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you may wait inside. He’ll be there shortly.”
    Amaranthe entered and closed the door behind her. The office remained the same, though without Hollowcrest’s cool presence, it felt less imposing.
    She inched forward. Maybe she had time to snoop.
    On the desk, next to Sicarius’s dagger, a fat book hung precariously over the edge, one inadvertent nudge from landing in the trash can.
Leave it be. It’s snooping time, not desk-tidying time.
Amaranthe stared at the crooked tome for a few heartbeats before disobeying her inner voice.
    She crossed the room and straightened the book so its edges precisely lined up with the edges of the desk. She noticed a piece of paper tucked—hidden?—between the pages. After a moment of hesitation, she stuck her thumb into the book to mark the spot and plucked the unattached sheet free.
    Hollowcrest
, it read,
you said the emperor was under your control. Your puppet hasn’t made any of the changes we—
    A thump sounded behind the wall to Amaranthe’s right. She jumped back from the desk. A vertical crack appeared—a hidden door. She stuffed the note into her pocket.
    Hollowcrest emerged from the passage.
    Don’t notice the book, don’t notice the book….
    His glare never left her face as he moved around the desk to sit. Hostility gleamed in those eyes. That verified Sicarius’s supposition more thoroughly than any words could.
No, sir, you didn’t expect me to succeed, did you?
    “Corporal Lokdon, it’s good that you’ve returned unharmed. And so soon. Remarkable results.” His smile was as icy as the frost gathered on the panes of the window behind his desk.
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “This is indeed Sicarius’s dagger.” Hollowcrest ticked a fingernail against the dark metal. A conflagration of emotions swarmed across his face; in the mix, she thought she detected both anger and regret, neither of which seemed right. The cold facade returned quickly, masking further emotion. Much like Sicarius, she mused, except the assassin did it better.
    “Yes, sir.”
    “How did you manage to kill him?”
    “Actually, sir, I’d like to start with a question of my own.” Tension coursed through her body, and she felt like a trap poised to spring. She had never questioned a superior officer. It was not done. “Why did you send me to die?”
    “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “Sicarius is a professional at a deadly game I’ve little experience in. He appears out of the dark and moves across snow without making a sound. If he’s interested at all in women, I doubt he’d let it interfere with business. I no longer believe you expected me to defeat him.”
    “Obviously, you did. The details, please.”
    Amaranthe considered that cool face. Hollowcrest was not going to give anything away, and he certainly wasn’t going to answer her questions. She would be hauled off to a dungeon—or the gallows—never knowing why. Her only hope was to try and surprise him, startle the answers out of him.
    “Sicarius isn’t dead,” she said. “He gave me the knife. We reached an agreement.”
    “No!” Hollowcrest surged to his feet, upending his chair.
    Amaranthe reacted without thinking. She grabbed the dagger from his desk and held it defensively before her.
    “You conniving bitch,” Hollowcrest growled. “I don’t believe you seduced him too.”
    What?
How had he come up with that? Her mind caught up to her surprise, and she asked the more pertinent question: “Too?”
    Hollowcrest seemed to notice the dagger in her hand for the first time. Amaranthe lowered it but made no move to return it.
    “What do you mean, ‘too’?” she asked. “You can’t possibly be talking about…”
    “Sespian.” Hollowcrest never took his eyes from the dagger, though calculation, not concern, showed on his face.
    “How could I have seduced him? I haven’t—”
    “Spare me your meager denials. He came back the day he met you, gushing about a fabulous enforcer woman. How competent and