“Worthless waste,” Patch grumbled as he shook the jug; Lapis heard ice crash against the interior, emphasizing his point.

“Why’d he send us?” she asked as she adjusted the swinging lantern’s pole. She wished she had the use of her childhood saddle, with a holder built in and a hollow, curved metal rod that dangled any-sized lamp with ease.

“I don’t know. Maybe to check if Perben was there.” He snorted. “They aren’t going to beg themselves into Midir’s good graces if they keep him around.”

“Don’t you think it’s odd, that so many people were there, dressed up? Where are they going to go?”

“I’m betting they just returned from some floofy get-together. Nacker has several court rejects who’ll be looking to increase their rep and wealth now that their betters are gone.”

Maybe, but the explanation did not sit well with her. Meinrad and Rambart were up to something, and she doubted it would favor the rebels.

“And that would explain Relaine,” he said, his voice a low, dark rumble.

She lifted her lip. “Always choosing the wrong side.”

“Always saving her skin.” Patch paused, then sighed, bouncing the jug off his thigh. “You never trusted her, and I should have listened.”

“You were friends.”

“Acquaintances, and not good enough ones for me to have ignored her shit. I thought Baldur was more of a threat. He had the money and influence to make life Pitish for those who stepped on his bad side, and I saw the spiral of distrust and resentment destroying the House. There was stuff underneath, but it wasn’t as pressing. I misjudged. You should have snarled at me more.”

“I misjudged too. I thought she was more interested in ladder climbing, and leaving the kids behind would make a horrifying impression of incompetence.” Hoping the pole stayed put, she straightened, then pressed her hand into her aching shoulder. “I can’t believe no one told Meinrad and Rambart about that.”

“The parents should have thrown her in the Pit if the others refused to act. Here.” He moved his mount close and handed her the jug. She dug out a painkiller and took it with the ice-cold water; her teeth protested vigorously. Wincing, she gave it back and hoped she did not need another one before they reached Jiy.

Too bad the medicine would not soften her sour thoughts. She doubted the lot who idolized Relaine would ever allow harm to come to her. They would shield her from paying for her transgressions because otherwise, they would have to admit they had failed the rebellion. Their deeds cast them into the despicable villain role in the story, rather than the heroic rebel saving their country from Dentheria.

“If she planned to leave the kids behind for the palace to scoop up, why put a tracking device in the baby bag?”

“She expected Brander or Sherridan to realize what happened and try to get them out of there. She didn’t think we’d be the rescuers.”

That made sense, since Brander and Sherridan, as co-trainers in the rebel House, would be an important catch and both would have sacrificed themselves for the kids. She must have slipped the tech into a pocket when Vivina’s attention was elsewhere, and just before the raid. The caretaker was not so clueless as to ignore a strange device if she or the children discovered it in the bag. Since she was off the ‘shroud and safely home, maybe they should visit and ask about Relaine popping into the daycare.

Speculation, she supposed, was moot. They needed harder evidence, because it seemed plausible that the whole thing was just a terrible mistake, that Relaine had not realized she was the one who needed to alert the daycare a raid was coming. Lapis rubbed at her chin; she wanted to pretend that day was distant history and ignorable because it ended so poorly for her, but perhaps she should read the reports about the evacuation.

Or ask her partner. “Patch, what was in the reports?”

He looked at her, then took a large breath. “Something bothered me about them. Too many ex-rebels harped on a terrible mistake, but Brander and Sherridan never believed that because they had been tipped off so far in advance. Someone should have realized the kids were not among the evacuees and gone back for them. It can’t be, that everyone was so concerned about the Blue Council, no one noticed.”

“Brander did.”

“True. And if he and Sherridan hadn’t been guiding the Blue Council members to safety, he would have gotten there before the soldiers showed up.” He pointed at her with the bottom of the jug. “I’m sure you can guess, how desperate the parents were. Several said they were told the kids were safe, but it wasn’t clear who first said it. I think whoever did misdirected attention, and I truly believed Relaine left them behind on purpose, even if everyone else declared it a horrible oversight during a stressful event. The device was a guess—but someone in that room is going to dig into it. Don’t know who, but we’ll find out when they come begging for a place in the Wolf.”

