Kiel stepped forward from the back of the room, passing him the rolled constitution. Kaden took it, unfurled it, glanced over the words. Outside, the shouting and the screams had stopped. Silence filled the square, pressing against the windows like a storm.

“Individually, you are nothing. If you fight, you will die. If you run, you will die. Even if you escape the city, flee to your homes, and manage to raise a rebellion, my sister and her kenarang will march the legions and put it down.” He paused, letting the fact sink in. “They cannot, however, put down a coordinated push from all of you at once. This”—he gestured to the page—“is both your sword and your shield.”

For a moment no one moved, each trying to gauge the reactions of the others. Then Tevis surged to his feet.

“No!” he swore, reaching for his rapier, shoving his way past the table, cursing at Kegellen when his cloak caught on the arm of her chair. “You scheming Malkeenian fuck, I’ll see you dead, I’ll see you flayed before I so much as—”

The words fell off abruptly. Tevis’s brow furrowed, and he looked down. One of the peacock feathers from Kegellen’s hairpiece stuck incongruously from the hairy curls on his arm. The woman yawned as she drove the shaft of the feather deeper.

Tevis raised a hand, then, face baffled and rapidly turning blue, let it fall. He stared at Kaden, tongue lolling from his mouth, then down at Kegellen. When he finally fell, his face smashed into the table, tearing a gash across his purpled forehead. He thrashed twice on the wooden floor, then fell still.

Kegellen raised her eyebrows, nudged the corpse with a slippered foot, looked at Kaden, then over the small group.

“A man’s entitled to his own opinions,” she said with a shrug, “but not when they look likely to get me killed.”

She returned her attention to Kaden. “Now, who were the poor souls inside the chapterhouse that those soldiers just slaughtered?”

“Not poor souls,” Kaden replied. “A group known as the Ishien. A private foe of my own—one that betrayed me and people I held dear.”

Kegellen flicked open her fan, watching him awhile above the delicate whir of the paper, then nodded.

“I, for one, am feeling a republican spirit stirring in my fat, jolly heart.”