I take the longest, highest, least visible route across the city to our hideout. I’m starving, but Regiana has me spooked about overseers, and I can get food with Gaxna anyway. I want to see her more than anything. To get her help sorting through the theracants and my father’s letter.

  And just because I want to see her.

  She’s not there when I climb in, though. Probably off stealing something, or looking for runaways—she spends a fair amount of time doing this, and sending messages upstream with the ones she supports. Still, we’ve spent most of our days in training and thefts and slow evenings cooking food. Surely, she wasn’t just spending all that time alone before me? She must have other friends she would see. Maybe that’s where she is now.

  I feel a twinge of jealousy but ignore it, digging through her piles of crates to find something worth eating. I settle on some dried beans and spices.

  She’s still not there when the beans are done, moon rising low over the bay beyond the city. I eat them in silence, thinking about my dad, thinking about the theracants and their plan to fight Nerimes. I don’t like Miyara, I realize. Temerana is fine, and Regiana I like even though she’s tough as ox hooves, but Miyara just leaves me feeling slimy. Like Nerimes. Proof that no system is perfect, if people like those two can get to the top.

  The sun goes down, and I light a candle and another cloveleaf. I’m just starting to get worried when I hear feet on the roof, the scrape of someone climbing down the narrow handholds we chipped in the stone.

  She swings in.

  Only she’s a he.

  I start up. “Dashan?”

  “Theia,” he says, all smiles, like we’re running into each other in the temple kitchens.

  “What—what are you doing here? Where’s Gaxna?”

  I feel stupid as soon as I say it. How would he know where Gaxna is? He grimaces and I feel a sudden dread, then remember I can feel him like I do Yelin. Bloodread him. This is his dread.

  “She’s gone, Theia.”

  “What?”

  “The overseers took her.”

  The floor drops out under me. “What?” I grab my staff, the cloveleaf fog burned off in an instant. “Where? We need to go. To get her.”

  He holds up a palm. “Calm down, Theia. They took her to the temple. The pits. She’s been there for hours.”

  “The pits?” Floods. That’s where they keep murderers before execution. They’re dark and deep and guarded by overseers. “I have to go!”

  “Theia.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “There’s no getting her out of there.”

  Rage boils up, and I almost shove him out of the way, tell him there’s no keeping her in there. Then I ice it. I know it won’t serve me. I’ll save that for later. “What—how do you know this?”

  He makes a pained face. “He sent me. Nerimes.”

  “Nerimes sent you? What, are you working for him now?” Suspicion boils me in, even though I know it’s Dashan.

  “No! I’m working for the temple. But it was the only way to get out, to get to you. And I thought you’d want to know.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “I—can feel you, Tee.” He hasn’t called me Tee since second year. “I always know where you are. Especially since—the last time we met.”

  I nod, understanding. “You have it too.”

  “Have what?” I feel a surge of hope inside his chest and suddenly remember what happened on the warehouse roof. That he kissed me, right before he climbed down to lead the overseers off. That this whole time, maybe, he’s been sensing my feelings for Gaxna through the bond. Thinking they were for him. Floods.

  “Bloodsight. Remember when we sparred in fifth level? And you got angry and split my lip?”

  “What? I—you were the one who got angry! You broke my nose!”

  “Anyway, we traded blood. And that’s why we can feel each other. It’s bloodsight, Dashan.”

  “But—that’s impossible. I’m a man.”

  “And I’m a woman, remember? With watersight?”

  “Yeah but you’re special.” He shakes his head. “Or maybe we’re special. That’s why we can feel this.”

  He’s like a lost puppy, all love and hurt and vulnerability inside. It’s sweet, but not what I need right now, at all. I need to get my friend out of the pits. The suspicion comes back. “Did you lead them to Gaxna?”

  His emotions vanish—he must have seen me reading him, or felt it, and put his blind up. Maybe it’s better that way. Mine has never wavered. “No! I wouldn’t do that to your friend. They got another tip.”

  “But they sent you.” Suddenly I’m the one full of dread. “Gaxna. What did they do to her?” I grab his shoulders. “What did they do?”

  “Nothing! But they—they’re going to. Nerimes wanted me to say,” he swallows, “that you need to turn yourself in by the wedding, or they’ll kill her. I’m so sorry, Theia.”

  She’s alive. Thank Uje. But the relief only lasts a second. “Kill her? Why? For what?”

  “For attacking an overseer.”

  “What! But that was me!”

