The woman’s entire body loosened, and her shoulders dropped.

“She’s all right?” Stasia asked, as if unable to believe it.

“She is. Put her out of mind, my daughter. We have greater concerns.”

Stasia at last released her grip upon her axes. Cyrus breathed a sigh of relief. He feared the woman would storm out into the night, never to be seen again. Worse, he knew he would have gone with her, even if it had been a suicide mission.

“Clarissa may be safe, but there’re still the others,” Cyrus said, forcing the guilt deep down. He could not dwell on it now. “Such a brutal stroke against us cannot go unanswered. What do we do?”

“We must be patient,” Thorda said. “This is not the first time the empire has raided a gathering of our supporters, one of whom likely leaked word of our meeting in the first place. Now is a most precarious time for our resistance. The Imperator is hoping to anger us, to make us panic, and in that panicked anger, commit a mistake. Deny his desire. We listen, we plan, and only when we are fully ready, do we act. Is that clear?”

Magus hovered in Cyrus’s vision, haunting him with his smug, insufferable grin.

“Perfectly clear,” Cyrus said, each word a bitter drop upon his tongue. “So what, then, is our plan in the interim?”

“For now?” Thorda gestured to his surroundings. “We move to my fallback manse. I hold faith in the resolve of our fellow conspirators, but in case one talks, we must be long gone.”

CHAPTER 40

MAGUS

Magus had spent the past several hours going from cell to cell of the castle prison, inflicting misery and punishment with his fists on those he questioned. There were better instruments, for sure, but none were as satisfying as the feel of flesh crumpling beneath his bare hands. The only problem was, the information given was worth less than the blood he beat out of them. A stubborn lot, the whole bunch, including the old man currently before him. His clothes were a garish mixture of blues and yellows, and when they’d taken him in, he’d worn a red-and-green cloth mask, the two colors sewn into a checkerboard pattern.

“The others tell me you are known as the Coin,” Magus said. The man’s hands were shackled behind him to the stone wall, and he had to lean and arch his back awkwardly to meet the Imperator’s gaze. He appeared in his late fifties, his face handsome, and no doubt he’d won many a people over with his smile. Magus had bloodied that smile until teeth were missing from it.

“Aye, that’s me,” the man said. “The infamous Coin funding the rebellion.”

Magus dropped to one knee so they might be closer. He pressed his finger against the man’s temple and pushed until his head thudded against the stone.