“All right,” Kaden said slowly, “I understand. How is Triste? What are they doing to her?”

Tan considered the question, gaze weighing, measuring. “They do not understand what she is.” Another pause. “Neither do I.”

“What do you mean?”

“What we’ve observed is inconsistent. We need more information.”

Kaden frowned. “And that’s why you’re here,” he said after a moment. “That’s why you’ve come to me. Why they sent you to me.”

Tan nodded. “Triste knows you. She appears to trust you. The Ishien believe, as I do, that she might reveal something to you.”

“Has she said anything about my father? About Annur or the plot against my family?”

“No. As I said, we need more information.”

Kaden stared. “The Ishien have kept me penned in here for what . . . weeks? A month? And now they want help?”

“Yes.”

“Why would I help them? Why would I conspire with my jailers against Triste, who has done nothing but help me from the first night we met?”

“You will help,” Tan said, voice blunt as an ax, “because if you do not, you may never leave this cave.”

Kaden took a deep breath. Two. The monk had only said what Kaden himself had been thinking since the day he stepped through the kenta. And yet, hearing someone else speak the words made them real.

“The girl is not what you think,” Tan continued, “and even if she were, you cannot afford loyalty. Not here. Not among these men. You help no one, Triste included, if you die in an Ishien cell.”

Beneath his ribs, Kaden’s heart bucked. He haltered it, soothed the animal part of him that wanted to kick, to bite, to flee, then nodded.

“Where do we go?”

“To the cells.”

The cells. Which meant he’d be leaving this section of the Heart, that he’d be seeing new territory. It wasn’t much, but it was more than he had now. Greater knowledge of the prison’s layout might suggest the location of the exits, and it looked more and more likely that a time might come when he needed one of those exits.

“All right,” he said quietly, “I’ll go.”

Tan held up a hand. “There is more.”

Kaden shook his head. “More?”

“The Ishien are bringing up another prisoner at the same time. They want to surprise the girl, to overwhelm her, to shock her into revealing something.”

“What prisoner?” Kaden asked, confused. “Why would Triste reveal anything to some poor soul the Ishien have locked up in their dungeons?”

“Because he is Csestriim,” Tan said after a long pause. “And he is dangerous.”

Kaden stilled his pulse, controlled his face. “They have a Csestriim. Is there anything else I should know?”

Tan nodded slowly. “The current leader of the Ishien is a man named Matol. Be careful of him. In his own way, he is as dangerous as the prisoner.”