“You hold your secret meetings,” Kaden continued, “you plot and scheme and gripe, and you think yourselves safe behind your hoods and your money. You are not. Adiv, Adare, and il Tornja tolerate you only because they have more dangerous foes.”

“They don’t tolerate us,” Azurtazine said, shaking her head. “They don’t have any idea that we hate the empire. They don’t even know who we are.” She glanced at the doorway across the square. More soldiers were forcing their way forward into the darkness.

“And you thought they wouldn’t find out?” Kaden asked, raising his eyebrows. “I’ve been in the city less than a week. I have no money, no connections, no men. I knew none of you before I arrived, and it took me a matter of days to learn your names, to expose you. If you think my sister and the kenarang, backed by the full might of Annur, wouldn’t see you hanging for the ravens within a month, you are greater fools than I took you for.”

An angry current passed through the room. It had been centuries since the families of the assembled aristocrats had wielded any real power, but the years had done nothing to blunt their pride. Kaden might have Intarra’s eyes, but he lacked the throne, and, aside from Triste and Gabril, he was years younger than the next youngest person in the room. None of them, Bascan or Breatan, pale or dark, man or woman, appreciated being called a fool. On the other hand, the violence below was proving effective theater.

Even as Kaden turned, the shutters barring one of the second-story windows burst open and a man in monk’s robes, sword clutched in one hand, face streaming with blood, fell roaring through the gap, landing with a sickening crunch on the stone below. Adiv’s soldiers fell on him almost immediately, swords rising and falling in a savage butchery that left little but blood and bone smeared across the cobbles.

“By now,” Kaden said, gesturing, “the soldiers are probably realizing that the men inside the chapterhouse are not you, that they were tricked. The realization is likely to fan the councillor’s fury. He tried to take you all in one group, to cut the head from the conspiracy all at once. That failed, he will come to your inns and palaces, he will hunt you through the streets of Annur. If you slip the city walls, he will chase you back to your homes and see you burned or hanged.”

“What is this?” Tevis demanded, face contorted with fury and confusion. “Your petulant revenge because we would not sign your paper?”

“On the contrary,” Kaden replied. “It is a final chance. You would not play your stones, and so I have played them for you.”