Lenora watched Lyn take her hand away from the doorframe.
There was no point in testing the wards again. The lamps remained unlit, the corridor beyond the sitting room was quiet, and the person responsible had returned to his chair as though the argument had exhausted everyone except him.
Morning light had moved across the table. It reached the corner of Blight Vein, where Lewd had kept one hand since the clerk left. She had not opened the book. Lenora could not tell whether she was afraid of needing it or of what might happen if she did.
“You have told us what you will not do,” Lenora said. “Now tell us what you intend to do when they return.”
Sinister looked up at her. “That depends on what they bring.”
“You agreed to go to Site Black, then stopped them when they tried to sedate you. If the next group accepts your condition, will you leave with them?”
His fingers rested beside the marks the clerk’s case had left in the dust on the table.
“Would that make you more comfortable?”
“I am trying to find out whether you wanted to go there or whether you wanted them to reach for the cuffs.”
Amy stopped near the empty chair opposite him. Lyn turned from the wall. Even Vaeloria, who had remained standing after Mk3’s departure, allowed the question to sit without adding to it.
Sinister’s attention sharpened.
“They were given a choice. You all heard me offer it.”
“That is not what I asked.”
For a moment, Lenora thought he might refuse to answer. He looked toward the door through which the escorts had gone, then back at her.
“They believe there is a correct procedure for making him helpless. I would like them to discover their mistake.”
Lewd lifted her hand from the book.
“And you thought Site Black would be a convenient place to teach them?”
“They seem very proud of it.”
Vaeloria moved closer to the table. “You will not use my capital to arrange a confrontation simply because you believe you can survive it.”
“I did not send the order.”
“You are deciding what to do with it. So am I. The difference is that I have to consider everyone who will be standing nearby.”
The bracelets gave off enough light to show the loose position of his hands. Lenora remembered those same hands held carefully still in front of the escorts. He had looked cooperative until the instant he had made their equipment useless.
She could no longer trust stillness to mean he was considering restraint.
“Where is Derpy in all of this?” she asked. “Does he know what you are planning?”
Sinister’s eyes returned to her face.
“He is resting.”
“You told us that before. I am asking whether he can hear us.”
The question made Lewd draw closer. Her shoulder nearly touched Lenora’s, but neither looked away from him.
“He is quiet,” Sinister said. “For the first time in a while, no one is requiring an answer from him.”
Lewd swallowed. “You have him in the mindscape.”
He inclined his head.
“Can he leave?”
The bracelets warmed against his skin. He glanced down briefly before answering.
“He wanted someone else to carry this.”
“That does not tell me whether he can leave.”
Sinister leaned back. “You keep asking questions as though the agreement will become something else if you dislike enough of the answers.”
Amy pulled out the chair opposite him, but she did not sit.
“We are trying to establish what happened to someone who cannot speak for himself. You are the one making that difficult.”
“He spoke for himself when he asked me for help.”
Lenora felt Lewd shift beside her. She placed a hand lightly against Lewd’s forearm, asking for a moment rather than holding her back.
“Then help us understand what you think you are helping him escape,” Lenora said. “You have promised destruction. You have promised not to hurt us. What falls between those two promises?”
Sinister looked at her hand on Lewd’s arm.
“Everything that keeps calling him a monster.”
Amy’s fingers tightened on the chair back.
Vaeloria spoke before anyone else could answer. “That could mean an office. It could mean a council. It could mean any frightened person who sees him coming. Which of those do you intend to destroy?”
“You know who put that order in front of you.”
“Then name them. Do not leave everyone else inside a threat because a broad answer pleases you.”
The room grew quiet enough for Lenora to hear footsteps crossing the corridor outside. They passed without stopping. Somewhere nearby, palace staff were continuing their work without lights or wards, waiting for someone with authority to tell them why.
Sinister followed the sound with his eyes.
“The people who built a place to put him,” he said. “The people who signed the order. The people who believe giving their fear a seal makes whatever follows acceptable.”
