“Not excellent enough.” She yawned, wondering if Ty slipped something into her tea to help her rest.

“I thought you were a lady,” Lord Amberhill murmured.

“Excuse me?”

He scowled at her. “You’re a Green Rider and you deceived me. It explains a few things, but not your…your invisibility.”

Karigan wished she did not feel so vulnerable, tired and hurting, and naked beneath her covers. The air of superiority he exuded irritated her.

“I think I understand,” she told him, “what is bothering you.”

“And what would that be?”

“You were denied the rescue of Lady Estora by a common messenger. Your glory was stolen from you.”

His face reddened. She did not attribute it to embarrassment, but anger.

“I did not pursue the lady and her captors for glory,” he said. “And I didn’t climb this mount for the pleasure of a hiking excursion. I came to help the brave soul who effected the escape of Lady Estora.”

Heat warmed Karigan’s cheeks, and for her it was embarrassment. “That was your knife that took out Immerez’s man?”

Lord Amberhill nodded.

“Thank you.” Why did it gall her to say those two words? She was thankful, after all. She just didn’t like being thankful to him.

“Your Rider friend Ty does do neat work,” he said, “even when you’re thrashing around. But I believe you’ll be wanting a hat for a while. Or maybe a hood.”

With that, he turned on his heel and left the tent. Karigan repressed the urge to hurl her teacup after him.

HANDS

Beryl sat at the small table, gazing at Immerez, who was securely bound to a chair. A Weapon stood on duty just outside the tent’s entrance, alert to her needs. Willis, aside from reassuring himself she was well enough, was not at all averse to her conducting the interrogation. He knew of her skills.

She fiddled with Immerez’s hook on the table, safely detached from his stump. It was sharp enough to rip out a throat. The apparatus included a rigging of leather straps and buckles used to secure the hook to his wrist, which she examined with mild interest. Also on the table lay a hatchet, the one Lord Amberhill said Immerez was going to use to chop off Karigan’s hand.

Beryl just sat there, not speaking, while Immerez glowered in defiance. He’d never been subjected to her questioning before. Lucky him—until now. She’d promised Willis she would not draw this out, but there was a craft to it, a way to go about it that varied with each individual questioned, that simply could not be rushed. She believed Immerez would cave in good time—all that defiance was a facade for his uncertainty. She’d seen it before in her other subjects.

The longer she sat there, the more she played with his hook, making the buckles jingle, the more he glowered. She was patient. She could wait. Soon he would not be able to help himself and would break the silence. Even now he tightened his jaw, setting off a tick in his cheek.

While she waited, she caught herself chanting marching cadences in her mind. It was hard to free herself of them, of their comforting, certain rhythms. They’d saved her when she was bound in golden chains, kept her sane, kept her from breaking.

Even after a good night’s rest and all the food she could eat, she felt wrung out. Tired. She could sleep for days, but she would not let anyone else handle this interrogation. There was unfinished business between her and Immerez.

She set aside the hook, folded her hands on her lap, and gazed steadily at him through her specs. She remained perfectly still, not tapping her foot or fidgeting. Her fight was to keep from falling asleep.

Immerez tested his bonds subtly by flexing his muscles, but she, of course, did not miss a thing. He clenched and unclenched his left hand. The lines of his forehead darkened into furrows. The tick quickened in his cheek. He was growing angrier by the second and she didn’t think she’d have to wait much longer.

Sure enough, he broke the silence. “Are you so pleased with yourself that all you can do is sit there and gloat?”

She did not reply, just waited.

“Should’ve killed you,” he continued, “but Grandmother had to try her little experiment.”

“For how long did you know I was an operative?” she asked.

If he was surprised she finally spoke, he did not show it. “Birch found your return to Mirwellton suspicious, but then he became as convinced as everyone else that you were as you claimed, a loyalist to Mirwell Province. Until summer. Then we knew.”

Summer. Many odd things had gone on and she received word that Rider abilities faltered. Her own ability to assume a role must have failed her as well, and Birch and his compatriots saw through it. It made sense. But it was too late to worry about it now.

“To think you were Lord Mirwell’s favorite,” Immerez said. “After all I did for him.”

Old Lord Mirwell he meant. “Still bitter?” she asked. “Still bitter I got all the promotions and his attention while he treated you like dirt? And it really turns your gut that I was a spy all that time, too, doesn’t it.”

Immerez did not reply and resumed glowering at the tent wall.

Beryl laughed. “Yet you were loyal to a fault. You loved the old fool. In your mind, you were the son he should have had.” Abruptly she rose and paced, allowing her boot heels to click on the tent’s wooden platform. “I, too, am loyal. Loyal to Sacoridia, to my king, to the Green Riders, and most of all, to the province of my birth. That is no lie.”