They reached the gate; the key guard waited outside the shack for them, hunched over, hands shoved into his armpits.

“Nyal wants to talk.”

“Does he now?” Patch asked in a bored tone. “And why should we care about that?”

The other guard leaned against the door jamb. “There’s something odd about some of the Jiy rebels,” he said.

“Ex-rebels,” Lapis corrected.

“And Nyal thinks you explained it, without explaining it.”

Lapis glanced at Patch, then shrugged. “Is he on his way?”

“Yeah.”

“Is he bringing Perben?” Patch asked. Neither said a word, and heat filled her chest; dammit, what was with the non-existent gods, shoving him into her presence over and over again? Her patience was not infinite, and while she desperately clung to the belief sending her purple beam through his eye would cause a lot of problems, she could not count on it to hold her back in perpetuity.

She wanted him dead. That had not changed.

“Who’s Nyal?” she asked, hoping her Lady Lanth aplomb covered her seething.

“Perben’s friend with the brown hair. The three of them, they’d take some of the rougher missions together, so they know each other well.”

So he probably knew about the traitor’s traitorous ways and refused to do anything about it.

They did not have to wait long; the swinging light of a lamp denoted their arrival. Perben had both his friends with him, and unease drifted through her. Five against two, and the gate was closed. Terrible odds, and she guessed Patch’s reputation for violence motivated their safety in numbers. They should worry, as Faelan and Midir considered the entire lot a risk to the future they hoped to build.

The three crunched to a halt well out of casual distance. The one with his hair pulled back in a tight tail stepped forward; even in the dim light, she could see the roses across his cheeks and nose. He must want to speak with them badly, to hustle down the lane sucking in all that cold air and making his lungs ache.

“Talk,” Patch said, casually menacing.

“Relaine,” he said. “We’ve been watching her.”

“We?”

“Teivel, me and Heiden.” He nodded to his companions in turn.

“Have you.”

“Meinrad and Rambart see a victim—and she plays to that,” Perben said. He kept his gloved hands loose to his sides, proving he carried no weapon, though she bet he sequestered one in an easy-to-reach place. “I knew something was off when she showed us the escape routes at the old House. Too eager to please, digging for info through fake innocence.”

“She saw a way to the Blue Council through you,” Lapis said. “Her goal was top of the rebel chain, where she didn’t have to inconvenience herself to receive the finer things in life.”

“Like the Blue Council was in the habit of trusting random strangers.” He shrugged.

“She got frustrated we didn’t play along, so maybe that was her goal,” Nyal said. “She should have known better; the Blue Council led by example. They slept in plenty of patched tents in the dead of winter, drinking water melted from ice and scraping by with squirrel caches and fish. That’s not the finer things she envisioned.”

Lapis refused to say a word, since she could not picture Meinrad and Rambart sitting in a tent while a fire and blankets waited for them in their mansions. Faelan, though . . .

“Look at the Jiy headman, if you want to know where she got that idea,” Patch said. “Baldur would sell out his daughter for another gold ring.”

“Now, now,” Lapis soothed. “He did threaten me quite a lot to get her back, so add a necklace and a fancy robe to go along with it.”

Her partner snorted hot puffs into the air, and she could not tell if he laughed or acted with sarcasm.

“Baldur’s the reason she’s here,” Nyal said. “After . . . well, after, she found herself on the outs. Baldur was desperate to save the bare thread keeping him attached to the rebellion, and she was someone he could punish without too much pushback. She might have had revenge in mind because of it, but she offered to create a distraction so we could get Teivel out of the cell.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “She said a lot of nasty things about the local rebels.”

“Too nasty,” the other buddy said. Heiden, was it? “She hates you, Lapis.”

She fought not to flinch at the use of her name by someone she distrusted. “Feeling’s mutual.”

“She set up a meeting place, claimed she could sneak us out of Jiy,” Nyal continued.

