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Back in Ghenna's chamber Lift gets her lead: yes, two weeks ago the braided woman Lift described hired a team — Bidlel's team, room two-three-two — for an undisclosed project. The Tashikki take client confidentiality very seriously, Ghenna sighs, *barring imperial mandate.* Lift hugs her, thanks her four times in one breath, and is gone before the woman can finish her warning about the storm.

Wyndle memorises the room number — *good, 'cuz I don't got that many toes* — and leads her up two storeys, into a half-empty corridor floored with painted wood she doesn't trust to hold her weight. The Indicium is emptying around them. Half an hour since the diktat and most of the staff have already locked up and filed out. The poor are streaming to bunkers. The parshmen, per the prince's orders, are being gathered and turned out into the coming storm. Lift thinks it cruel and complains aloud; nobody listens, and Wyndle gently reminds her that parshmen *might be turning into Voidbringers.* He would know.

She is counting room numbers with him when she hears voices and pulls back into a side corridor. Darkness's two apprentices stride past in their stiff black-and-silver uniforms, arguing about a Yezier informant — *people here are too coy*, the man snaps; *isn't it his job?* — and don't glance her way. A few seconds later a quieter figure follows them. White tatters, head bowed, the long silver-sheathed sword resting along his shoulder, a faint white afterimage trailing him. *I do not know, sword-nimi,* he murmurs into the empty hallway. *I don't trust my own mind any longer.* He pauses as if listening. *That is not comforting, sword-nimi. No, it is not.* Wyndle curls up against Lift and confesses he nearly *expired of fright*: when the assassin stopped in the hall, he was sure they'd been seen.

The three reach Bidlel's door. One of the apprentices produces a key — they have legal authority for the search; so, in her ridiculous way, does Lift — and the two of them go in. The assassin sits down cross-legged on the floor opposite the doorway, sword across his lap, and waits.

Lift needs to know what's said in that room and cannot possibly get past him. Wyndle, small-voiced, says he'll do it. He doesn't *think* the apprentices' spren will see him; he isn't sure. Can a cultivationspren be killed? *Destroyed*, he says. Yes. Not the same as for a human, but he has seen spren who — and trails off, whimpering. *Maybe it is too dangerous.* *Maybe,* she agrees. *I'm going anyway,* he whispers. She tells him to listen, memorise, and scream loud as he can if anything goes wrong. He repeats the instructions to himself — *listen and scream, I can listen and scream, I'm good at these things* — takes a breath he does not need, and shoots out into the corridor, growing along the corner of wall and floor with tiny offshoots spreading over the carpet. The assassin does not look up.

Lift waits, which she hates. She has built a life around not having to wait for anyone or anything — and yet, she thinks, if everyone were like her then nobody would plant the fields or guard the streets, and the whole heap would fall over and starve. *You knew that, even when you went and asked not to get older.* Being young is an excuse. A plausible justification. She thinks of her mother — warm, kindly, ready to take care of everyone — who shouldn't have had to die, who deserved someone half as wonderful as she was to look after her at the end. Someone other than Lift: selfish, stupid, lonely.

Wyndle reappears at a frantic pace, trailing a wake of crumbling vine. The two apprentices step out of the room a moment later, then walk past. Lift crouches in the shadow against the floor and does not move. The assassin passes after them, and stops. He turns his head toward her. *Don't become awesome.* If she lights up in these shadows he will see her for certain. He flicks something glowing from his belt — a sphere — and it rolls across the hall, throwing light onto the fearspren boiling around her, and onto her own face. He sees her. He cracks the silver sheath open a finger's width. Black smoke pours from the blade and pools at his feet, and a sudden terrible nausea climbs into her stomach. He looks her over — strange too-large eyes — snaps the sword closed, and walks on without a word, following the others into the stairwell on silent feet while their boots clomp far ahead of him.

Lift flops back against the carpet. *Storms.* *Storming Mother of the World and Father of Storms above.* She mops sweat off her brow. Wyndle excitedly asks if she heard him *not-whimpering* — no, she didn't, because he was too frightened to make a sound. Did he at least catch what the Skybreakers decided? *Oh!* he says, as if it had completely slipped his mind. They had a whole survey done; they were going through it; they know who the person is and they're heading there *right now*, to perform the execution. He pokes her with a vine. *So… maybe we should follow?* *Yeah, okay,* she says. *Shouldn't be too hard, right?*