I WAITED, AND NO one came. Hours turned to days, then days to hours. Nothing happened. I thought for certain to see Inquisitor Gereon again, or his mistress, the nameless Grand Inquisitor. Lord Augustin did not even appear to gloat. Of all the cells I’ve occupied in my life, my chambers were certainly the most comfortable, though never—not in the dungeons of Vorgossos, nor in the clutches of the Cielcin, nor in the bastilles of the Chantry—have I felt time move so slowly. For I had nothing but time, and nothing to do but to wait.

The interruptions to my solitude came when twice a day the door to the lift opened and a legionnaire entered with a tray and deposited my meal, pausing only to clear away the remnants of the previous one. No word passed between us, nor any sign. I was told nothing, learned nothing. I dared not ask.

I hoped Lorian had succeeded, but then if he had, why had I not been freed?

As the Emperor had given me, I had given Lorian an impossible task: storm a Chantry frigate, capture Lieutenant Casdon, escape to the planet below. Boarding the vessel alone was asking the impossible; no institution in the galaxy prided themselves on security more than the Chantry. But to successfully infiltrate the ship, raid the dungeons, and steal a landing shuttle without detection? They’d deserve a triumph of their own if they succeeded. Of all the places in the universe to break into, only the Peronine Palace, Caliburn House on Avalon, and the ruined Earth herself were harder to access than a Chantry starship.

But, if anyone could do it . . .

Somewhere out there, Crim and Ilex and Lorian Aristedes were sneaking their way onto the Chantry vessel, perhaps disguising themselves as common legionnaires, perhaps walking in the void of space from one hull to another, relying on hardsuits to mask their body heat against the cold Dark outside. Somewhere out there, they slid through camera-haunted halls, past locked gates and countless guards, tampered with security stations and altered footage. Somewhere they fought, somewhere—perhaps—they bled and died.

And I was useless in my cage.

Vague images haunted me, like shadows on the walls of my room: Ilex carrying Lorian on her back like a child, Crim standing alone, sword and knives in hand. I saw them flitting from pillar to pillar in a vaulted hold, hurrying in the brief window Ilex had earned them by pointing cameras at the ceiling. Lorian clambering up an access shaft, grease-smeared again, with numb hands in their braces, keeping his fingers in line. The three of them in legionnaire dress bowing as an Inquisitor went by, the confused whispers following.

Isn’t he short for a soldier?

Crim’s shadow flowed across the wall before me, an unconscious Lieutenant Casdon over one shoulder, a sword shining in his fist. How would they escape? Steal a shuttle? A lifepod? How would they avoid recapture? Or capture by any of the other vessels in orbit? Security in the skies of Forum was tight enough a stray meteoroid could not penetrate the cloud belt.

Had I sent my soldiers—my loyal friends—to their deaths to save myself and my dream?

No. No, not to save myself. To save my ship, my people. To save us all. For surely if Hadrian Marlowe was framed for possession, for profanation, for consortation—all his people would hang, too. And worse than hang. For the possessed and profane, there was no death save death by fire. We each would be given to the kilns in turn, our ashes cast into space. Even the fugue-bound would not be spared, but ripped from their icy sepulchers to burn with us, from ice to fire in an instant. And last of all, the Tamerlane would be destroyed, annihilated by antimatter so that no trace remained of the apostates who had betrayed Earth and Man for machine.

With no evidence left to cry our innocence if my three soldiers failed.

Their shadows still danced on the walls of my prison, flowing like the images of a zoetrope, flickering and faint as a dream in the first moments of wakefulness. Crim’s sword flashed, and Ilex fired, and Lorian shouted commands. I saw them leap through hatchways and down shafts and die and die and die until I thought I would go mad from my own inactivity.

Almost a week passed thus. Six days.

Six days before my gaoler ceased to make appearances.

No one brought food, and the remnants of my previous meal—my last?—moldered on my table, forgotten as I was forgotten. When the second meal of the first day did not arrive, I went to the door, and pounding on it, called to the guards. No one answered, but the door would not unlock.

I did not starve. As in the dungeons of Vorgossos before, I ate ration bars from the case in my sleeping quarters kept there for emergencies. Three days passed thusly. No word. No human contact.

Then, on the tenth day since Gereon put me to the Question, I was awakened by the whine of the deadbolts peeling back and the grind of the door opening.

I did not sit up at first, but lay beneath Valka’s woven blanket on the couch. My eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling, not truly seeing it, not truly seeing anything. More than a week without human contact had unmoored my sense of propriety, and I couldn’t be bothered to rise. If it was Gereon, Breathnach, or the Grand Inquisitor, let them drag me to my feet.