“You didn’t take her up on it?” Patch drawled, unimpressed. Heiden looked as if he bit into a sour fruit.

“No. Why would we?”

“Rambart and Meinrad always believed in my innocence,” Perben said, staring at her. She lifted her lip and gripped the reins tight enough Jumper whickered and jerked his head. She relaxed; no reason to let them know how badly the traitor’s presence affected her.

Too late for that. She needed Lady Lanth’s aplomb, not rebel Lapis’s rage. However much she hated Perben with all her being, he agreed to accompany his friend to talk with them. He must think Relaine posed a danger to Faelan, or Nyal would have shown up with only Heiden.

“Meinrad and Rambart share a stone for a brain,” Patch declared, and no one bristled. “Did you talk to her after that?”

“No. She was too busy trying to persuade Baldur, Brander and Sherridan to let her into the meetings. She thought she could convince Midir to let Teivel go, if they would only give her a chance to speak.”

“Varr would have abused her of that,” Lapis said. As a child, she witnessed him protect Midir, and the dangerous people never got back up to face him a second time. “She should thank her continued existence on the fact he didn’t see her as a threat.”

“He probably should have. She ended up being the largest one, and it took down the House.”

Lapis narrowed her eyes, her thoughts spinning before slamming into place. “You think she contacted the palace about the raid, don’t you.”

“I’ve no proof but a few vague references, before she realized what she said and tried to cover it up,” Nyal said quietly. “But I do.”

She gritted her teeth. “The House’s escape routes were nailed shut right after she showed you their locations, not before.”

The three glanced at each other, as if that confirmed their suspicions. Dammit, Perben was the suspect! He had proven contact with the place, had—

She struggled to continue simmering in hot rage. “A raid, with the traitor in a cell in need of rescue. You expect me to believe she triggered it and not a missed undercover update?”

“Light,” the guard against the jamb said.

Confused, she looked at him, then the road; the snow brightened under the touch of a white light, not the rich yellow of a fruit oil lamp. The men quieted, and the buzz of a tech bike grew louder.

Who had tech bikes in Jilvayna? Dentherions.

“And that’s another reason I wanted to catch you,” Nyal said. “I want to know if you know who Meinrad and Rambart are meeting with. You’re local, we’re not, you might recognize them.”

Lapis blinked, then fury pounded behind her eyes. “That’s why they’re all dressed up?”

“It’s a meeting the Jiy ex-rebels set up with a repentant court noble.” Nyal flipped his hand in anger. “Or so Relaine said. We three told Meinrad and Rambart not to trust them. They could be janks, they could be syndicate shanks or mercs. We know they’re pissed about the rebellion breaking, and that they want to prove they still have value to the cause, but there are too many unknowns.”

That described them all, as far as Lapis was concerned. She looked at Patch, who stared through the bars, the lights on his patch whirling fast enough, they produced a solid circle. A moment more, and he pressed his fingers into the leather; they slowed and faded. He clicked his tongue at his mount and guided the horse to the end of the shack. With heavy reluctance, she did the same.

“So what’s this meeting supposed to be about?” Patch asked with mild curiosity. None of them appeared fooled by his nonchalance.

“Relaine said the noble was worried about the mercs in Green Castle and needed help securing what’s left of the palace,” Nyal told them as they, too, moved out of the way. His sharp laughter held an ugly edge. “She expects us to believe there’s a court noble left in Jiy. They all stuffed their cowardly asses into carriages and fled, no repentance involved.”

Or the ‘shroud squished them into oblivion.

Other than Seeza, Lapis could think of one noble who had a hidey hole across the river in the Bells and access to smuggling tunnels that ran to Green Castle. If Diros was at the palace’s staging ground and escaped, he would have fled there rather than into the countryside.

The light brightened, then wobbled. A man cursed as the bike he rode turned sideways and slid past the gate, sputtering. He slammed his thick-soled boot into the road to keep the thing upright and hopped with its momentum. It crushed a snowbank and fell over, handlebars digging into the frozen slush, and he stumbled away, slipping on the bare ice and windmilling to keep his balance.

