Sooner than she would have believed there was a faint grayish light ahead, and she realized that it must be the predawn, which came weakly even to the skies over Darvezian’s tower. Harathes let out a bark of triumph, and the mood of all the rest was instantly brighter—save for her and save for Enth, each of them locked in their own rigid worlds: priest and spider; spider and priest.

The rest tumbled out into the open air, leaving only Harathes at her side. Dion was bracing herself, as though when the sun touched her she might just burn up, all her doubts and sins flaring into instant white-hot fire when they were exposed.

“Now’s the time,” Harathes told her softly.

She looked at him without understanding. “What do you mean?”

“The monster, the spider-creature. This is it. It’s accomplished what we needed it for,” he hissed urgently. “You and me, we’re the ones who understand. We should get rid of it. It’s a liability.”

Still she stared at him dully.

“Dion, the monster has brought division into our very ranks. If we release it here, it will warn our enemies. If we keep it, then we’re nursing a scorpion—a spider—something poisonous. It’ll sting when we least expect it. Perhaps it’s been working for Darvezian all this time, as is its nature. Perhaps Darvezian can undo Penthos’s magics. We need to destroy it, quickly and surely.”

“So it can’t sleep with Cyrene again, you mean.” She hadn’t meant the words, but she was abominably tired and now they were said.

Harathes goggled at her, and his hurt look was a beat late in coming to his face, and another awkward moment dragged before he put in, “That’s not it. We need to be rid of the thing for, for many reasons, you’ve heard my—”

“You really are a…” She managed to bite down on what she had been about to say. A shit. He’s a shit. I never saw it before, but he really is. But he’s our shit, and a child of the Light. Which is ever so reassuring when I’m here trying to convince myself of the rightness of my cause. “We’re not killing it,” she told him. “It would be wrong. We have used it, and it has served us, despite its nature. And that’s an end to it.”

Harathes scowled at her. “There’ll be no better time, no other time than this,” he warned.

“No doubt.” She forced herself to push past him, stepping out under a dawn-colored sky.