I’ve work to do.

Karris stood up abruptly and headed to the lift. She took it down two floors, then snapped her fingers as if she’d forgotten something, and went up five floors. Of course, if she were being followed by a rotating team it was a worthless gesture—but one can’t plan for everything.

Don’t overestimate your enemies’ capabilities, the White had told her. Assume they’re as prone to mistakes as our people are. Every time Karris delegated a task, she had fresh appreciation for the second half of that statement. Like when a maid had dropped a cipher out of her basket of laundry onto the floor. It had turned up—with the seal apparently unbroken—in the found items basket on the main floor.

Given the sensitivity of the thing, though, the cipher had to be abandoned, and every spy or spy handler in the network contacted personally to be given the new one. And of course, Karris now had to remember that particular maid was either inept, unlucky, or suborned. The sheer amount of information Karris had to keep in her mind was ludicrous—and it was all far too sensitive to write down.

Two meetings this afternoon, and then one this evening with her most important handler: her hairdresser. His job not only gave him a perfect excuse to meet with Karris for long periods of time; it gave him cover to debrief the often nobly born spies he handled at length and put him directly in the gossip circuit. The sums the man demanded, however, were mind-boggling. All of his tastes were expensive. Sometimes Karris still had trouble with that.

I’m too cheap for this work. My roots do need some touching up, though. Is that more gray hair coming in? Black, this time, I think.

Easy meeting first today. A new contact, who couldn’t be allowed to know that Karris was Karris: the slave turned Blackguard Teia. Karris had trained some with Teia. She liked the girl, and saw her as a younger version of herself—albeit one who was a slave and hadn’t made all the mistakes Karris had made.

Yes, other than that—and the color-blindness and her paryl drafting and that she didn’t start a war that devastated the Seven Satrapies—we could be twins.

Still, she liked the girl. But Teia was sixteen years old. Too young for the burdens they’d already put on her shoulders. Karris knew what that was like. Too young to be trusted with more than they had to trust her with. Teia was working with people who wouldn’t hesitate to torture her to get the identity of her handler out of her. Best she didn’t know, even if Karris longed to mentor the girl.

And what’s that about? Am I feeling maternal?

Or is it lonely?

She ducked into the empty apartment she kept on this floor for this purpose. Locked the door behind herself. The room was divided by heavy curtains so she could question and debrief her spies without being seen. The curtains hid chairs so Karris at least could be comfortable, and slits for her to look through. Precautions, precautions, and all of them for naught if the wrong person came walking down the hall at the wrong time.

Speaking of precautions, as Karris took up her place, she picked up the mail cowl and aventail and pulled it on, draping it over her head and chest and hooking the cowl shut so only her eyes were exposed. Ridiculous, but Teia was a smart girl, curious. She wouldn’t be able to help but look for her handler’s identity with paryl. It was a little unnerving that the girl could see through cloth.

Not as unnerving as her other abilities, Karris supposed.

A quick triple knock, and then the door opened just as Karris finished putting on the choker.

“Come in, sit, that side. No drafting,” she said, her voice lowered to an odd tenor.

Teia’s body was tight as lute string, ready to attack. The heightened awareness was a good response to fear for a Blackguard, but tightness made your body slow. “I was told to report?” It was actually her code phrase. Good, the girl could follow instructions, even when afraid.

“And report you shall, little flower.” That was the answer phrase. “Now sit.”

“I hate flowers,” Teia said. “Did you know that? My other handler did. And what’s going on, anyway? I mean, I understand that the White can’t meet with me personally, but two handlers in a couple months?”

Karris’s breath caught. There were other handlers?

For a moment, she was glad of the mail cowl covering her face.

“You know, I’m sure you have good reasons for hiding your identity from me,” Teia said, “and I’m doing my best not to look right through this curtain, though I could.” Good, so she hadn’t actually tried. If she had, she’d have seen the mail. “But there are dangers to hiding who you are from me, too. If someone found our code phrases, they could replace you, and I’d never know.”

“You’re infiltrating a group that would happily torture you to find out my identity. Do you want the burden of keeping that secret?”

“I can handle it,” Teia said.

Ah, the bravado of youth. Karris missed it, sometimes. It was a good attribute in a Blackguard, believing nothing was impossible for you. But it was also why Blackguards had officers, and why those officers answered ultimately to those who were not Blackguards.

“In time, perhaps,” Karris said. “You are already carrying so many burdens, and so admirably. Speaking of which, tell me the latest.” Karris had received a brief, coded report of Teia’s assignments—all written on flash paper, with luxin igniters woven in, either to burn when tampered with or when she’d finished reading them. The report, like others, had simply appeared on her desk in her chambers.

Through the slits in the curtain, she saw Teia hunch forward in her seat, propping elbows on knees. “The Order tested me. I don’t even really know how. They say I’m a lightsplitter. I mean, I passed. They said they would have killed me if I hadn’t.”

“Tell me everything.”

Teia told her everything, and Karris did her best—using the mnemonic tricks the White had taught her—to memorize every word. Karris thought she could see the outlines of how the lightsplitter test must have worked, and was surprised that Teia didn’t. Then again, Teia’s mind had been occupied by other things, not least being forced to strip almost naked in front of terrifying, masked, leering assholes.

When she thought of it that way, Karris was surprised Teia had done as well as she had. If she were honest with herself, Karris didn’t know if she would have done as well herself.

“Did you know your last handler’s identity?” Karris asked.

“I already told you I did.”

“Who was it, then?”

Teia’s head cocked. “You don’t know?”

“Do you have any reason not to tell me?”

“Pardon me if it seems strange that you wouldn’t know. If you don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t—”

“Your place is to obey orders,” Karris snapped. “You’re under my command now.”

“Spoken like someone who’s served in an army,” Teia said. She obviously couldn’t help but try to figure out who Karris was. “But things in this field are a little less clear.”

Dammit, girl. I hope we don’t get you killed. You’re a natural at this.

And Karris couldn’t let someone she was handling think she was inept. If your agent doesn’t trust you, and you have to give them an order that doesn’t make sense with their limited perspective, they might not obey it.