“King True?” Fenn asked quietly.

“Wilmer abdicated,” the man answered.

Tedrey sat still and watchful, and he did not hide he was the latter.

Considering this news, appearing watchful would not cause anyone concern as to why he was openly very much just so.

“This is unexpected,” Fenn murmured.

“That’s the least of what was unexpected, Fenn. For the birds take days to arrive and thus it is without a doubt that by now, our agent has not been executed, but drawn, butchered and quartered,” the soldier spat.

“By Vicee,” Fenn breathed. “They have not practiced that in—”

“Centuries,” the man finished for Fenn, and Tedrey tried to recall his name, he just couldn’t.

Too much on his mind.

He had to get better at that. Lorenz (and Faunus) had taught him that things such as names were important.

“The rest will be hung, if they have not been already. And True has offered a reward to anyone who brings forth news of our cause or those who have committed to it.”

“We have expected that and prepared for it,” Fenn dismissed.

“We did not expect and prepare for one of our most loyal soldiers and nineteen of our followers to find a humiliating death in front of the Dellish throngs of Notting Thicket,” the man returned.

Fenn had no reply to this, and Tedrey could understand why.

Honestly, if he was still truly committed to the cause (something he now knew he never really was, he was blindly committed to Fenn), knowing what befell those men would make him reflect long about the depth of that commitment.

Execution in Firenze for traitorous acts was expected.

The same in Wodell?

No.

The barbarity of being drawn and quartered?

Absolutely no.

“I must think on this,” Fenn muttered.

“They have several of our people here in Firenze that they’ve captured, Fenn. Not followers, priests. Our own. And they will walk into the pits. That is, after they’re tortured, which they’re being right now. Make no mistake.”

“They will say nothing under torture.”

The soldier seemed stunned. “That is your only concern? These men will lose their lives. Our brothers will lose their lives. They have five, that I know. They might have more. We’ve lost touch with them—”

“We did because they fled.”

“They fled because we bungled the attack here in Fire City and further failed them by putting G’Seph in charge of them.”

“And then they demonstrated they are weak and that their faith in our mission is unsound,” Fenn returned. “No man who committed to The Rising should have given up so easily.”

“Listen to what you say,” the man hissed. Lacking patience when the conversation began, he was running out now. “If this is true, are you so certain they will not share under torture?”

“They know little.”

“Pieces can be fit together, Fenn,” the priest retorted. “The attack in Fire City failed, and all who participated in it are dead. Some of the priests who masterminded it are in the necropolis, waiting for Mars’s return to be further tortured then executed. The assassination of Mercy succeeded, but the men who performed it will hang. However, they were captured, and they were not priests, so who knows what they will share under interrogation. The Enchantments did not fall and our losses there were grave. However, they took some alive, and no doubt the Nadirii are hard at work doing whatever they can to learn what those men know. And those bitches have magic. Rewards have been offered for information. If a few talk, and that leads to another few, and another, where will we be?”