“High Lady, perhaps this isn’t the time,” Commander Ironfist said. “We have only minutes—”

The White didn’t take her eyes off Teia, but her tone sharpened. “I’m known to have a keen interest in young people. Age is allowed her eccentricities. When you leave, Commander, you’ll shrug and say, ‘You know how she is with young people.’ Then smile and go about your business, and the spies will, too. Family, child.”

“Father’s a trader. Was. Day laborer now. Two sisters, younger. My mother isn’t worth speaking of.”

“Your shame says different.”

Teia clenched her jaw. She stared at the window. This was the White asking. That Teia was even thinking of not answering was practically irreligious; it was certainly insubordinate.

She answered, but her voice came out flat. “My mother lost her sense for a while during one of my father’s journeys. Brought home any man who would come bed her. Finally found one who liked her enough to stay for a while. She held parties we couldn’t afford, hired dancers and musicians like the rich do. We weren’t rich. She ruined us. And when my father came back, I think she thought he’d kill her. I think she hoped he would. She’d sold all of us into slavery to pay back the debts she ran up.

“My father sold everything he had left—his ship, mainly—and bought back my sisters. I’d shown my talent by then, and I was too valuable. He didn’t have the money to redeem me and he couldn’t borrow that much.”

“And what did he do to your mother?” the White asked.

“Nothing.” There was no hiding the bitterness. Father, why didn’t you fight for me? Why did you choose the one who betrayed you?

“And how do you feel about that?”

“I despise him for his weakness.”

“Rather than admire him for his goodness. Interesting.”

“Is it goodness to do nothing when wronged?” Teia asked sharply.

“You have no idea what he did or didn’t do. Parents often shield their children from the truth of their fights, and you were living elsewhere by then, a slave already. You judge too soon, and too sharply. Something you would do well to grow out of. Only a fool judges with the heart alone.”

Teia took the rebuke, unjust as it was. Her father had passively accepted that crazy whore, said something about love and forgiveness. “Are we finished?” she asked.

“Do you know,” the White said, “that I had two daughters? I remember their teenage years. It was hell.”

Teia smirked despite herself. I’m sure you deserved a bit of that. “Where do they live now? They aren’t on Big Jasper, are they?”

“They’re dead. One during the Blood Wars, and one immediately afterward, killed by men who refused to accept that the Blood Wars were ended. They thought their side hadn’t meted out sufficient vengeance yet. My daughters’ children were killed or whisked away into illegal slavery somewhere. Perhaps out there still, suffering. Their grandmother is the White, one of the most powerful people in all the satrapies, and they are slaves, all my wealth and my thousand spies worth nothing, for who sees a slave?” Her eyes seemed lit with fire. “Slavery is an evil without which our world cannot function, but it is an evil nonetheless.” She grimaced. “Which is why I will not have those bound to me bound by that, at least insofar as I am able. Ironfist.”

The man picked up a note from the White’s desk and handed it to Teia. It had copies of receipts that she couldn’t even read, at least not in a glance, and then a letter in an old familiar hand that she knew immediately. Her father’s:

“My debts have all been paid in your name, Adrasteia. I’ve already got investors lined up to buy one of the new caravels come spring. Putting together a crew now. I failed you, but you never failed me. As soon as I can, I’ll come to Big Jasper or wherever you’re posted. Sisters are well. Kallea married a butcher and is expecting her first in spring. Husband’s good for naught, but at least she’s close. Marae now hoping to marry an officer. Good man. Any news?” He must have been limited on the amount of paper he had to use, because the last sentences were cramped, even briefer than usual.

Her sister was expecting her first child? Kallea was fifteen years old. Many poor girls married that young, of course. But Teia wasn’t putting it together. It was facts, notes about another life, not hers. This kind of thing didn’t happen to Teia.

“Why?” Teia asked. There had to be some trap, some trick, some way it would be whisked away. It was too good. “Why?”

“Because sometimes I can do good,” the White said. “No strings, Teia. The tragedies that befell me have left me with some gifts. Money, for one. What use has a dying old woman for money? I can bless you as freely as Orholam has blessed me. Light, life, and freedom, my child.”

It rolled over Teia like a rushing quake-wave. She had to fight it, push back. “How did you…? Now?”

“We began work on it as soon as you tested into the Blackguard. We want all our people to choose us freely. It cannot always be so, but we always make the attempt. This was delivered while you were away at Ru. I’ve been meaning to send for you since. It’s been a busy time.”

“You were going to … all along?”

“In the scheme of things, Teia, it was a small thing for us, and we knew how big it might be for you.”

It took Teia’s breath. She would cry later, but in this moment, she could barely breathe, barely believe this dying woman’s goodness, her father’s steadfastness, her sisters’ lives veering so far to one side that Teia couldn’t even see them anymore from where she stood. Good done for people she would like as not never see again. In this moment of compassion, somehow, though, she felt more alone than she had in all her years training and thieving in shame, hiding who she was in more than just the disguises they taught her.

“She wasn’t the only one blackmailing me,” Teia blurted out. “There’s another. Worse.”

And she told them about Master Sharp. And about the spy, and the murder, and the flight, and Kip seeing her, and the theft of her papers, and their return. And when she was done speaking, then, finally, she felt free. She could take a full breath.

Oddly, the White looked, if anything, younger and more alive than ever. Her eyes lit with a readiness to fight. “Teia,” she said, “how brave are you?”

Ten minutes later, Commander Ironfist ushered Teia out the door, saying he would follow her in a moment.

When the door closed, he turned a skeptical eye to the White. “You planned that.”

“I hoped for it.”

“You knew about the other. This Murder Sharp.”

She didn’t admit it. “Kindness can break chains that cunning cannot.”

“Is that what you are? Kindness and cunning coiled?” he asked.

“Was not the caduceus once the White’s symbol?” she asked. Then her whimsy disappeared. “The Order of the Broken Eye, Harrdun. There have been pretenders before, but how many pretenders have had the shimmercloaks? We have a chance here.”

“To smash them?”

“Or bring them back into the fold. But yes, probably. Heresy is a horse that takes the bridle in its teeth and won’t submit to any hand unless it is beaten.”