Apparitor’s smug vodka-polished smile was very soon going to anger her. “Forgot about Heingyl Ri, did you?”

“Oh.” Baru had forgotten about her. Fool, Baru, weak stupid fool. Heingyl Ri was the Stag Duke’s daughter. She’d met Baru on her first day in Aurdwynn with her sharp fox eyes, her frightful décolletage, and that one eerily prescient barb: I hope no one will regret your appointment. Least of all you. “She married Bel Latheman, didn’t she?”

“Quite so.” Apparitor winked. “Xate Yawa prepared her very carefully for the Governor’s seat.”

“I have her dismissed.”

“How?”

“I write a letter,” Baru snapped, “saying I’m one of the Emperor’s advisors and I want her to step down.”

“I countermand your letter with my own. I want her to remain Governor.”

“Then I—” She almost giggled. It felt like the childhood game of My Mana Mane, where you tried to convince your friend why your version of the legendary Oriati hero was better, and could absolutely step all over her version of Mana Mane. “I have her husband implicated in that scheme of Vultjag’s. I tell Heingyl Ri she steps down or I have Bel Latheman convicted.”

“Fine.” Apparitor picked up his pawn and nudged hers over. “I murder you.”

“What!” She crossed her arms. “You can’t just murder me.”

“Why not?”

Because—because everything she’d done, everyone she’d sacrificed, would be wasted before she ever got to hurt the Masquerade.

“My patron would destroy you,” she said, which seemed plausible. Farrier had invested so many years of effort into her; and he had that wager with Hesychast about her capabilities. He would not want her dead.

“I knew it,” Apparitor crowed. He got up to straddle Aurdwynn and throw up his hands in victory. “I knew it!”

“Knew what!”

“Farrier! Farrier convinced you to kill your lover.” Apparitor’s fist clenched: his little pawn poked out of it like a red-haired homunculus, smiling at Baru. “You did what he wanted and now you know he’s going to protect you.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to insinuate,” Baru said, indignantly. “Of course he expected me to carry out the Republic’s law. What else?”

“Farrier’s showing off.”

“Showing off what?”

“His control over you. You know, on some level, that you’ll be rewarded when you obey him. That’s why you killed Tain Hu. To earn his indulgence.”

Baru wanted to stab him up through the nostril, into the pulp of his brain. The thought that he might be even the littlest bit right would annihilate her.

He hissed across her plate of dead fledglings and ruined mango. “Tell me what he’s planning! Why did you kill her? Did you do something so horrible that you couldn’t leave any witnesses?”

“Well,” she said, rising to the riposte, leaning into his salt and spirit smell, “I nearly married your brother, for one.”