“I’ll tell them it takes months of training to safely use the gates. If we’re all still alive then, we can worry about what comes next.”

Kiel nodded. “It could work,” he said, then paused, studying Kaden. “There’s something you’re not saying.”

Kaden smoothed away the barbs of fear, forced himself to meet the Csestriim’s gaze.

“There is,” he agreed, then turned to Triste.

“I need you to take a note to the chapterhouse, to a monk named Iaapa.”

“No!” Morjeta exploded, face aghast. “If it’s watched, they’ll take her! Absolutely not!”

“They’ll watch her, but they won’t take her,” Kaden said. “Not until she’s led them to me.”

“They will!” the leina cried, gathering her daughter up in her arms. “You already explained to me what these men are like. They will torture her to find out where you are!”

Kaden shook his head. “They tried that already, at great length and with little success.”

Triste shuddered at the memory, and her mother clutched her tighter.

“Why take the risk?” Kiel asked. “Why not send Gabril? The Ishien don’t know him. They won’t pay any attention to him at all.”

Kaden hesitated, trying to decide how much to reveal. “I want them to notice,” he said finally.

The girl disentangled herself from her mother slowly, then turned toward Kaden. “Why?” she asked, voice trembling with the single syllable.

“They’ll follow you back here,” he said, “but they won’t be able to come inside the walls. At that point, they’ll go back to the chapterhouse. They’ll demand that Iaapa hand over the note that you’d been so conspicuously carrying.”

“Why would a Shin abbot cooperate with these Ishien?” Gabril asked.

“Because Triste’s going to ask him to. She’s going to tell him that I asked it.”

“And what,” Kiel asked slowly, “does this mysterious note say?”

Kaden shrugged. “That I’m giving up. That I tried to take back my throne and failed. That I’m going back to Ashk’lan with another worshipper of the Blank God to restart the monastery there. That if any of his monks would like to join us, we would welcome them.”

For several heartbeats no one spoke. Then Gabril started laughing. It was a warm, rich sound, and when Morjeta and Triste turned to him in confusion, he pointed across the table at Kaden.

“He may know nothing of knives, but his mind is keen as a blade.”

“You think that when they read this note,” Morjeta said finally, “that these Ishien will try to follow you back to your monastery?”

“For the chance to capture both Kiel and me?” Kaden asked. “I think they’d follow me all the way to Li.”

“Only you are not going to Li,” Kiel said. “Or to Ashk’lan.”

Kaden shook his head, then turned to Triste. “There is a risk for you in delivering the message.”