Triste opened her mouth, but no words came out. After a mute moment, she shoved her way past Annick, out into the hallway, back the way they had come.

“Watch out for the stairs,” Pyrre called after her cheerfully.

Triste returned sooner than Kaden expected, tears dry, one hand hugging herself around the waist, the other holding a sword. Kaden remembered impressive weapons from his childhood—jewel-crusted ceremonial swords; the long, wide blades of the Aedolians; businesslike sabers carried by the palace guard—but nothing like this. This sword was made from steel so clear it might not have been steel at all but some sliver of winter sky hammered into a perfect shallow arc, then polished to a silent gloss. It was right.

“What,” Valyn asked, turning from the darkness beyond the window as Triste’s too-large boots scuffed the stone, “is that?”

“Sweet ’Shael, Val,” Laith said. He and Talal had returned to the front chamber after checking the whole floor. “I think you’re a good Wing leader and all, but it worries me when you don’t recognize a sword.”

Valyn ignored the flier. “Where did you find it?” he asked, crossing to Triste.

She waved a vague hand toward the hallway. “In one of the rooms. It was covered up with rubble, but I saw the glint off it. It looks new. Is it one of ours?”

Valyn shook his head grimly.

“So we’re not the only ones flying around the ass end of nowhere,” Laith observed. The words were casual, but Kaden noticed that the flier drifted away from the open doorway, eyes flitting to the shadows in the corners.

Valyn put a hand in front of Kaden, drawing him away from the sword, as though even unwielded the weapon could cut, could kill.

“Annick,” he said, “back on the window. Gwenna and Talal, when we’re finished here, I want another sweep of this floor.”

“They just swept the floor,” the demolitions master observed.

“Sweep it again,” Valyn said, “eyes out for rigged falls and double binds.”

“What about bad men hiding in the corners?” Laith asked.

Valyn ignored him.

None of it meant anything to Kaden, and after a moment he turned back to the sword. “Does that style of blade look familiar?” He asked. There might be a clue in the provenance of the sword, but he didn’t know enough about weapons to say.

“I’ve seen things similar,” Valyn replied, frowning. “Some of the Manjari use a single-sided blade.”

“It’s not Manjari,” Pyrre said. She hadn’t moved, but she had stopped sharpening.

“Maybe something from somewhere in Menkiddoc?” Talal suggested. “We know practically nothing about the entire continent.”

“We’re in the Bone Mountains,” Valyn pointed out. “Menkiddoc is thousands of miles to the south.”

“It’s not from Menkiddoc,” Pyrre added.

“Anthera is close,” Kaden pointed out.

“Antherans like broadblades,” Valyn replied, shaking his head curtly. “And clubs, for some inexplicable reason.”