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“He is.”

“But monsoon season is coming now.” Kisser cocked her head to one side as if she could smell the approaching rains. “How can you promise this?”

“No details.” Ripka allowed herself a small smile at Kisser’s scowl over hearing her words thrown back at her. “Just be ready to flee at any moment, to jump when I say so and ask no questions. And–” she swallowed, knowing she took a risk pushing her luck, “–be prepared to leave this nonsense behind.” She jerked her chin to the clearsky distillation system.

Nouli wrung his hands in the towel slung over his shoulder, gaze darting between his work and the metal mesh over his window – that sliver of freedom. “You will have work for me in Hond Steading? I will not be left idle?”

“Better work, more suited to your talents. Not this twisted dabbling.”

“My mind…” he protested.

“You will be allowed to continue pursuit of a cure, and to make what you need to keep yourself lucid in the meantime. But only for yourself.”

“That is acceptable,” he said, nodding slowly.

“Uncle, please, we cannot trust her.”

“Hush, girl. You require only that I be prepared to flee when the time comes? There is no other task of me? Nothing that could compromise my position here if your promises turn out to be little more than hot air masquerading as selium?”

“There is one thing. Warden Baset has set me the task of sussing out the source of clearsky here on the island, and I am certain I’m not the only one. If you were to be thrown into tighter security – or executed – before rescue arrives, then that would throw a spanner in things, wouldn’t it? Can you cease production for a while? Claim illness, or the requirement of deeper research to your masters?”

“Hmm.” He dragged his fingers through the tangled whiskers of his scraggly grey beard. “I could, for a short time, but there is the trouble of my supplies.”

“Supplies?”

“Guards loyal to the empress slip in the raw ingredients I need for my experiments and collect my letters to the empress. One such transaction is scheduled to occur tomorrow evening.”

Ripka rubbed her temples with her thumbs. “Why this shielding from Baset? Why does the empress not want him in on your doings? Surely wider distribution through the warden himself would allow you greater success in your… research.”

“Indeed. But she is not entirely satisfied with Baset’s loyalty. She fears that booze-bloated old man is taking bribes from powers growing within the Scorched. Paranoid, no doubt. The empress is forever seeing daggers in her shadow. But, nevertheless, we have been sworn to keep our activities secret from the warden, lest he sell off my research to another bidder.”

“Very well,” Ripka said as she rose to her feet. She ached all over, but held her head high, her back straight. She needed her body language, her tone and her words, to all work together. To convince these two that she was in charge. That she alone knew the right path to take.

It was just too pits-cursed bad she hadn’t a clue what the best course of action was.

“If I may make a suggestion,” Enard said as he rose alongside her. She inclined her head to him. “If the supply exchange must be made tomorrow, then allow us to make it. We will claim the Lady Kanaea has taken ill, and Master Bern is too busy tending to her to make the meeting himself. Surely with some parchment from you confirming the fact – they know your handwriting, yes? – there will not be too much trouble.”

Nouli snorted. “And what would a couple of petty thieves know about making clandestine exchanges, hmm?”

Kisser actually laughed – a sharp, abrupt sound, as if she were trying to keep it back and choked on it instead. “Tall, dark, and useful here has the background to handle it. Valet for the Glasseaters, were you?”

He bowed a touch from the waist. “Something like that, lady.”

“You’d never know by looking at him,” Nouli said.

Ripka gave Enard the side-eye. “I believe that’s the point.”

“Indeed,” Enard said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, the only sign he’d had yet to show of being uncomfortable in talk of his long ago past.

“I’ll give you this chance, Miss Leshe.” Nouli flicked a wrist at them in dismissal. “If you botch even the smallest detail, you will have no agreement from me, understand? I cannot put my freedom, nor my neck, in the hands of an incompetent.”

“I understand, Master Bern.”

“Excellent. Allow Kanaea to see you back to your cells, she will debrief you on what is required along the way. I will have a letter sent to you by the midday meal – beg off sick for the morning shift, if you can.”

Ripka thought of Kisser pretending stomach pangs the first time she’d shared a meal with the rest of the women and suppressed a smile. So that had been a meeting day, too. How often were they, truly? That had only been two days ago.

“Anything else?” Kisser asked, brows raised as she peeled herself off the wall and angled toward the door.

“Just one thing,” Ripka mused, trailing her toward the exit. “Could you please inform Misol that there’s no need to keep spying on me? I find her rather unsettling.”

Kisser blinked at her. “Who?”

“Misol… The guard who minds the yellowhouse.”

Kisser rolled a shoulder and swung open the door. “Never been there. Don’t know what her trouble is. Come along now, we already strained our time frame and our guard escort is going to have his knackers wound right up his rear.”

Ripka trailed Kisser out, scarcely listening to what the woman said as she briefed Enard on the arrangements for the exchange.

The yellowhouse had nothing to do with Nouli. With the clearsky.

So then, who was Misol? And what in the sweet skies were they doing out there?

Chapter Twenty-Five

Detan grabbed Pelkaia’s arm, saw Tibs do likewise for Coss, and ran like the fiery pits were opening up beneath him. He watched in fascinated horror as the realization of what Pelkaia was washed over the gathered watchers, watched the initial tinges of revulsion fade away to shock and anger.

It was easy to hate a thing once you’d learned to fear it.

“Make way!” Detan screamed, because he figured that was at least worth a shot. Watchers spent their lives listening for an authoritative bellow and, sure enough, a few stepped clear of his path on instinct, bafflement overriding fear, anger, and duty. He could have laughed – if it wouldn’t have meant making himself vulnerable to do so.

Pelkaia wrested from his grip and slipped sideways, skimming past the reaching arms of a nearby watcher. Shock passed. They closed in upon the fleeing five, a wall of blue cutting off Detan’s view of the dock – and the Larkspur – beyond.

“Hullo,” Detan said, waving his fingertips with overwrought glee at the watcher who stood before him. He took a nervous step backward and his back thumped into Pelkaia. They’d been corralled into a sour little knot in the center of the room. Closer to the exit than they’d been when they’d started, sure, but as far as Detan was concerned that dock was as close to him as the Valathean isles were.

“Now, now,” he spoke as if coaxing a startled child, patting the air before him with his hands, and let himself babble to give himself time to think. “I’m sure we can talk this through. There’s no need to send a perfectly good sel-sensitive to their death, now is there? She’ll be no menace to society all locked away on the Remnant, as a proper prisoner of the Fleet.”