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“You knew Geth was here too?”

“I investigated.” He looked at Midian and nodded in cool greeting. “Saa.”

The gnome’s eyes narrowed. His lips pressed tight together. Ashi could guess what he was thinking. “None of us would be here if we hadn’t left Midian on the roof with Makka,” she told Aruget. “He made a deal to save his life. You owe him an apology.”

“He didn’t have to make a deal.” His ears pressed back. “He could have given up his life to save three.”

“And you’d do that?” Midian asked.

“Mazo.” Aruget’s eyes stayed on Midian but he turned his face toward Ashi. “I told you he’d be able to care of himself, didn’t I?”

Ashi ground her teeth. “Apologize to—”

The door of the torture chamber opened. Ekhaas emerged first. Her red-brown face was drawn and her amber eyes haunted.

Geth and Tenquis followed, the tiefling leaning so heavily on the shifter that Geth might as well have been carrying him. Blood spattered Geth, matting the patchy, half-burned hair of his bare chest. Tenquis shook with every step as if his legs might give out under him. His dark face was ash-pale and carried a sheen of sweat. His golden eyes were dull and seemed to stare off into some private nightmare. Breath came in shudders. His clothes—shirt, leather pants, labyrinth-patterned vest—hung awkwardly on his body, as if someone else had dressed him. They were mostly clean, though. No blood soaked through to betray an injury. His face was bruised and scraped as if a coarse gag had been bound into his mouth, but that was all. Geth seemed to have suffered more. For a moment, Ashi wondered what had been done to him or if Ekhaas’s magic had somehow healed him of any wound.

Then she realized that where the tiefling’s long, sinuous tail should have been was only a thick, bandaged stump.

Geth’s mouth was set in a hard line. His gaze fell on Aruget. “He knows everything,” Ashi said quickly, but Geth didn’t seem to hear her. His eyes settled on Midian. He shifted Tenquis’s weight onto Ekhaas and went to the gnome, dropping to his knees in front of him. Midian had two vials of pale blue liquid ready in his hands—the healing potions he had mentioned, Ashi guessed—but Geth ignored them.

“I have to tell you something,” he said hoarsely. “And I’m sorry about it. On the night that Ekhaas, Dagii, and I went to see Tenquis, Chetiin found us.”

Ashi stiffened. “You’ve seen Chetiin?” She looked to Ekhaas, but the duur’kala was watching Geth and Midian, her ears flicking rapidly. Aruget’s hand grasped her arm, urging her to silence. Geth’s attention was entirely on Midian, whose eyes, in turn, were darting rapidly between each of them.

Geth continued without even a pause, as if he was determined to speak his piece before they left the dungeon. “He convinced us that you were actually the one behind Haruuc’s assassination”—Ashi couldn’t hold back a gasp, but Geth still didn’t stop—“and that it was a shaarat’khesh assassin you hired who pretended to be Chetiin. I thought I found evidence that confirmed it, but I was wrong.” He half-turned his head to speak over his shoulder. “Ekhaas, Chetiin lied to us. He was supposed to go with you and Dagii to fight the Valenar, but he stayed in Rhukaan Draal.” The shifter stood. He turned to look at all of them, fury twisting his face. “On the day of Tariic’s coronation, when I rushed up to my chambers, I caught him in the middle of stealing the true Rod of Kings. He betrayed us again!”

Midian’s eyes opened wide. Aruget stood frozen. Ashi’s stomach felt like it had turned over inside her. “So Chetiin has the Rod of Kings now?”

Geth bared his teeth and nodded. He might have added something, but Ekhaas spoke first. Her ears went back and she said, “Geth, Chetiin did fight with us.”

“He stole the rod! I saw him!”

“He was with us!” Ekhaas insisted. “He’s with me now—he’s standing guard outside the dungeon!”

“He’s here,” said the shaarat’khesh elder’s strained voice. All of them turned to follow it. Chetiin crouched at the foot of the stairs, a dagger in his hand,