His own Wing was good enough to squeeze out of a tight place, but then, this wasn’t your garden-variety, all-fucked-up, odds-stacked-against-the-good-guys tight place. Up on that roof, no more than a dozen paces away, was the best small-team tactical commander in the world, the man who literally wrote the book on inverted rose-and-thorn scenarios, who, in his early twenties, avenged the deaths of two older Kettral Wings by assasinating Casimir Damek, who went down into Hull’s Hole every year to haul out slarn for the Trial. After Hendran himself, there was no more revered Kettral commander, and now he had the high ground and the drop on them.

So you’d best think quick, Valyn growled silently, and skip the fuckups.

“Look,” the Flea continued after a moment, “I understand that you can’t talk because you don’t want to give away your position. You’re doing everything right. Better than right, actually. I have no idea how you managed to move before we threw the smokers. You’re young, but you’re smart, and I’ll stop insulting you with stuff from the old Kettral bag of tricks and traps. We trained you not to talk, so don’t talk. Just listen.

“No one’s run screaming out the window, and aside from the girl, who stopped hacking up her own lung about a minute ago, everyone’s quiet, which means you’re belly-down, sucking up the good air.” He paused. “Speaking of that girl, you might want to move her toward a window.”

Valyn glanced over at Triste’s limp form. In the chaos he hadn’t noticed her slump to the ground. Her face was ashen, her hands curled into claws, and for the second time Valyn started to move toward her. For the second time, he stopped himself. Fainting had dropped her out of the smoke. She was breathing clean air now. There was no need to move her anywhere.

“Suit yourself,” the Flea continued after a moment, and Valyn realized that the man hadn’t dropped the tricks at all. They’d spent three whole months on this back on the Islands, learning to exploit civilian casualties, to use an adversary’s own feelings of guilt or heroism against him. He could hear Nhean Pitch’s voice twanging in his ear: If you’re going to shoot some bastard, shoot him in the stomach. Stomach wounds hurt and they kill slow. Odds are, you’ll get one of the other bastards to look after him, and that’s one less bastard you’ve got to fight. The Flea was testing him, Valyn realized, probing, systematically searching for a weakness. The trouble was, there were too many civilians to protect.

Valyn scanned the floor again, then turned to Kaden.

“Can you get out through that gate?” he hissed. “You and the monk?”

Kaden hesitated, then nodded.

“And they can’t follow you, right?”

“No.”