SIXTEEN
Angharad
Hara woke to Gideon’s mouth on her breasts, gently brushing his lips on the sides and clasping his hot mouth over her nipples. He tugged and sucked and lightly bit at her, teasing until she grew so wet that she pulled him on top of her to ease the ache between her hips. It was quick and eager and silent, and Gideon’s eyes never left hers as they clung to each other.
When they entered the steaming bath, Gideon made her come again with his fingers.
“I can’t keep my hands off you,”
he said against her mouth. He had her crowded against the edge of the massive tub, his fingers making burning circles under the water and keeping her breaths from settling.
“How am I going to behave when we have to leave this room?”
“Remember the days I spent changing your soiled linens?”
said Hara, admiring the way the water droplets clung to his chest and shoulders.
His hair stuck out every which way from a night of her grasping fingers, and Hara liked the way it looked. She was slightly disappointed when he dipped his head under the water, but her mood brightened when she thought about mussing it again later.
Her chest from the palace had been brought up from the carriage, and she selected a white fur-lined gown. Of little surprise to Hara, her room happened to be right next to Gideon’s bedchamber.
“Leave it to my mother,”
he muttered as he returned to her room, buttoning his shirt cuffs. A housemaid had just delivered a breakfast spread of porridge and fruit, and Hara was helping herself.
Gideon poured a steaming cup of tea and added sugar. He brought it to his lips and took a long sip. Eventually, he said.
“Have you looked yet?”
Hara knew exactly what he meant.
“No. You’ve kept me rather occupied since the ball.”
“Sorry,”
said Gideon with a wicked grin over the lip of his cup.
Hara took a steadying breath and let the past engulf her, feeling for the man she had met last night. She caught hold of a string of memories that grew clearer as she pulled, reinforced by her contact with his closest friend, and she began to siphon through them slowly.
Hands caked with gray and clothes stinking of gunpowder.
A well-dressed gentleman strolling by his workstation.
Buying a large dinner at a pub and eating and drinking until he was sick.
Dynamite and cannons blasting apart a rocky outcrop, men cheering.
A king with long black hair, a look of disgust on his lined face.
Showers of sparks, the deafening sound of rock shattering and the ground beneath his feet trembling.
A tall, rangy man wearing black Recruiter robes walking ahead on a mountain path, prisoners in long robes following.
The M-shaped silhouette of the mountain’s peak caught her attention. It looked like the mountain from Turnswallow’s strange memory. Hara lingered on this scene, watching for what seemed like hours. She followed them up the mountainside until snow frosted the ground and the sun was setting directly in front of them.
To the right, a giant river of ice cascaded onto the rocky plain. Hara followed the prisoners as they climbed it, making their way to an enormous dark hole on the surface of the glacier.
The sight of it made Hara feel nauseous with fear. It was so wide and cavernous that the people looked like insects as they stood at the lip of the crater. Water trickled over the edges, streaking the walls with grooves. In the deep shadows at the bottom, something gray and crystalline glimmered. One by one, the prisoners were unshackled by the unknown Recruiter.
And then they were pushed inside.
Hara surfaced from the vision, drenched in cold sweat. She had never spent so long in a person’s past, and had no idea how much time had gone by. The light outside her windows was the dull orange of dusk, and she looked about the room. Gideon dozed before the fire, an open book in his lap.
Her stomach growled. A half-cold portion of roast pheasant sat on a table nearby, and she went to it and tore into the meat with ravenous hunger. Gideon started, and then he rose from his chair and went to her.
“Well? Do you know where it is?”
“It’s in a glacier cave,”
Hara said.
“Are there any glaciers that you know of?”
Gideon nodded fervently.
“There is a glacier on the eastern face of Mount Herebore. It all fits.”
“If we climb the mountain, we will find a deep pit in the glacier. There is something inside the cave—I couldn’t get a good look at it, but it seemed to shimmer. I think it . . . it might be a deposit of sorbite.”
Gideon’s brow furrowed.
“But I don’t understand. Is the prison built within the cave?”
Hara shook her head.
“I think the prison is the sorbite itself. The piece I saw was massive.”
“Shit,”
said Gideon, collapsing onto the window seat.
“There could be an untold amount of people in there. I do not imagine the spirit realm is limited in size.”
“Now that we know where it is, we still have a problem,”
said Hara.
“We aren’t certain if my mother is there. I haven’t found a record of her anywhere. For all we know, she was killed.”
“There is one place we haven’t looked,”
said Gideon, but he looked uneasy.
“My father’s study. The place I brought you when we first arrived. He was the one who formed the Recruiter group all those years ago, so it stands to reason he kept some record of those early days.”
“Could you go in there and look?”
“My father has wards set up around his office. He had them placed by a Recruiter; I forget the fellow’s name. If I ask him for the records, I’m afraid it would arouse too much suspicion.”
“I can get past them,”
said Hara, suddenly remembering.
“I gave my fingerprints and my breath when I joined, so I can bypass any wards in the palace.”
Gideon stared at her in awe, then a look of determination crossed his face as he stood from the window seat and began to pace.
“I could keep him occupied for an hour or so while you look.”
