Bitterlich tugged his cuffs. “Not me alone. My marines have been talking to them for days. It’s easier and safer to run a prison when you treat your prisoners like people. Also, Malgiers has several collections of Skaladin tales. Conquest and defeat are a common theme. I directed my inquiries with that in mind.”

“Similce doesn’t seem enthused with the idea of being on our side,” Isabelle pointed out.

“I imagine she doesn’t like being displaced.”

“I’m not displacing her,” Isabelle protested.

“Yes, you are,” Bitterlich said firmly. “Even if only for a few days. Part of winning is taking charge of the consequences of victory. You’ve always imagined that you can rise to the top without hurting anyone, without pushing aside the people already there. That’s how you reconcile your ambition with your compassion. Similce doesn’t like losing her position, but she’ll feel even more betrayed if you treat it like it wasn’t worth having in the first place.”

Isabelle shook her head under the cowl, as if trying to dislodge this idea. “So I’m just like everyone else. I win the fight. I take over until someone knocks me down, and nothing changes.”

“Every leader changes the rules of the game at least a little. Most ambitious people seek to consolidate power and protect themselves. You serve justice.”

“Mercy,” Isabelle said. “I serve mercy, and compassion, and reason. What society calls justice serves none of those things. It’s just revenge by committee.”

“You are merciful,” he said. “More so than anyone I know.”

She huffed a laugh. “I suppose I want to give people the gift my family never gave me.”

“Speaking of your family”—Bitterlich tapped the side of her head—“how are they adjusting to their new head of household?”

“Primus is a problem,” she said. “The rest of them are like ghosts, obsessed with some narrow fragment of their lives, but all of them took pieces of Primus, so there’s more of him, spread around through all of them. He’s not really alive, but he’s more self-aware than the rest of them. During the escape, when the grapnels came over the rails, he took my hand”—she extended her taloned hand from her capacious sleeve—“and it was like my hand was his glove. He reached through me and slashed the chain like butter, something I never would have thought of doing on my own. If he can do that, what else might he make me do?”

The idea of Isabelle possessed by a malevolent memory unsettled Bitterlich to his core. “Can you block him?”