“But it would only have been a matter of time,” Marcello insisted. “You couldn’t have gone your whole life without needing to defend yourself. Once your secret got out, countless people would seek to use you, or to murder you. You already had to kill Orthys’s men. It would have gotten worse and worse, until you became like a fiery angel of death, bereft of humanity.”

Zaira gave him a sharp-edged grin. “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

But Scoundrel whined and licked her hand. I didn’t need his cue to see the pain buried in her eyes.

Marcello let that pass. “It’s not fair, of course. And I wish we had a better way. But please do understand that no matter how it seems, we are trying to protect you.”

Emotions passed over Zaira’s face, a series of doors opened and shut into anger, grief, pain, and finally a deep and abiding cynicism. “Oh, certainly, all you want is for me to be safe,” she said. “Safe, and willing to burn down any poor bastards who don’t toe the imperial line.”

Marcello grimaced. “That’s not what I want.”

“That’s because you’re the sort of credible fool I’d rob blind six times on a Sunday.” Zaira rose. Scoundrel danced his eagerness to follow, staring at her with adoration. “You keep on lying to yourself, Lieutenant Jailer. Go ahead and believe the Empire snatches up all the mage-marked for our own good, and not for our power.” She shook her head. “Your table is boring and depressing. I’m going back to Terika.”

She crossed to the other young Falcons across the hall.

When Zaira was out of earshot, I captured Marcello’s gaze and dropped my voice. “She’s right, you know.”

“That I’m a fool?”

“That you might have to send them to war.” I thought of those green stones on the Council’s map, and the Shadow Gentry plotting a “response” to the false Falconer incident. “I don’t like the idea that we brought Zaira back to the Mews just to force her to kill people, Marcello. But it could happen anytime.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “Some of them, like Jerith and Balos, I could send into battle with a clear conscience. They’re soldiers. But others, well, I’ve had nightmares.” He pressed his lips together.

A young man in a Falconer uniform hurried across the hall toward us, his footsteps scattering echoes around him. He reached our table and saluted, clutching a paper to his chest.

“Lieutenant Verdi. I have the full report from the garrison at Ardence.”

Ardence. My heart quickened.

Marcello rose. “Tell me.”