ChaoticArmcandy

  Aralia strode grim-faced down the underground service corridor towards the saferoom, her heart growing heavier with every step. Pasha had brought her the news less than a bell before, in her office.

  Her crystalline memory repyed the scene over and over, every word a settling of some final weight in her chest. For all she tried to think of another way to escape the steadily closing jaws of this trap, she could not.

  ~ ~ ~

  Aralia stared back at him. “What?”

  Pasha nodded grimly. “When word gets out, we’ll be facing a full-fledged haliati witchhunt. If we do nothing, by nightfall tomorrow the hall of records will be swarming with Ministry inquisitors. They’ll begin an internal investigation of the entire staff, interrogate and cross-examine every maid they can snatch, pull the files of every student that took Apomasaics, audit the alchemical stockrooms, and that’s just to start.”

  “Oh, Ellie.” Aralia put her head in her hands, groaning. “That little fool…”

  “The fault is not all hers, mea canat,” said Pasha sharply. “You misjudged your hold on her. It’s time to face the fact that this sentimental little gamble of yours has finally failed, and start pying to win again. This is our st chance. Time is short. If you refuse, if you hesitate, if you falter, we will all be tortured to death, and soon.”

  Those piercing, tawny eyes lifted to meet his gaze.

  “You would have me strip her cover to save ours?” The pain in her voice shook him.

  “She’s already done that for us.” Pasha gritted his teeth. “Listen to me, Aralia. We find ourselves in the midst of a byrinth not of our own making. I swear to you, I have not lost sight of our goal and I have not lost myself, but I am the inflexible messenger of the consequences of your choices. You must turn her in or face the full might of a Ministry investigation that will reveal our operation, whether or not we can silence Penelope before she finds our burned cargo.”

  There was a grudging silence.

  Then Aralia sighed. “If we do this, don’t forget that questions will be raised about how she got a staff position in the first pce.”

  “Let me handle that. You worry about whether she can be trusted to py her part.”

  “And if she cannot?”

  Pasha’s breath let out in a tight exhale and he looked away.

  “I knew you were going to say that.”

  “Would we have any choice? She’s Imperiati, Aralia. How many of their bodies have we stepped over and kept walking, since Hellebore?”

  “She’s haliati,” Aralia protested. “With just as much reason to hate the hygienist regime as we do.”

  “Let her prove it, then.”

  “You say that, and yet how can we rely on her after what she pulled today?” Aralia turned away to stare out the window of her office, her fists clenched at her sides. “You know better than anyone that there’s no way to know beforehand if we can trust her, not with something like this. The pressure alone…”

  “If she volunteers, Aralia, if she walks alert and willing into the jaws of dread, then we will know.” Pasha grimaced. “Listen, you cannot rely on her as an asset that you hold power over anymore, true. Your calcution of her obedience was based on her self-interest, and she took an enormous risk in defiance of that calculus today. According to Monarda, she said she was trying to eavesdrop on you for leverage to bargain in exchange for more knowledge of—”

  “—the halia,” Aralia finished heavily. “And other haliati, living beyond the Imperiat.”

  “Exactly.”

  Aralia muttered a curse. “I should never have let that slip.”

  “You should never have done a good bit more than that,” Pasha said sharply. “And yet, if you believe her, that is exactly the kind of courage we count on each other for, and in the service of the same damn thing.”

  She threw up her hands. “So you not only believe her excuses, you now want me to reveal the secret of our operation to her?”

  “Whether to believe her or not, I leave in your capable hands. I have the utmost confidence in your discernment.” Pasha narrowed his eyes. “Remember: the question is not whether she’ll risk life and freedom to protect us, but whether she’ll risk life and freedom to protect any Makers and smugglers of halia.”

  Aralia frowned. “You think she’s protecting someone—another pyer on the board, one we haven’t encountered yet.”

  “It’s one expnation,” he said, shrugging. “The point is, if she’s willing to do this, it’ll mean she’s willing to die under the same fg that the Damselfly flew, or close enough. Forget blind obedience—her loyalty would be far more valuable. Relying on her to py her part is still a deadly wager, but those are the only sort we have left anyway.”

  “And if she wavers? If she wants to run?”

  Pasha’s gaze was iron.

  Aralia sighed. “So. A test, then.”

  “A test,” agreed Pasha.

  Aralia opened her mouth, hesitated.

  Pasha grimaced. “Say it.”

  “What would Kalista say, mea canar? Dangling a choice like this before one of her own?”

  “Don’t you—” He stopped himself, jaw clenching. “We are her own!”

  Aralia shook her head, emphatic. “Perhaps we are, in some ways still, yes. Not in this way. Do you think she would let us force a haliati, one of the girls no less, to choose between handing herself over to the hygienists who have sworn to eradicate her, and a chance at survival?” She gave a short, mirthless ugh. “Then betray and dispose of her for choosing to protect her existence?”

  Pasha closed his eyes, throat tight. “Kalista would be stalking the woods and streams or haunting the rooftops of Drago, taking vengeance with her bow and her knife. But you, you chose a different path and I have undertaken to make it mine as well. We are in this together, Aralia. We are attempting to find and smuggle home our kin, some of whom Esca vouched as still living as of less than two years ago, while continuing their work in secret.” His eyes opened, then narrowed. “Don’t fail me now. Especially under the pretense of pulling some selfless, heroic horse manure like you did on that battlement the night Hellebore burned.”

  Aralia went to her chair and slumped into it, shoulders bowed. “Pasha…”

  “Remember, Kalista didn’t always make the right decisions, either.” His voice was low, and taut as a frayed steel cable. “Don’t you go and leave me, too.”

  And what else could she say to him, after that?

  ~ ~ ~

  ChaoticArmcandy