He indicated the armoire. I glanced down at my uniform. The gilet was covered in pollen: damning evidence of my transgressions. “Right,” I said.

“And keep that wound clean.”

He was gone before I could respond.

I got to my feet and approached the mirror. The laceration was a livid shock against my skin. Did it bother him to see me like this, even after what Jax had done? Did he see my face and think of his own scars—the ones on his back, the ones he kept hidden?

A cloying smell sifted from my hair. The pollen. I locked the bathroom door, kicked off my clothes, and ran a steaming bath. My legs shook. I’d skinned my knee while climbing. I sank into the hot water and washed my hair. Old bruises throbbed under my skin, while new ones formed on top of them. I took a few minutes to soak the warmth into my rigid muscles, then picked up a fresh cake of soap and scrubbed away the sweat and blood and pollen. My sallow, battered frame looked no better for the attention. Only once the water had drained did I start to feel calm.

Should I talk to him about the train? He might try and stop me. He’d brought me back when he could have let me go. On the other hand, I needed to know whether or not the train was guarded, and whereabouts on the meadow I would find the entrance. I didn’t remember anything from the training session—no hatch, no door. It must be hidden.

When I returned to the chamber I found the clean yellow uniform in the armoire. The pollen had been swept off the carpet. I sank onto the daybed. I’d dispatched Kraz Sargas, blood-heir of the Rephaim, with a single shot between the eyes. Until that moment I’d thought they were too strong to kill. It must have been the pollen—the bullet had just finished him off. By the time I’d left the tower, the corpse had been rotting before my eyes. A few grains of pollen had putrefied him.

When the door opened, I started. Warden was back. His face held all the shadows in the room.

He came to sit beside me. He took a swab, dipped it in a jar of amber liquid, and dabbed the blood from my cheek. I looked at him in silence, waiting for his judgment. “Kraz is dead,” he said, betraying no emotion. My cheek gave a hot twinge. “He was heir apparent to the blood-sovereignty. You would be publicly tortured if they found out. They know about the missing supplies, but you were not seen. The day porter has been whitewashed.”

“Does anyone suspect me?”

“Privately, perhaps, but they have no proof. Fortunately you did not use your spirit to kill him, or your identity would be obvious.”