“Not much need to refresh our memories as to your crimes, is there?” she asked. “You’ve been up to your eyes in the Great Change, right back to Valbeck. You were at Judge’s side in the Court of the People. You herded dozens off the Tower of Chains.”

“I did,” said Sarlby. There was a sloppy sucking to his “d” sounds. The broken jaw, maybe. “And I’d do it again.”

Vick pressed gently at the aching bridge of her nose. She was past disgust. Far past outrage. It just made her tired, now.

“Where’s the Weaver?” she asked, without much hope of an answer. “Where’s Pike?”

“I don’t know,” he growled. “But if I did, you think I’d tell you?”

She glanced, heavy-lidded, at the box of instruments. “We could try it and see.”

“You’re a traitor. To your kind. To yourself.” He worked his tongue around his broken teeth and spat on the table. “You’re a liar and a thief and a traitor to everything.”

Vick shrugged. “And?”

“And you’ll never beat us! We’ll be back! More of us than ever! More’n you can count!”

It wasn’t the least bit funny, but Vick couldn’t help herself, she snorted out a chuckle, then had to wince at the flash of pain across her face. “Folk can’t wait to be rid of you. Breakers and Burners, they’re cheering the end of you. You said you’d strike a blow for the common man. All you did was starve them, freeze them and kill them.”

She sat forwards with a grunt. Damn, she was aching. “Truth is—and take it from someone who spent a dozen years in prison—in the end, people don’t really care much about being free. They want to be warm and well fed and to not have to worry. In particular, they want to not have to worry about being thrown off a tower for wearing the wrong shoes.”

Sarlby frowned down at the table. She thought it was a frown, anyway. Hard to tell exactly where the corners of his mouth were. “We were in the right,” he muttered, though it sounded like he was trying to convince himself, rather than her. “You’ll see.”

“I doubt I will. But I know you won’t.” Vick pressed a thumb into her stiff hip as she worked her way up from the table. “They’re hanging you tomorrow.”

Tallow was waiting outside in the damp-smelling corridor, a book clutched in his hands and his big, sad eyes on her, as if he still hoped, even now, that she might somehow have the answers. Damn, he was more like her brother than ever. That made her tired, too.

“Another one for the list?” he asked, falling in beside her, their footsteps echoing dully from the damp walls.

She gave a grunt, eyeing the doors as they passed.

Tallow shook his head as he made a little mark in his book. “Feels like the Lord Regent’s lists are even longer than Judge’s were. At least they’re being dealt with quietly. Not splattered across the moat.”