am I not presiding over assizes? Why are Guardians traveling with an army that invaded Haldia and now means to attack Toskala?”

“Have you asked yourself, when and why did the assizes fall into disuse? Indeed, the abandonment of the assizes by the Guardians is a sad tale, one not recorded in the annals of the Lantern. The hierophants of Sapanasu and the reeves certainly deserve an equal share of blame.”

“The reeves have always served justice! I mean, so I always heard.”

“Even the halls can become corrupted when those in power come to love power more than justice.”

“Maybe. But it seems to me that first the Guardians vanished, and after that the assizes fell into disorder. What am I to think now, when I find you and the others—if you count me, seven all told.” Too late she caught herself, having slipped in her accounting. She had meant to name six, rather than betray the envoy.

The woman nodded. “Seven, now that you and the outlander girl have come to us.”

“I never saw so many,” said Marit cautiously. “Where is the seventh?”

“On patrol.”

Perhaps not the envoy, then. Perhaps she meant the one Kirit had mentioned, “twisted like Uncle Girish,” whatever that meant. And if so, that meant eight Guardians were accounted for.

The woman went on. “All could be restored to what the gods intended, if only we discover where the last two are. What a blessing that would be for the Hundred, neh?”

If Marit had not seen this woman kill two apparently innocent reeves, she might have found the argument more convincing. As it was, she smiled, not needing to fake her uncertainty. “What happened to the council of Guardians?”

“Who among us has not succumbed to small greeds and unintended mistakes? Yet when those who clutch power turn all decisions to their own benefit, choosing to be ruled by selfishness, striking down those who have done nothing more than what they have done themselves, then the shadows have triumphed. Is it not so?”