“First, I’m going to let Pon Dradin die because I’ve been compromised. Roth blackmailed me into betraying Durzo and Kylar. I won’t share how. I’ve been humiliated enough. All that matters is that Roth owns me. I can’t oppose him in any way that he might detect or suspect or it will cost me something I value more than my life. So I’m going to die. I want you to replace me.”

“You want me to take your seat on the Nine?”

She smiled into her ootai. “I was never just the Mistress of Pleasures, Jarl. I’ve been the Shinga for nineteen years.” She had some satisfaction in the way her unflappable protégé’s eyes widened. He sank back in his chair.

“Gods,” he said. “That explains a few things.”

She laughed, and for what felt like the first time in years, she really felt like laughing. If exposing your throat always felt like this, she thought she understood for the first time why Durzo had loved the danger in his work. It made you appreciate being alive, standing this close to death.

“Tell me how it works,” he said.

It was what she would have said in his place. She would have accepted what the Shinga had said about her death and immediately started looking for how it would affect her, rather than expressing any sorrow that the Shinga would be dead. Or perhaps, in Jarl’s place, she would have given some moue of sorrow that her mistress would die, but it would have been a lie. Jarl gave no such pretense, and maybe she could respect him for that. He’d learned her lessons well. But it still hurt.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded like he really meant it. Maybe he did. Or maybe he was just sorry that she was sinking into such softness that at the approach of her death she who had taught him how to manipulate his own pities and loves should want him to do that toward her. She couldn’t tell. Jarl was what she had made him to be. It was worse than looking in a mirror.

“Everyone in the Sa’kagé knows who their boss is. The smarter ones know who their representative on the Nine is. Of course, the Shinga’s identity is an open secret, which means not a secret at all. Put that together, and if you pool a few thieves and whores, you can figure out the entire power structure of the Sa’kagé. That’s been fine for the last fourteen years, because things have been so stable.”

“Was that stability because of your leadership, or just luck?” Jarl asked.