It was not Gereon. Nor Breathnach. Nor the Grand Inquisitor.

It wasn’t even Oberlin.

“You look comfortable,” the high voice said.

It was Lorian.

The intus looked down at me—a curious reversal—with a strained smile on his patrician face. A black corrective patch covered a plasma burn on one cheek, and he wore again the silvered braces that kept his fingers from falling out of joint as he leaned upon his cane. His torn uniform jacket over his shoulders, sleeves dangling empty.

“Is it done?” I asked.

“It’s done,” he answered, and sank down onto the low table beside my couch, surveying me all the while.

Ashamed that I was lying down when he looked so threshed and torn, I sat up. “Good lord, man—have you been to medica?”

“In and out. But I wanted to tell you myself.” He put a hand to his chest, parting his shirt to show another corrective along his collarbone. “I wanted you to know it wasn’t easy.” He folded the fabric back into place, smoothed it down.

“How did you do it?”

The commander shook his head, unsmiling. “Another time. The Martians have Casdon and Breathnach.”

“The lieutenant talked?”

“The lieutenant sang,” Lorian replied. “Chantry’s bound to come out unscathed, of course. Can’t prove conspiracy with the Director. They did ask Sir Lorcan be handed over to them, but Prince Hector and the Council are blocking them. Not sure if His Radiance is involved yet.”

I cradled my head in my hands. Lorcan Breathnach was gone. The man who’d put a knife in Valka’s chest . . . gone. “It’s a pity I can’t be the one to behead the bastard,” I muttered.

“It wouldn’t be justice if you did it,” Lorian said, drumming his fingers. “This is better.”

“And we’re in the clear?” I asked. “Corvo’s been over the ship? Made sure there’s nothing left behind that shouldn’t have been? No daimons? No . . . anything?”

Commander Aristedes sagged against his cane, braced hands clicking. “Doing it now.”

“Are Ilex and Crim all right?” I asked.

“What?” Lorian looked around, clearly exhausted. Was he concussed? What had he done to deliver Casdon to the Martian Guard? “Oh . . . yes. Fine. About as well off as me.” He sucked in a ragged breath, snapped his head up to look me in the eye. “Don’t think we should leave the ship for a while. Let the MG do their work.”

I was nodding along. “That will make Corvo happy.”

“Aye,” he barked a laugh, “and on the bright side . . . you can let the doctor out of fugue now it’s safe.”

The doctor . . . I thought. Valka. She’d been gone for mere days, but I missed her presence more sharply than I had sometimes after years during one of my night journeys. I longed for her presence and the mocking way she smiled. But I shook my head. “No. Not yet.” There was a chance this wasn’t over, and I would not—could not—risk her. I couldn’t let her out of fugue until we were safely off of Forum and far, far away. “What about Lord Bourbon?”

“What about him?”

Lorian held my gaze with unfocused eyes as I answered him. “Did his name come up in all this?” The old Lion surely had conspired with the Intelligence Director in this, I felt certain.

The intus shook his head, flaxen hair floating. He’d lost his tie somewhere, and the usually neat hair with its long tail flew wild and free. Somehow, the wildness aged young Aristedes, so that he seemed half a ghost sitting there before me. “No, no. Nothing.” I fell silent, and after a moment a clawed and silver-braced hand gripped my wrist. How little strength there was in that hand and arm. I should not have sent him into battle. “But this is a victory, my lord. Our victory.”

Placing a hand over the younger man’s thin one, I said, “The victory’s yours, Aristedes. Go and get some rest. Unless . . . shall I send for a litter?” I wasn’t so sure he could stand again.

“Just . . . help me up, would you?”

I knelt, wrapped the little man’s arm around my neck, and lifted. I could not stand, not fully, not without lifting Lorian bodily from the ground. Small as he was and slight, I might have carried him, but I sensed that even to suggest such a thing would be to shame the poor fellow, and I did not offer.

“Come on, then,” I said, and holding the man by the shoulders, I walked him to the door. The heavy bulkhead slid aside at our approach. The guards had vanished. We passed out through the vestibule and into the hall beyond.

A flight technician in informal blacks saw us, and stopped his progress to salute. “Lord Marlowe, sir! Commander Aristedes!” I acknowledged his salute in passing, but did not linger. About us, operations had returned to normal aboard the Tamerlane, and though the work of setting the ship to rights after the Inquisition’s invasion would take days and perhaps weeks—all was right again with the world. Was made right by the little titan who walked beside me.

In the end, I escorted Commander Aristedes all the way to medica and delivered him into the hands of Doctor Luana Okoyo.

“See he’s taken care of,” I told her, unnecessarily. “He’s a hero.”