He wore the same black uniform jacket and puffy pants that Dentherion military did, with heavy leather patches on the elbows and knees; she bet they saved his skin, and on more than one occasion.

Two more slowly reached the gate, the riders having trouble controlling the direction of the front wheels as they bumped around on the uneven road. If they meant to impress with the bikes, they failed, and she wondered why they had not ridden horses instead. Mounts could slip as well, but had surer footing.

The guard with the gate key put his lower arm against the bars and leaned on it, waiting. The two upright riders dismounted, kicked the stands in place, and walked to him. They murmured something, then raised their voices, insistent.

“They stay outside,” he growled. “Or no meeting.”

Nice, that he let them through with the horses. Lapis patted Jumper’s neck, and he whickered and shook his head.

The two turned to the third, and he waved his hand before hauling the bike upright. He walked it to them, kicked the stand twice before it went down, and pulled off his helmet, his brown hair fuzzing around his head.

No. Really? She looked Patch; he pulled the front of his fuzzy hat over his eye patch, hiding what would give away his identity. Grumbling to herself, she leaned over and motioned to Nyal. All three of them shuffled to her, and she tamped down on the thrill of unease that accompanied it.

“The dipshit is The Gods’ Hands.”

“The Gods’ Hands?” Nyal asked, wincing.

“Yeah. He’s a chaser whose name says it all. He’s into some shady smuggling shit with Diros Mayventhel.”

“Diros?” Perben said, and he sounded annoyed. He probably knew who Patch’s father was; she could see Faelan sharing it with him before he realized his traitorous ways. “Shit.”

“What do you mean we have to walk?”

Good ol’ Gods’ Hands, expecting more, receiving less. Lapis eyed him as he pointed at her. Would anyone miss him, if she raised a gauntlet and nailed him with the purple beam? It would cut right through the black material and hit the void where his heart should be.

Before he said more, the guard hmphed. “If you want the meeting, you’re going to walk.”

“Zayn,” his buddy sighed before she took off her round, shiny helmet. Lapis did not recognize her or the third member, but the man had enough hair gel, the strands lay across his scalp and reflected light like a second helmet. Was he a shank or the noble? It could go either way.

Nyal nodded to her and stepped into the road. “We’re the escort,” he said. “Don’t keep Lord Phandus and Lord Yann waiting.”

Yes, that would be a shame. Perben and Heiden moved into the lane, and she hoped they had decent weapons on them. She trusted The Gods’ Hands as much as she trusted a deadly snake after stepping on its tail, and it would not bother her, if Perben put his murderous ways to use for a good cause and took him out.

The guard opened the gate, and the three walked in. They left their helmets with the bikes, and Lapis did not envy them the ear-freezing walk. The Gods’ Hands snarled at her and Patch, and she gave him the universal street sign to fuck off. The woman snagged his arm and hauled him after Nyal, and he shook her off before yelling something indistinct and stomping away.

He did not recognize her partner, as he wore a blue outfit and hat so out of keeping with his character. Good. He probably assumed they were guards as well, and she hoped he steamed himself into a hole with resentment, that they got to ride and he had to trudge over uneven, frozen slush.

They watched until the lamplight was a pale ghost of itself, then Patch clucked at his mount and moved her into the lane. “Who in the Pit are they trying to impress?” he asked.

The key guard shook his head. “I didn’t expect them to show up on bikes. Considering the roads, a horse is safer.”

“Did The Gods’ Hands look like he plays it safe?” Lapis asked. She appreciated the disgusted shudder at the moniker. “Hope his mouth gets him in trouble. It may be too far to cart his ass to the Pit, but I’m sure there’s a ditch or two around.” And once back in Jiy, she would thank Faelan, again, for releasing him to the Minq.

“Be wary. There’s a bird above us,” Patch said. “Looks like whoever sent them doesn’t trust that it’s going to go well.”

Lapis gave the guards credit for not glancing skyward. “Thanks for the warning.” The one with the key motioned to them, and they exited the estate. The gate clanged shut behind them; Jumper twitched, and she patted his neck.

