She can tell he's angry by the way he stands, straight and stiff-limbed. He carries his anger in his shoulders, which tense and bunch in disapproval beneath all that metal.

"This is stupid," Caj says the moment they are alone.

"It's a calculated risk," she answers. "Let them call me callous now, when I open my home to children, rich or poor. Let them say I am sitting in comfortable luxury and watching them die."

"There are better ways."

"Are there?" she challenges, turning to him with a brow raised. "Who is going to attack us now that we are protecting children? Who is going to wash that blood off their hands?"

"It's not an outside attack I worry about," he answers, glowering out toward the darkened city.

"What? Are you afraid of the children?" She turns, walking toward the tea set, pouring herself some water. She would pour him a glass as well, but he will refuse it. She foisted one on him once and he had held it warily, mistrustful of the delicate china, the fragile expense.

"I don't rule it out."

She throws him a look but his sullen expression does not change.

"Hin hinted she'd like for you to come out on another raid," she says after a pause. "You don't have to, of course, but—"

"It's fine."

Fae sets the cup down on the marble table, walking over to him. She's still in her receiving attire and her skirts slide across the threaded carpet, brushing the feet of chairs and slipping around the wooden legs of the tables.

"I mean it," she says, quieter now that they are closer. "You don't have to."

In her near proximity, Caj's eyes meet hers, lingering for a moment.

"I'll go," he answers, "as long as there's someone here with you."

I am not defenseless, are the words she bites back, holding them in with salt and the bitter grit of teeth. But neither is she undefeatable, and now is not the time for pride.

"Keno should be in," she says instead, chin tilting toward the latched window. The Smith Skiller's face darkens at the thief's name, a twist of thunderclouds, but he nods. Now is not the time for pride.

The third time Fae must remind herself this is when Solveig's representative arrives to the tower. With the sunlight glinting off the long, golden hair Fae knows this woman, knows that she was particularly picked.

Feuilles, she thinks, remembering the thin-faced, pristine man. She saw him at a distance in Quersido, at the ball for the Paragon, though her memories of that night are a haze of sleep deprivation and deep hunger. He had stood aside as Hai Sofo had wheezed and droned over her, watching with cool calculation. She imagines he does the same now when he glances toward her horizon.

Kali executes a sharp bow, moving in every way that decorum would dictate, and when she raises her carved, beautiful face she holds it high, as if she is the queen.

"Kali," Fae calls, eschewing the pomp and titles. "What a pleasant surprise."

Fae watches as the woman's nostrils flare, her upper lip curling with it.

"Your Grace," she returns and Fae waves a hand in dismissal of the term.

She stands, stepping off her throne and down the steps toward the Nature-caller, hearing the clink of metal footsteps follow behind her.

"It's nice to see a familiar face," Fae says, stopping beside the woman and gesturing toward the door, leading as they move outside of the throne room. "I'm sure Caj feels the same way."

She glances back and watches as the pair's eyes meet.

They were partners in the Gauntlet, Fae remembers as Caj nods curtly and Kali turns, placing her back to the man.

"The High King sends me with an answer to your message," she tells Fae.

"I am glad to hear he received mine."

"The High King cannot foresee an opportunity to send any more supplies than what was currently agreed upon," she pushes on. "Nor does he see any way to send more troops."

"That is... unfortunate," Fae answers and the trio stops in the courtyard, a dash of quiet green amongst all the gray stone and steel. "I had hoped His Grace would be a little more generous."

Kali smiles. "We have our own borders to protect."

"Borders which don't have Jarles at them because of my kingdom," Fae throws back. "If Keesark falls, what will stand in the way of Abadi Chaudri?"

"Halften and Roften," Kali replies. "We have many friends, Your Grace, as do you. Perhaps you should try them instead."

We already have, you prat, Fae seethes. But their troops and resources are on the front line too. She can hear Caj shift behind her, hear the small tap of a metal fingertip.

Kali spreads her hands out, the deep emerald of her armguards glittering in the sunlight.

"There's not much else I can do," she says, though she sounds far from sorry about it. "The High King says you will have to," and here her eyes flicker down Fae's simple dress, and then up to the dark crown perched across her brow, "find a way on your own."

It's only when the Nature-caller is walking away, hair glimmering, and Fae's fingers are clenched in shaking fists that she feels the cold hand on her shoulder, solid and steady.

He comes to say goodbye before he heads out that night, the flat, black, and glinting helmet tucked between his arm and side. She wonders how he can see out of it.

"I'm as blind as a fucking bat in this thing," Hiran said a long time ago, peering out from another helmet inside of a place whose horrors they had not yet begun to understand. "With this line of visibility it's a miracle any of these morons can hit a cow broadside—"

Now he's somewhere, doing something he can't put in paper, and Fae is here.

"We're going to the Eastside," Caj says, and Fae pulls herself back to the present, back to the one friend left to her, whose warm hands are covered in cold steel. "Hin was tipped that the Cabal have facilities there."

She nods, fingers reaching out to wipe a smudge off his breastplate.

Not that it matters. It will be covered in blood and muck soon enough.

This is not what she wanted.

But she doesn't say this, she only looks up, her eyes meeting his.

"Be careful," she asks.

A little later, when the purple skies have faded into starlight, her latched window opens and someone slides inside.

"You know, a bird told me that you mean to take in a bunch of dirt-caked, weaselly brats," are the words Keno greets her with, and he says them lightly, as if they are talking about rain, not housing homeless, terrified children. "I like the little nose-pickers, but that's a terrible idea."

"Do you have news for me, or is your plan to just stand there and give useless advice?" she snaps from her desk, a finger crooking to keep her place in the long pile of papers.

"I can see your dark shadow has been a positive influence on you today," he answers, leaning lightly against the corner of her desk, a finger picking through her reports. "Where has the black cloud gotten to? I would have thought he'd be in here, protecting your virtue."

"He's on a raid," Fae answers. "Keeping order. Cracking a few skulls."

"He's a man of many talents, but then again, so am I," and with this the thief produces a small key, placing it between her loosely held thumb and finger. "I think if a trusted servant wanders down to the back gate he'll find a decently sized box with a lock. Inside he might find a somewhat irate, mostly drugged pirate using a variety of four-lettered curse words to match his four-lettered name."

Fae grips the key, reaching over and pulling a bell pull. At this, the thief gets up, slipping behind a hidden panel in the wall as the door opens and Helen walks in. Fae holds out the key.

"Go downstairs with a pair of guards," she commands. "At the back door is a prisoner in a box. Bring him down to the cells and put him in one. Nothing too nice."

She watches as the woman disappears into the corridor's gloom, vanishing like smoke in the darkness.

If only I could do that. If only I could just evaporate and... "Find my own way."

She glances out of the window, out toward the dim glow of firelight, razing somewhere out there. All of her friends are out there, doing something, and she is in here, sitting at a desk, watching. Again.

"What about the other one?" she asks when she hears the creak of the wood panel.

"I had planned on nabbing our friendly local weapons seller this evening, but with you alone..."

She turns.

"Is he close?"

"Fairly, but—"

She stands.

"Let's go."

A/N: Impulsive choices are always the best choices.

And yet another old friend reappears bringing news from an even more charming one. Oh, Kali....

Literally no one missed you.

Chapter notes: Kali appears starting in Partisan's "Wolves Amongst the Sheep" chapter, High King Feuilles sees Fae at the party in "We, The Dark Mirrors," and Hiran compliments Jarles helmet design in "The Flesh That Shivers."