Laell, free of her bindings and the blindfold they must have put on her after trapping her in a separate room, shook slightly as she inspected the stick with runes on it. Two of Moulu’s men stood right behind her, hands on the hilt of their weapons. Of course, Camaz’s request had been granted with heavy caveats. It was obvious that if either of them did anything suspicious, they would be eliminated immediately.

In stark contrast, Camaz lounged on the chair they provided and gently tapped a finger on the brim of the chipped cup of tepid tea they had provided him. Moulu was the type to just drink out of a muddy puddle if he was thirsty, so Camaz should be grateful he even had this.

“You’ll make my lovely student faint if you keep glaring at her like that,” he said to the imposing men crowded in the room with them. “Then we won’t get anywhere.”

“If your student faints, we’ll run a sword through her,'' one of the men standing behind Laell rumbled. “So best she keeps her eyes open.”

Laell paled even more. Camaz rolled his eyes and took another drink of tea. “I don’t even see what the big deal is. It’s not like any of us can do anything to you, as you have all thoroughly proven. If you kill her it will make it about twenty times more difficult to find Aris.”

He watched Laell’s lower lip quiver as the poor thing tried not to cry. Camaz fought the urge to shake her by the shoulders. It was fine for her to be scared as long as she was still functional.

“My dear, it seems like our lives are in your hands,” he said casually to her. “Can you find a way to trace those runes to the runist? I am fairly certain Aris drew them. Judging from the thoroughness and spacing, escape was clearly not on her mind.”

Laell’s eyes met his briefly. For a heartbeat he was afraid that the other men would have picked it up but her eyes returned to the stick in her hands and nobody reacted. “I agree w-with that assessment,” she said, voice shaky. The shy runist never responded with such dry, formal language and usually just nodded mutely. It seemed she had picked up his odd phrasing and understood what he was trying to say: ‘escape’ was the key word.

She turned the stick around and studied the runes more intently. It was really not an advanced spell - even with Camaz’s limited rune knowledge he knew it was a simple ward against pests - but Laell was studying it like a complex, unknown enchantment. Clearly, she was buying time. Camaz glanced over at Moulu who was carefully watching both of them, giving the spy a smile and a shrug as if to say ‘what can you do?’ about Laell’s lack of progress.

“If you try to pull anything, all four of your students are dead,” Moulu said.

“We both want to find Aris. Isn’t that obvious?”

“I’m not about to believe you’ll just hand her over, especially if you know I’ll kill her.”

“Hand her over?” Camaz arched both eyebrows and flashed Moulu another smile. “If you have a method to catch and slice through shadows, I would like to hear it.”

Moulu’s eyes glittered. “You’re betting that Aris can escape us.”

“That is if she’s still alive,” Camaz said. “Although you sound terribly convinced that she still is, even after all this.” He gestured towards the doorway to the hall where some of the blood was visible from where they sat.

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“We have on good authority that she still lives,” Moulu said. Camaz didn’t sense the wave of desperation he usually felt when men were lying to themselves about something.

“The Kuvans wanted her and her family dead. Don’t tell me you’ve downgraded from the emperor to a religious fanatic of a ruler - well, a different religious fanatic from Sekrelli.”

“Perhaps I’ve grown bored of the emperor.” Moulu shrugged. “Perhaps I’ve gone back to our home kingdom for all you know. I grow nostalgic often, especially seeing you.”

Camaz let out a bark of laughter. “None of these fuckers here are willing to admit they take orders from you,” he said, pointing at the grim-faced men standing on guard. “I’m supposed to believe they’re from our home? If that was true, friend, you’ve lost your touch.”

That intense look returned to Moulu’s eye. It made the hairs on the back of Camaz’s neck stand on end. He’s made Moulu angry before with insults and Camaz had never seen that look in his eyes. No, this wasn’t anger. Anger was something Camaz could deal with, something he was familiar with, something he could use. Whatever Moulu felt right now was something that simply unnerved him.

“It’s fair to not tell me who you work for,” Camaz said softly. “But at the very least tell me why Aris has to die. At least give me that. She was my student.”

Moulu stood up suddenly, his movements agitated. Laell almost dropped the stick in shock, but then quickly ignored the commotion to return to work. “I grow tired of your weedling,” Moulu said. “Aren’t you ever sick of it? This spy game you think is so great?”

“Is it ‘weedling’ to be concerned about my ward?”

“Oh, right, you grew a heart after you had the title of Professor slapped before your name. I forgot,” Moulu said sarcastically. He was now pacing. For a long time, he was just pacing with the strange look on his face. Then finally he stopped. “Tell me, old friend, when was the last time you found meaning in what you do?”

“We are both much too old to have doubts about our career path,” Camaz said.

“We were both forced onto this path. We never doubted.”

“Do you mean forced by our old mentor? Or by circumstances?”

“I mean by divinity,” Moulu said, finally stopping his pacing to stare at him. Camaz returned the stare.

“You sound like a member of the Kuvanian chantry,” he said. “What in Part’s name has happened to you?”

“You say all these things to get a reaction, I understand,” Moulu continued. “Perhaps not long ago I would be offended that Sekrellis wouldn’t obey me or that you think of me as a Kuvan priest. But now I know none of that matters. Nothing matters but my work.”

“You’ve become enlightened?” Camaz said incredulously.

“There is a reason for all this now, Cam,” Moulu said. The old nickname stung. It spoke of an earnsty he thought both of them had lost somewhere along the way to adulthood. “And it doesn’t matter what you think or anyone else thinks. That's why I have to do this.”

“You’re finally finding meaning in your work?” Camaz said dully. “As in you find meaning in murdering a child and crippling a young man who has a brilliant future ahead of him?”

“It’s bigger than Aris or your students. It’s bigger than me or you, it’s even bigger than the damned Emperor himself,” Moulu said fervently. “Don’t you see? We are playthings for the gods, Cam.”

Camaz could finally place it, that look. It was a gaze of deep, unquestionable and fervent devotion and it looked a lot like madness. “Mo, if you’re done with spy games,” Camaz said. “Then tell me why Aris has to die.”

“She is the obstacle to the Final Solution,” Moulu said. His eyes unfocused slightly and sweat broke out on his temples. “And our god won’t tolerate her existence.”