Matol glanced at Tan. “Anything?”

Tan paused, then shook his head. “Only more of what we have already seen.”

“What about you?” the Ishien commander asked, turning to Kaden. “What do you make of that luscious burst of defiance?”

Kaden took a deep breath, looked inward at the saama’an of the preceding moments, trying to make sense of what he had just witnessed. That shift in Triste’s tone, the sudden strangeness in her eyes, the careening between poise and panic . . . He’d seen something like it back in Ashk’lan, in goats with brain rot. A creature in the advanced stages would stand placidly for hours, empty, angular pupils fixed on the horizon, unresponsive to gentle stroke or vicious strike, to food or speech. Then, with no provocation at all, with no warning, that strange, animal gaze would focus abruptly and the goat would attack anything that moved, charging, thrashing with its hooves, hooking the horns over and over. The diseased creatures had always discomfited Kaden, something about their lack of consistency, of continuity. He had felt the same queasiness in his stomach during Triste’s transformation, but he couldn’t say that to Matol, not if he ever hoped to convince the man to set Triste free.

“I think she’s exhausted,” he said finally, keeping his voice level, matter-of-fact. “I think she’s terrified. You want to see a Csestriim, and so that’s what you find. All I see is a frightened young woman who has done nothing to deserve this. I see you breaking a friend of mine.”

It was several leagues wide of the truth, but the Ishien commander didn’t seem to notice. He just spat onto the stone floor.

“What in ’Shael’s name have the Shin been teaching you?”

“To observe,” Kaden replied.

“Obviously not.”

He turned abruptly from Kaden, gestured to the guards to pull Kiel back into the shadows, then focused once more on Triste.

“Too bad for you,” he said, addressing the woman. “I thought we’d try something new, but it looks like we’re back to doing things the old-fashioned way.”

He waved a hand, and another guard, one who had been standing in the shadows, stepped forward. Smirking, he handed over a wooden box. It clanked ominously when Matol set it on the rough table next to the slab. He flipped the lid, and paused for a moment, looking from Triste to the tools and back again.

“Do you have any requests?” he asked, arching an eyebrow. “I’ll tell you what—you can pick the body part, and I’ll pick the tool.”

Triste shook her head weakly in protest. “No,” she pleaded. “Please, no.”

“No?” He pursed his lips. “You want to pick the tool and I pick the body part? We can do it that way if you want, but I don’t recommend it. Better for you to pick the body part.”