“Do you believe me?” she asked, even quieter this time.

The same whispers of affirmation cut across the vastness of the cavern.

She had them. Simply allowing the pilgrims to see the ruins of the Maze would’ve been enough to buy their eternal loyalty, to take her every word as scripture, her every command as law. They would do anything she asked, without exception. And one day, although they didn’t know it, she was committed to rewarding them with the closest thing to life eternal that mere mortals would ever know again.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

She almost jerked her body, almost gasped. Almost. But she didn’t.

It was Nicholas, First of the Three, Second to None. Or, as she liked to think of him, the Ugliest and Dumbest of Them All. She wondered if he knew that he had less than three days to live?

He had surprised her—but that didn’t mean she wasn’t prepared. She was always prepared.

She turned her body in the chair, saw him standing on the other side of the dark chasm of the Box. “Thank you for joining us,” she said.

“Joining you?” he barked. “What . . . Who are these people? What’s going on?” He could only show so much anger, only reveal so much truth with actual pilgrims in his presence. She knew that deep down he was already planning a brutal confrontation once they were both in private.

“You’ve made your decisions,” she said calmly, counting through the digits in her mind even as she spoke. “You’ve made your exceptions to the things we’ve preached for decades. I accept those, as I ask you to accept mine. Do you agree?”

She hoped the odd, slightly awkward line of questioning would throw him off. She could see the effort he made to maintain his composure, relying on the Flaring discipline as much as she.

“Just . . . explain,” he said.

She was happy to. “I’ve decided to bring several pilgrims under my direct control, to show them things that no one else can see. They’ll be able to testify, to preach, to quell the rising curiosity of the other followers in the city. Since you opened the Box, I need to have them, to help me move in the direction you’re planning for.”

There it is, she thought. If he didn’t deny it, openly, right now, the pilgrims would know for certain that Nicholas had been responsible. He’d given her a bonus. His annoyance might as well have been written on his face with charcoal.