  He starts back. “That was you? But—how do you attack an overseer?”

  “I—he was in my way.”

  Dashan stares at me, like I’m suddenly a total stranger. “Floods, Theia, what happened to you? No acolyte could—”

  I shrug it off. “I got lucky. It doesn’t matter. Is he alive?”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Yes. For now.”

  Relief sags my shoulders, followed as quickly by frustration. Temple medics are never sure. Suddenly the whole thing is so stupid to me, how monks don’t use the theracants even though they’re by far the best healers, because they can’t risk the theracants getting their blood. And so people die, for flooding politics.

  I grit my teeth. “Anyways, it doesn’t matter. Nerimes doesn’t care who did it. He just needs a reason to pull me in.” I should feel sorry, but I just feel angry.

  Dashan cocks his head, thoughts and emotions still behind his blind. “You really care about her, don’t you?”

  “Damn right I do. She’s my friend, Dashan. I’d do the same for you, or anyone.”

  “And I would too,” he breathes. I’m feeling it from him again—that mad rush of energy, of love. Not from his blood, or water, or anything, but like through the air. Like I feel with Gaxna, but different somehow, more forceful, more directed.

  I ignore it. I have to. Gaxna already has my head spun enough, without letting Dashan in too.

  “We’ll get her out,” Dashan is saying.

  “How?” I frown, happy to talk about anything else. Anything but this dread I can’t seem to ice. “The pits are behind ten locked doors, and twice as many overseers.”

  Dashan shakes his head. “That’s what I came here to tell you—the loyalists. They’re ready to act. We can take the whole temple.”

  Hope surges in me like a riptide. “The ones inside the temple? They believe me now?”

  “Yes! They listened to what you showed me, on the rooftop. The proofs against the council. They agree now, Aletheia. They want Nerimes gone. And I think they’re ready to do something about it.”

  This is the best news all day. Maybe the only good news, actually.

  “I have even more proof, now,” I say. “The Theracant’s Guild—they admitted they were manipulated. That the whole threat Nerimes was talking about was a lie!”

  I can see the resolve on his face. He believes me. That means a lot. “What happened with Arayim?”

  “That’s—the one piece that doesn’t fit.”

  “What do you mean? Wasn’t he the connection between the criers playing up Stergjon’s heresy and the traditionalists? And the merchants getting floated.”

  “Yeah, well, he turned out to be a bloodborn.”

  He starts back. “Bloodborn? Like, from the witches?”

  “Yes. Although they denied it.”

  He frowns. “And you believed them?”

  “They let me read them, Dashan. The highest theracant there, like their version of the Chosen. She knows everything the rest of them know. And she had no idea who Arayim was.”

  “But how can that be?”

  My shoulders drop. “I don’t know. It doesn’t mean Arayim isn’t a tool of the traditionalists, or the Deul. I just don’t have proof for it.”

  He shakes his head. “How could a bloodborn be a tool of the temple?”

  “That’s what I was saying. Maybe a rogue theracant they bribed? There’s one in the city, at least, a woman who will stain eyes. But why would any theracant help the traditionalists get into power, when the traditionalists are the ones preaching against them?”

  He narrows his eyes. “Maybe they were trying to get someone else in. Someone they controlled, and it just didn’t work. The traditionalists got in instead.”

  That stops me. “You mean they played up the heresies and manipulated trade to get my father out, but instead of their replacement, Nerimes and the traditionalists swooped in.”

  “Yeah. That would explain the Seilam Deul too—say they made a deal with the witches and gave them the money for all those bribes. Then when it failed, instead of giving up, they managed to get one of theirs engaged to the Chosen.”

  “That would make sense, except Arayim is still out there, doing whatever he does. And I know what I read in Regiana. The theracants have no idea who he is.”

  “So you’re saying someone in the temple can make bloodborn?”

  I think of what my father wrote in the letter about Ujeism being wrong. Think about Yelin, the heart I can feel beating inside me even now.

  “I’m a woman who reads water. You have bloodsight, whether you believe it or not. Maybe someone in the traditionalists can push blood. Maybe it’s Nerimes—I told you he already has powers he shouldn’t, and my father mentioned that too. Either way, it’s a lot simpler explanation that the traditionalists are in league with the Deul to shut the theracants out than the idea that theracants were working with them, and their attempt failed, and then the Deul somehow managed to get Ieolat in there anyway.”

  He nods grudgingly. “That would explain the chests too.”

  “What chests?”