“Good boy,” she whispered. “I’ll get you a treat when we get back to Jiy.” She looked over at her partner, who hunched over the saddle, his forefinger tapping the jug. “Unless you think we should stay?”

“No. The bully boys know how to take a guy with tech down.” He chuckled. “I wonder if Zayn’s his name. Will be interesting to find out.”

“Why is Meinrad and Rambart even entertaining them? I mean, this is Meinrad’s estate, isn’t it? Why expose it to a potential enemy?”

“If they’re playing noble-still-here, it makes some sense, that they’d invite a court suck-up to the mansion. They would need something as a bribe to get access to the new government, and weaseling information out of a Gall supporter about any potential danger from remaining aristocrats would give them leverage. But with Relaine involved—”

“I don’t believe she nailed the escape routes shut. The boards across the walkways were tampered with, the—”

“She always had more help than her own fingers.”

Lapis stared at him. “You agree with them. You think she tried to take out the escape routes, then contacted the palace?”

“It explains why she wanted to get in good with the Blue Council, then was desperate to get Perben out of his cell. She thought he was another palace spy and didn’t want him to out her.” He hit the side of his leg with the jug. “I wasn’t careful enough.”

She growled, her hold tightening enough on the reins that Jumper snorted and flipped his mane. Jumbled thoughts raced into each other, finally solidifying on The Gods’ Hands failing to keep the bike from sliding. “She set up the meeting with a court noble, and Gods’ Hands showed up. I bet that means she works for your father, not the palace. Maybe Whitley remembers something she said that seemed off or strange, and you need to speak to Baldur about her. I always thought she was a struggling Stone Streets rat who saw the rebels as an escape, but what if that was all a lie? Your background check didn’t find anything?”

“It found exactly what you said.” Patch shook his head. “And I was overly cautious because of Ahebban’s assassination. She was desperate to get off the streets and did everything she could to leave. I can’t blame her for that. The forced poverty in the Stone Streets is reprehensible, and taking chances, doing underhanded things to leave, well, why not? It was better than what she had.”

Lapis never faulted rats for doing what they could to survive. The Grey and Stone Streets were not a safe, happy place for adults, let alone children. The streets turned kids ruthless, distrustful. Friends were as scarce as food, especially ones who protected each other’s backs rather than stabbing them, and Relaine had plenty of stories of the latter.

She worried the reins in her hands. “Patch, remember when Danaea tried for me?”

“How could I forget?”

“Remember what Jetta said, before she went after her? Danaea’s notes hinted she needed inside help to get rid of Ahebban. That could have been Relaine.”

He cocked his head as his patch lights raced around the edge, casting an eerie blue light onto his mount’s neck. “Relaine was a new recruit at that point and not allowed anywhere near the headquarters or the headman. Ahebban took security seriously, and he never would have trusted a yet-proven woman to know the location of the House. The group who took her under their wings, though . . .” He trailed off. “A good number of them were there tonight.”

“Yeah, I noticed. So Meinrad and Rambart are in real trouble.”

“Looks like. I wonder why Diros is sending people after them.”

“He wants support to be the new king and they’re nobles, even if they don’t reside in Jiy.”

Patch laughed. “Opportunity of a lifetime, if he can get rid of everyone else who sees gold in their eyes when they look at Green Castle and not a smoking pile of rubble.” His humor drifted into darkness. “Lapis, we’re going back.”

“What?”

“I’m picking up humans in a larger tech vehicle riding with khentauree chassis. If anyone else from the House was out here, Sanna or Chiddle would have contacted me.”

Dammit, this night was turning out worse than she originally assumed. “You think they’re headed for Meinrad and Rambart?”

“If not, no harm done. If so?” He stuck the jug against his belly and rapidly tapped his fingers across his patch. “I just sent a distress signal. We’ll get help, whether we need it or not.” He pulled back on the reins and turned his mount around.

Lapis followed with a huge sigh and coughed as the cold’s stinging punch made it past her scarf. “Midir’s going to owe us after this,” she grumbled. “And he better not skimp on the berries.”