“Are you sure you’re not just—”


    “I’m not just anything,” Tallah snapped at her. “Anna talked to someone. We need to treat it as a worst case.”


    Sil sighed and rubbed her temples.


    “She could have been lying.”


    “She wasn’t.”


    “You don’t know that.”


    “I do.”


    She glared at the sorceress. Stubborn creature.


    There was a gentle knock at the door. Sil had asked Vergil to send up one of Verti’s girls when he passed through the common room towards his errand, fool thing that that was.


    She changed into the aelir form and went to answer.


    It turned out to be Verti herself, up early and about her duties.


    “Good-morrow, Your Ladyships. What may I get for you?”


    Elendine cheerfulness didn’t quite match with Sil’s state of mind. It was too early for it. Worse yet, Mertle had left while she was still asleep, so her mood was as dark as the weather.


    “Coffee, Verti, please. Lots of sugar. And some bread and butter and—”


    “Jam,” Tallah called from the other room.


    “And jam, please. Bitter, if you have it.” Sil gestured an apology for the inhuman hour. It was likely still a few bells to the crack of dawn.


    Verti smiled and nodded back.


    “There is fresh bread baking if you wouldn’t mind the wait. Otherwise, I can have one of the girls make some flat buns.”


    “We don’t mind, Verti. Thank you.”


    It was too bloody early in the morning to argue with Tallah on an empty stomach. Her paranoia flaring up wasn’t the issue but her solution for it was plainly mad.


    “You said you didn’t want to go on that absurd waste of time for the old man.” She picked the argument right back up when the elendine went away. “You haven’t even touched his bribe since we spoke with him. You’re being unreasonable. For pity’s sake, stop gnawing on yourself.”


    Tallah paced like a caged animal. Heat wafted from her, sputtering like candlelight in a draft. The fool had forced herself to infuse and was still at it.


    “You’ll burst a blood vessel if you keep going like that,” Sil said as she barred the sorceress’s path with her staff. “Stop pacing and start thinking for a bloody moment.”


    They exchanged glares.


    “What would you propose then? There’s a mind-skinner in Valen and she’s already suspicious of me.”


    “You don’t know that Anna talked to the Storm Guard or that she even talked at all. She might have just wanted to rattle your nerves as a last effort at revenge. And she managed that expertly, I might add.”


    “We can’t afford that assumption, Sil. You know that. I know that. Drop it.”


    “I’ll bet you that Christina agrees with me.”


    That quieted Tallah. She looked as if she wanted to say something on the subject but bit back on the words. Sil grinned.


    “You just kept her from answering. We could just change disguises and start over.”


    “It takes weeks for a new change to take hold. I may not have days, let alone weeks.” Tallah looked over their assembled living space, five years’ worth of work in building Tianna and Silestra. “We’re too entrenched in these roles.”


    Stolen story; please report.


    The staff did have those limitations. For any change to be convincing, it needed to take root, to become a second skin, not just an illusion over the old. That took practice, conviction, and a lot of failure. It wasn’t a subtle or stable process. Someone like Rumi Belli could see through the weave in those days. Tallah’s mask certainly managed if they weren’t fully committed into the role. All it would take was one chance meeting.


    And chance was not proving kind.


    “We could always move over to Mertle and…” Words withered in her mouth as realization hit before Tallah could answer with more than a scathing glare. “We’d risk their safety. You’re right.”


    The sorceress pushed away the staff and started pacing again.


    “I know I’m being absurd but I don’t feel safe. Sil, I can’t explain it.”


    “But if we do this then we’re throwing away all the work we’ve put into getting this far. We won’t be able to use Tianna of Aieni Holding anymore.”


    “Better than risking a battle I can’t win right now. I’d rather burn this whole plan than be captured again.”


    “Christina, please back me on this. We must be able to come up with a better solution,” Sil asked the ghost. Tallah normally listened to that one’s counsel if she refused to listen to hers, on the rare occasion the ghost agreed with her on something.


    “We agree with Tallah. Plans must be changed if there is the least risk of them failing. But we do not agree giving in to Professor Angledeer.” Tallah looked as if she had to vomit out the words. “And neither she nor Bianca has a bloody solution to give me,” she finished. “Either figure one out or make your peace with mine. Either way, we’re leaving.”


    Sil sighed and dropped in a chair, hand on her face.


    If I were honest, I’d admit I want to run off. It was too easy to get comfortable with Mertle, too easy to start really wanting what she only said she did, too easy to forget she was always being watched. But being honest and being stupid are two very different things.


    Verti returned carrying a tray of food and one of her daughters brought a great pitcher of freshly brewed coffee. Its aroma filled the room when they entered.


    “Verti,” Sil said as she cleared a table for the tray, “have any of the caravan masters been preparing to leave lately?”


    The matron thought for a moment and looked to her daughter.


    “Master Vulniu has closed his credit line two days ago,” the girl said briskly. “He’s waiting out the storm and preparing to leave for Bastra after the Descent.”


    “In this weather?”


    “He’s been taking many meetings with adventurers to help him manage the high passes. I believe he intends to force his way through. I couldn’t tell you why.”


    Sil looked to Tallah, who was still chewing on her finger while looking out the window at the swirling night. She got a slight nod in return.


    “When he breaks his fast, would you please inform him we’d like to hire his services?”


    The young elendine bowed respectfully.


    “Of course, Your Ladyship. Should I ask him up or will you be coming down?”


    “We’ll be down to discuss. Thank you, Miria.”


    After the two left, Sil found that she had less of an appetite than she had thought. She nibbled some bread and drank sweetened coffee but nothing more. Tallah ate jam out of the jar, then the buttered bread. For all her griping and doom-saying she ate as if preparing for battle.


    They were quiet for a long time.


    “Was it wise to send Vergil out? Alone, I mean?”


    “We’ll see.”


    “He could go to the Fortress and turn you in of his own will.” Verti had been kind enough to not mind the devastation she witnessed in the room. “You haven’t exactly been kind to him.”


    Tallah gave her a thin-lipped smile.


    “The Fortress is exactly far enough from here for your trinket to do its job. If he loses his head, he wasn’t worth keeping around.”


    Sil choked on her coffee.


    “That’s dark. Even for you, that’s horrible to consider.”


    Tallah shrugged. “He’ll be back.”


    “And you know that for certain, do you?”


    This was answered by the sound of a teaspoon banging the inside of the jar, trying to get at whatever was left on the bottom. No words.


    “How come you’ve been doing this with him?” She gestured vaguely at the devastated room. She’d been curious since the first day but Tallah hadn’t brought it up so she hadn’t asked.


    “He asked to be trained. I obliged.”


    Sil dropped a fistful of sugar cubes into her empty cup, then poured more coffee over them.


    “I’m amazed you bothered, is all. You spend days training him and then you send him out alone into the storm. How does that make any sense in your head?”


    Tallah poured herself a cup of hot coffee and tried to down it all in one go, probably to push down the lump of buttered bread she had just inhaled.


    “The boy wants to be useful and he’s scared out of his wits of being discarded.” She looked out over the rim of the cup. “I was swayed. Alone, he’s invisible. I gave him a mission.”