The Day of Cleansing was tomorrow.

  In Sanford’s foyer, Dana paced back and forth. While lu wasn’t alone - Odette was resting upstairs after a marathon of courting supporters - lu was alone in worry. With Magdala off on her adventure, Lady Pol dealing with Maestra Lucchesi’s recommendation to make Dwayne Qe Master, and luz replacement of the purple pills failing to have any noticeable effect on the Tower, Dana’s only choice now was to order a Retrieval and the end of luz mission.

  The front door burst open. “Galkin!”

  “My la-” Dana coughed, allowing luzself to get luz emotions back under control. “Young Gallus, were you successful?”

  Smiling, Magdala stepped aside to let Dana’s answer step over the threshold. Mei Li had lost weight, stank from the long ride home, and clearly hadn’t recovered from nearly killing her own brother, but Dana couldn’t afford to give her the rest she so desperately needed.

  “Mei?” The Lucchesi scion extricated herself from the soldier. “Do you need anything?”

  “Rodion,” Mei held up a wrapped bundle, “help me put these on please.”

  Magdala stepped towards her. “I can help with-”

  “Perhaps, my lady,” Dana interposed luzself between her and Mei, “you and your companions can take a moment to refresh yourselves? There are pastries and fruit in the dining room.”

  “I’d love a bath.” Lucchesi picked at her hair. “The sooner I forget this mud, the better.”

  Dana bowed. “I shall draw a bath after assisting Miss Ma.”’

  “Excellent. Come along, Mags, Sergeant.” Lucchesi gathered up Magdala and the soldier and disappeared into the house.

  When Mei took off in a different direction, Dana followed. Neither spoke until they reached the servant’s quarters where Mei opened up her bundle and dumped its contents - a teal uniform, an ash gray cape, and a steel breastplate etched with an image of the Tower - onto one of the beds.

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  “Oh, that’s a lot.”

  “Yes.” Mei fell onto the next bed over and covered her face with her arm. “Tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Tell me where he is.”

  Dana winced. “You’re in no condition to-”

  “Tell. Me.”

  Dana sighed. “The Tower.”

  Relief, annoyance, resignation, these emotions rippled through Mei’s body one by one. “And Huan?”

  “From what I’ve heard, he’s in the Plague District.”

  “The Spire?”

  “Yes.”

  No reaction. Not good. Dana didn’t want to ask, wanted to accept Mei’s pretense of being okay, but there was too much vulnerability on display.

  “When you see him,” Dana sat next to Mei, “what will you do?”

  Mei groaned. “I don’t know.”

  “You have to decide or else the rest of us will decide for you. Do you want that?”

  Mei took her arm off her face, revealing eyes full of tears. “I don’t want him hurt.”

  “I know.”

  “But I can’t let him hurt others.”

  “I know.”

  “Maggie and Dwayne,” Mei switched to Tuquese, “he’s betrayed them so much they can’t forgive him, but for me they will try and he will see that and he…” She sucked in a breath. “He will do what it takes.”

  “Yes,” said Dana in Tuquese. “Will you let that happen?”

  “I… I do not know if he can kill me, but he knows that I can kill him.” Mei’s eyes met Dana’s. “I have not killed humans before.”

  “I know.”

  “What happens after?”

  Dana held luz expression still. There were the easy lies, the kinds one told to soldiers and assassins, to zealots and executioners. Perhaps Mei would believe one of them. But when Dana had tried to kill her to keep luz secret, Mei hadn’t tried to kill lu back, had tried to understand lu instead. Someone like that deserved the truth.

  “When it comes to you, nothing changes; there was a you before and there’s a you after. When it comes to the world, everything changes; where once they lived and breathed, there is now nothing. It’s not like hunting where you’ve acquired something necessary - food, clothing, etc - that you could not have gotten any other way. Every time you murder, you give up a chance to find a way to do it differently. It’s possible this was the only way, that your birth, their choices, Phons’s will, all determined this was the way it had to be, but when they’re dead, you’ll never find out.

  “What happens after?” Dana swallowed. “You live with the consequences.”

  As upstairs Odette shouted about stinking little girls, as carriages clattering along cobblestones, Mei processed what Dana had said. Finally, she drew in a breath and said in Souran, “Help me dress please.”

  “You made a decision?” asked Dana in that same language.

  “Yes.” Mei rolled to her feet. “I’ll stop him.”

  “As you wish.” Best not to ask about the details. Dana stood up. “I’ll bring you washcloths and a bucket of hot water so you can get the road off of you. Unless,” lu glanced upwards, “you’d prefer to bathe with Young Gallus and her friends?”

  Mei winced. “Not yet.”

  She still needed time. “As you wish.”