“And their escorts?” Lenora asked. “The next clerk? Everyone who has been told that following an order is the only safe choice?”
“You are very concerned about the safety of people who came to take him.”
“I am concerned about what you will leave for him to live with.”
He looked away first, although Lenora could not tell whether the answer had affected him or merely ended his interest in the question.
Lyn left the wall and joined Vaeloria.
“The clerk will report that his equipment failed and that the queen refused the transfer,” she said. “The War Council can use either fact. If they cannot enforce the order privately, they may try to make the refusal public.”
Vaeloria’s expression tightened. “A decree.”
“Possibly. Collars and null-runes if they still believe stronger equipment will settle it. A public demand if they want your protection of him to become a challenge to your right to rule.”
Amy looked toward the door. “Then anyone defending him becomes part of their justification.”
“And if no one defends him, they take him,” Lewd said.
Lenora watched Sinister while the others considered the problem. He had stopped tracing the marks on the table. His attention had settled completely on Lyn.
He was interested in the escalation.
That frightened her more than his earlier refusal. He understood what the others were saying. He could follow the consequences well enough to recognize where they might lead, and none of it made him reconsider.
Vaeloria noticed too.
“You want them to come here in force.”
“I want them to stop believing force will solve their problem.”
“That is a lesson you intend to teach at everyone else’s expense.”
He met her gaze without embarrassment.
“Derpy has been paying long enough.”
Lewd’s hand slipped out from beneath Lenora’s and returned to the book. This time, she drew it toward herself.
The small scrape of its cover made Sinister look down.
Mk3 reached the others along the palace approach.
She saw Riven first and slowed so abruptly that Mk2 caught her arm. The contact steadied her feet without easing the strain behind her eyes. She had followed the pull out of the sitting room and through the corridors, but now that she stood among the others, she could feel how unevenly it passed through them.
Mk1 held herself rigid. Mk4 kept looking past Riven toward the palace. Mk2’s grip tightened whenever the pressure changed.
Riven turned back.
“You came from inside. Where is he?”
“The sitting room. With the queen, Lenora, Lewd, Amy, and Lyn.” Mk3 tried to draw a slower breath. “He looks like Derpy, but it is the other presence speaking.”
Riven’s eyes moved over her face.
“What happened before the strings changed?”
“The War Office tried to take him. He shut down the wards. They left, but he would not turn them back on.”
Mk4 took a step toward the palace.
Riven lifted a hand. “Wait. We need to know what we are walking into.”
Mk4 stopped, though her body remained angled toward the pull.
Mk3 looked down at her own hands. They were still trembling. She pressed them together, frustrated by how little difference it made.
“He made a deal during containment,” she said. “Derpy did. I heard him asking for help.”
Riven became very still.
“Tell me what you heard.”
“He wanted the people he loved kept safe. He wanted to stop things from getting worse. The other one wanted control.” Mk3 looked up. “I told them in the sitting room. He did not deny it.”
“Can you show me?” Riven asked.
Mk3 hesitated. The pressure inside her made reaching toward any connection feel dangerous. She had already spent too much of the morning moving before she could decide whether she wanted to.
Riven lowered her hand.
“Only what you heard. We start there.”
Mk2 loosened her grip enough for Mk3 to pull away if she wished.
Mk3 closed her eyes and reached for the memory.
A thread surfaced between them, carrying the nights she had witnessed: Derpy’s low voice, the pauses before his answers, the pleading care with which he had tried to place the others beyond whatever he was agreeing to. The memory offered no view inside his mind. It gave them only what Mk3 had been close enough to hear.
That was enough to change Riven’s expression.
She followed the exchange without interrupting. When the memory ended, Mk3 drew the thread back and opened her eyes.
“He was trying to protect them,” she said.
“I heard.” Riven looked toward the palace. “And now he cannot tell anyone whether this is what he wanted.”
Mk1 shifted closer. “Can we reach him?”
“We find out when we are there.”
“The one wearing him will not let us ask politely,” Mk4 said.