  “I saw Seilam Deul chests coming into the temple a few months ago. Not many, but you could tell they were heavy by the way the overseers carried them.”

  “Money,” I breathe. “Like they must have given them money before, for the bribes and merchants.”

  He nods. “Deul don’t pay brideprices, so it’s the only thing that would make sense. Arayim still doesn’t make much sense, though.”

  I flex my hands on the wooden spoon I’m still holding. “Maybe it’s not going to make sense, completely. What I know is all of this points back to the traditionalists, and they admitted to trying to kill me because I was in their way, like they did my dad. That plus everything I’ve found out here, I don’t think anyone could deny they sold us out to get into power.”

  Dashan blows out a breath. “I don’t know. Even if they believe it, the traditionalists still have more numbers. They will need more than my memories of your memories to change their minds.”

  “They could read it directly from me, if I could get in sometime when they’re all gathered.” I chew on my lip a moment. “The wedding! The temple will be there, right?”

  Dashan nods. “And a lot of the city, I think. They’re holding a big feast afterwards.”

  “Perfect. When is it?”

  “The day after tomorrow.”

  Two days. Enough time to make a plan and get the theracants behind it? For Dashan to ready the loyalists inside the temple?

  For Gaxna to stay alive?

  It will have to be. “Okay. I need you to get the loyalists ready. Show them these new proofs. I’ll show up at the wedding—”

  “How are you going to get in? They’re holding it around the Deepling Pool. You couldn’t get any further from the city than that, and there will be overseers everywhere.”

  I smile. “I’ve learned some things since I left the temple. But I’m going to need your help once I’m in. Even if Nerimes admits his guilt, or everyone sees it, he’s still going to fight. You need to get the loyalists ready for that.”

  “The temple… fighting the temple? Uje’s Eyes.” Dashan shakes his head. “But what about the overseers? They’re basically all traditionalists, because they’ve stayed out of all this. Even if we take the temple, they’ll retake it in a second.”

  “I have a plan for the overseers,” I say. If I can get the theracants to agree to it. “If we keep them out long enough to prove my case to the rest of the temple, the overseers will have to see the truth too.” If I hadn’t nearly killed the one that attacked me, maybe they would already be on my side. I ice the regret. Wishing won’t change the past. “Just get them ready.”

  “I will.” His wide face is so earnest, so loyal, that I can’t help feeling love for him too. Not like the intoxicating kind rolling off him, but love, nonetheless. Like for a brother, maybe.

  “Here,” I say, holding out my hands. He cocks his head but takes them. “My proofs,” I say, and drop my blind. Carefully think of only those moments when I learned new information, then slam the blind down again. If he saw me and Gaxna…

  His gaze only firms, so he must not have.

  “Thank you for helping me take them down, Dashan. I know there’s nothing in it for you, and you’re probably risking your elevation—”

  He shakes his head. “You’re in it. That’s all that I need. You—like I said, we’re connected. Somehow, I’ve felt everything you’ve been going through. I want to do something, to help you. Anything.”

  I take a deep breath; realize I’m shaking a little. “Thank you. You don’t know how much that means to me right now.”

  “No,” he shakes his head, grip tightening on my hands. I realize a second too late what he’s doing, and then he’s kissing me again, pulling my head into his. I freeze. Even though some part of it feels right it’s wrong, especially not now, not with Gaxna—

  I pull away. “I can’t, Dashan, I’m sorry. I—”

  “What? Why?” The pain on his face is more than I can look at.

  “I just—there’s too much going on right now. I just need to get through this.” How could I explain about Gaxna? It would break his heart.

  “Okay. I should go.” He turns, and I’m not sure it’s not to keep me from seeing tears. For once, I’m glad his blind is up, that I’m not reading anything in bloodsight. I want to hug him, to do anything to make this easier, but I know it would only make it worse.

  “Two days,” I say instead. “Just get the loyalists ready, and I’ll see you in two days.”

  They’re not the right words, but he nods and climbs out without looking back.

  I clench my fists in the darkness, not even sure what I feel. Angry at the life that made me get Gaxna locked up and hurt Dashan like this. Determined still to show everyone the truth, even as I start to wonder if my dad’s memory is worth it. But I know if I don’t, the council will keep ruining other lives, corrupting Serei, destroying the things my father stood for.

  I need to fight them. That doesn’t make it any easier.

  Somewhere in the night, Yelin is curled up and crying. I want to join her, but instead I light a candle and start making plans. There’s work to do.