And then there was the matter of Sethbert and the trial. The thought of the former Overseer rekindled a rage buried deep in Neb. Since the screaming wagon arrived, Neb had stopped dreaming about Winters and the reunion he longed for. Instead, he dreamed of killing Sethbert.

Isaak found him at the edge of town, watching the Androfrancines move about in their small city of tents. “Pope Petronus is calling for you.”

“How is he today?” He’d noticed the dark circles, and had even heard Petronus snap at one of the servants the day before. He had an edge about him that Neb hadn’t seen, even during the worst of their work in Windwir.

Isaak shrugged. “He is exhausted. He seems… weighed down.”

Neb nodded. He’d never asked Petronus why he’d left so many years ago, but he couldn’t imagine that coming back was something he’d wanted to do.

I forced him to it. No, he reminded himself, Sethbert’s act of violence had forced Petronus to it. More than that, it was the kind of man that Petronus was.

“We do what we must,” Petronus had told him those times Neb had brought it up. “You did what you had to do and so will I.”

Still, Neb regretted his part in it. He thanked Isaak and made his way back to the seventh “€o the seforest manor.

Petronus’s door was closed when he reached the office. He knocked at it, and a gruff voice answered.

When he saw the look on Petronus’s face, he froze.

He knows about the weapon, he thought. He’d wanted to do what he was told with it. He’d taken it and had gotten halfway to the blacksmith with his fire and hammer, intending to have it broken into pieces and melted down. But he’d ended up in the forest with it, running his hands over it, feeling the history of it. It was probably five hundred years old, rebuilt no doubt from Rufello’s Book of Specifications. It represented something-a part of the light, he supposed-and in the end, he could not bring himself to destroy it. In the end, he’d buried it in its oilcloth beneath the massive, mossy stump, marking the place with a few white rocks.

Neb opened his mouth to explain, but Petronus gestured to a chair and spoke first. “Sit down, Neb.”

Petronus was distracted, shuffling papers on his desk until he found a neatly folded and sealed note. “I wanted to talk with you before I gave you this.”

Neb looked at him, suddenly not so sure it was about the weapon. He saw deep grief on the man’s face, and his eyes were dark. “What is it, Petronus?”

When they were alone, he’d insisted that Neb call him by name, but now Petronus’s eyes hardened. “You will address me now as Excellency or Pope,” he said.

Neb felt his jaw go slack and his stomach lurch. “How may I serve you, Excellency?”

Petronus nodded slowly, closing his eyes. “Would you serve me, then, Nebios?”

Neb swallowed. Suddenly, he felt afraid and alone and uncertain. “You know that I would do anything for you, Father.” He wasn’t sure why he’d slipped into the older, more familiar term. Perhaps because he’d heard Isaak use the same. Or perhaps because over the last nine months, the man had played the role.

Petronus nodded again. “Very well then.” He handed the note over to him. “I am rescinding your status in the Order.”

Stunned, Neb took the note but did not open it. “If this is about-”

Petronus shook his head. “It is not about you.” Their eyes met. “The assignment in Windwir and your work here were only intended to be… temporary.”

Neb wasn’t sure what he felt. On the surface, shock. Below that, anger and despair and confusion. “I don’t understand. There is much work to be done still. I can-”

Petronus’s voice rose. “Enough,” he said. “You named me your Pope.” His eyes narrowed and he leaned forward. “Would you so easily challenge my authority?”

Neb swallowed and shook his head, fighting back the tears that suddenly threatened to ambush him.

Petronus looked away. “Your work has been exemplary, as my letter indicates.” Neb stared at him, watching the old man’s eyes go everywhere in their avoidance of his own. “You have become a fine young man and a strong leader.” He paused. “You will of course be permitted to attend the council and trial if you wish it.” But his eyes told Neb that he would rather he did not.

Petronus went back to shuffling the papers on his desk, and Neb sat in silence, staring at the folded note in his hands. He wanted to tear it into pieces and throw it back at the old man, shouting at the top of his lungs that he would not be discarded so easily. He wanted to cry and run to the old man’s side and beg him to tell him what this was truly about, because he could see plainly that something dark-something terribly dark-worked at the soul of the man he credited with saving him from the madness of those early days after the Desolation.

No, he realized. Petronus did not save him. Hope did.

The old man continued shuffling through his papers, not speaking.

Because there are no other words left between us, Neb realized.

Finally, he stood and left the office, fleeing the manor for the forest. As his feet slapped at the grass and pine needles, Neb suddenly realized that once again his dreams were true.

“You will stand and proclaim him Pope and King in the Gardens of Coronation and Consecration,” Brother Hebda had told him in that first dream of many. “And he will break your heart.”

Brokenhearted, Neb sobbed in the forest of a place that no longer felt like home.

Vlad Li Tam could not abide wool during the summer, and he wondered how it was that anyone else did. The archeologist’s robes were rough on his skin, particularly after three days in the saddle.

The iron ship had dropped him with his horse and his small entourage on an isolated portion of the coastline near Caldus Bay. He’d sent the remainder of his armada ahead, intending to catch up to them near the Whispering Isles at the edge of the Named Lands.

He’d intended to be done. He’d planned to send his children for this last bit of the work, but in the end he couldn’t, despite Rudolfo’s threat. Years of personally delivering his most important messages would not be denied, and finally, at the end of things, he’d come to the Ninefold Forest for the first time since that night long ago to meet with his seventh son and hear his final words.

The Gypsy Scouts had questioned them briefly about where they’d come from. An Androfrancine at a small table, shielded from the sun by a small canopy, recorded their names and positions within the Order. After the brief interview, he directed them to the field of tents outside town.

They added their own tents to that small canvass city, and while his sons put them up, he wandered among the dark robed men, watching and listening for any scrap or tidbit that might help him.

Eventually, he left the Androfrancine sector and wandered across the wide, low bridge into the town itself. He joined himself with others dressed like him, moving strategically through the parts of the town he would need to visit. Finally, he came to Tormentor’s Row and the low stone buildings that served as the Ninefold Forest’s prison-the one place he knew he would not be able to reach personally and where his coffers were not deep enough to purchase influence. He paused, listening for screams but hearing none. Of course, by now Sethbert would be in a cell. He expected Petronus would have insisted upon that, not wanting to legitimize that particular Whymer interpretation, with its cutting and peeling in the name of redemption.

Those guards would be above reproach, but the cooks would not be. And the message would be easy enough to send through them. A long strand of hair-Sethbert’s sister’s, in fact-tied to the foot of the game hen he would take for his final meal. The hen would be served whole just as Sethbert preferred. And another strand of hair-this one shorter and taken from his nephew Erlund, tied carefully around the small bird’s bill. More threats at the end of a string of threats.