“Then he can object when we arrive.”
The pressure tightened again. Mk2’s head turned sharply toward the palace before she caught the movement. Riven saw the effort it took to look back at her.
She stepped close enough that they could all hear without raising her voice.
“You are my sisters. Whatever has changed in that connection, you do not have to let it decide what you do next.”
Mk3 stared at her. “It is already deciding things. I could feel myself following it before I knew where I was going.”
“Then stay close to one another. If someone starts moving without choosing it, the rest of us will notice.”
Mk1 looked from Riven to the palace. “And when we get there?”
Riven considered the question. She had authority, but the memory had shown her a bargain she had not witnessed being made and a surrender she had not been there to prevent. Being first did not make those missing pieces appear.
“We take Derpy back,” she said. “If the string is what holds him, we cut it.”
Mk2’s expression tightened. “Can you do that without cutting him?”
Riven did not answer immediately.
The question deserved more than confidence offered because they needed to hear it.
“I have to see what is holding him,” she said. “I will not cut blindly.”
Mk1’s hands loosened a little. “And if it turns us against you before you can?”
“They made me first. They gave me authority, and I have not forgotten how to use it.” Riven looked at each of them in turn. “I am done watching that authority serve everyone except us.”
Mk4 moved to her side. This time, she looked at Riven before taking the step.
“Then let us get close enough to see.”
Riven turned toward the palace. The others followed, keeping within reach of one another as they left the approach and took a narrower route between the buildings.
They crossed an alley, climbed onto a low roof, and moved above the street. Below them, people were beginning to notice the dead lamps nearer the palace. A worker stood beneath one with an open maintenance panel, looking from its unresponsive markings to the next dark fixture along the wall.
Riven kept moving.
The dormant wards offered no resistance as they closed the distance. That should have made the approach easier. Instead, each silent boundary reminded her that someone ahead had removed protections she had expected to work around.
She did not know whether he had intended to clear their way.
She disliked being unable to rule it out.
Lenora felt the change before Sinister spoke.
It passed through the sitting room as a faint strain in the air, too slight to move the curtains. Lewd lifted her eyes from the book. Near the doorway, Lyn turned as though someone had approached from the corridor, then looked toward the wall instead.
Sinister’s fingers closed around the arm of his chair.
“They are getting closer.”
Vaeloria faced him. “Who is?”
He listened for another moment. The warmth from his bracelets spread across his wrists.
“The sisters. Mk3 found them.”
Lenora looked toward the door. Mk3 had been frightened when she left. Whatever she had felt, it had been strong enough to pull her out of a room where everyone was still trying to decide how to reach Derpy.
Now she was bringing others back.
“Are you calling them?” Lenora asked.
Sinister’s eyes moved to hers.
“They felt the change.”
“That does not answer the question.”
His expression brightened before he could reply. He turned slightly in his chair, following something none of them could see.
“And she is leading them.”
Vaeloria understood first.
“Riven.”
Lewd drew Blight Vein against her side. Relief crossed her face, followed almost immediately by concern as she looked at Sinister.
He seemed pleased.
“You expected her,” she said.
“I wondered how long it would take.”
Amy moved away from the table to clear the space between it and the door. Lyn checked the corridor, then returned to Vaeloria’s side. Their movements were careful, practical, and much too familiar after the visit from the War Office.
Lenora kept her attention on the person in the chair.
“If she comes to help him, you will let her.”
He looked at her with an interest that made her wish she had phrased it differently.
“Let us hear what she considers help.”
Outside, Riven stopped close enough to see the palace windows. The thread no longer gave her only a direction. Each pulse drew her attention toward the same part of the building.
Mk3 came alongside her.
“There,” she said. “That is where I left them.”
Riven studied the distance. Then she reached toward the seam.
Space tightened before her hand, gathering into a thin line. Mk1 and Mk2 moved close behind her. Mk4 watched the palace while Mk3 held her gaze on the place they were about to enter.
The line began to open.
In the sitting room, Sinister rose to meet them.