“Not much. I didn’t want you or Gurice or Mojag hurt. She doesn’t know the location of your headquarters or about Tamburah’s second vault. In fact, she stopped assigning deacons to watch our old headquarters. Actually, the priestess doesn’t care if you’re hiding out in the desert playing at a rebellion. We both figured the new organization would eventually stall and break up.” He growled in frustration. “How in the seven hells did you get twenty more people?”

“We’re asking the questions,” Shyla said coldly. “What did you tell her?”

“I recognized the significance of the torque around her neck. She’d no idea. It’s an heirloom handed down—or taken—from one priestess or priest to the next. Must have been a gift from the Invisible Sword founders. Despite the rumors, the torques weren’t lost. They were entrusted to and passed down to the leaders of the Invisible Sword. I found them in my father’s things after he died. I hid them, but told the priestess where to find them to protect her pet Arch Deacons.” His shoulders drooped. “I wouldn’t have told her, except she needed a show of good faith from me before we did the exchange.”

“And you were going to let her own The Eyes?” Ximen asked in shock. “So the prince is dead. So what? We’d still have to deal with the Heliacal Priestess who’d have the power of The Eyes at her disposal.”

“She never would have woken them,” Jayden said. He scowled at Shyla. “Nor would I have told her how.”

“Why tell her about the deacons having magical potential? How did she open them up?” Shyla asked.

“Again, so she can defeat the prince. And she didn’t open them…I did.”

Jayden must have been spying on her and Gurice when she’d worked with Mojag. That meant— “I thought it was from the power of The Eyes.”

“Despite what you think, you’re not that special. All you need is just regular old magic and someone to teach them.”

Ximen shook his head. “So the priestess kills the prince and takes over control of the city. How does that help you?”

Jayden looked at Mojag, and the emotion associated with that gaze touched Shyla’s heart. For the first time since all this started, she didn’t hate Jayden.

“He did it for the vagrants,” she said. “The priestess must have promised him that she would leave the communes alone.” He was the Vagrant Prince after all.

“Is she right?” Mojag asked. He’d been quiet up to this point.

“Yes. The priestess will also release our people from the black cells. And no more deaths in the prince’s special rooms.”

“But you forgot about the deacons torturing people to confess their sins,” Shyla said. “Or did you negotiate with her to stop that as well?”