“The guards?”
“Leave it to me,”
he said, and they began to devise a plan.
Hara adjusted the strap of the reticule at her waist. She wore her full Recruiter garb today, complete with her blood-red cloak and crest. The aim was to look as official as possible.
Hara pulled back her shoulders and set her hand on one of her bone knives. The gilded hallway mirror across from her reflected an imposing figure. She took a deep breath and rounded the corner into the hall.
The two guards stood by the doors, and Hara kept her jaw held high and her mouth set.
“I have a report to deliver to the Commander,”
she said to the guards. They glanced at each other, and Hara held her breath. Gideon was supposed to tell Cauldwell that she had information about a rogue witch that was for the Commander’s ears only. Cauldwell would then let the guards know to expect her.
One of the guards said.
“The Commander is not here. We are not expecting any meetings until four.”
“Could I not wait in the receiving room? The courts dismissed early today, and it is only an hour’s difference.”
The guards muttered to each other, then one turned back to her.
“Weren’t you with Lord Gideon a few weeks ago?”
“Yes. I met the Commander that night.”
This seemed to solidify their decision, because they finally opened the doors. She wasn’t sure if they trusted Gideon or if they were afraid of testing his wrath, but she was relieved all the same. She trained her face to remain stoic as she walked into the receiving chamber of the Commander’s rooms.
As soon as the doors were shut, she sprinted across the room and down the halls, deeper into the suite of rooms to find his office. She whispered the directions Gideon had given her, hoping in her haste and fear that she would not forget where it was.
Then she found it, the plain wooden door as unremarkable as a closet. She tested the door, and the handle made a soft click as it opened.
What if the guards were lying and he was inside? A cold terror descended on her as she imagined opening the door and finding him sitting at his desk.
But Gideon’s preparations had been thorough so far, and she had precious little time. She opened the door and slipped inside, bracing herself to feel the bead buzzing behind her ear as she tripped the wards.
The office was mercifully empty, and the bead remained inert. Hara exhaled and tried to decide where to look first.
Tall shelves surrounded the desk, and Hara quickly scanned her eyes over the spines. Ledgers, maps, output yields from various factories and mines. Nothing that looked promising. Then she spied a trunk to the side of the desk fastened with a heavy lock.
After some consideration, she grasped the lock and felt the pins and needles tingle through her fingertips as the metal began to transform. When she was finished, she tugged at the lock, pulling with all her might. The heavy steel had transformed into aluminum, and the soft metal warped and snapped open after only a moment’s efforts.
She lifted the lid. The trunk contained some folders of loose paper that looked like reports of some kind, and a number of small, tattered books. After opening the cover of one, Hara realized that they were journals. Were they written by the Commander himself?
She picked up a sheaf of loose papers and rifled through it. They seemed to be field reports about different locations throughout Mycan, Lenwen, and Norwen. She was about to set them aside when she saw a page marked Opportunities and Risk.
She pulled the sheaf out and found that it was dated less than a year ago.
Flooding near border of Garretstown, Norwen dam nearby. Plant man in Garretstown council to suggest shoddy N infrastructure is the cause.
Noblewoman found traveling in disguise; reason unknown. Last seen at Canling Inn. Monitor to discover identity. Ransom opportunity?
Lord Anthony reports the mood at Lenwen court: relieved at ceasefire. His strategy is to behave as though the ceasefire doesn’t exist. Continues to create battle plans and has put in new order for cannons, ballistic machines, and projectiles.
Disgust made her hands clammy as she gripped the folio of papers. It seemed the Commander had spies roaming the continent to look for ways to sow strife and ensure that conflicts continued. The note about the noblewoman being used for ransom made Hara feel as though she had swallowed something spoiled. It was too similar to what had happened to Alexandra, and a creeping suspicion began to grow as she studied the spiky handwriting.
There was a good chance this was written by Gideon, and the noblewoman was in fact Alexandra. He and his father were agitators, and Hara wondered if the war between Lenwen and Norwen would have come to an end many years prior if it wasn’t for their machinations.
She searched through a few more folders, but all seemed to be similar to the one she had read. More to satisfy her own curiosity than having hope that Commander Falk recorded prison lists in his diaries, Hara picked up a journal and flipped to a random page. It was dated some twenty years prior and the spidery writing was faint with age.
Corvus’ second meeting with the Ilmarinens went nowhere. They refuse to lend their influence to install sorcerers at the factories. The nerve they have to call magical weaponry an abomination, when they allow magic to be practiced unchecked and uncontrolled. We ride for the Norwen capital tomorrow to meet with the Steward. There is already agreement from the Lenwen king to send all war prisoners to us. They are so desperate for funds they accepted our offer without any negotiation. If the same goes for the Steward, we will have a low-cost work force to begin work on the new designs. The Lenwen king was very impressed by the prototypes and is eager to add them to his arsenal. We predict the Steward will be equally impressed.
Hara flipped to a new page and read:
With the Lenwen king and the Steward in agreement, the only one who stands in the way is Silfe and his heir. We have Lenwen and Norwen support to move forward with the coup, with dedicated soldiers from both at the ready. Corvus is hesitant to say it, but it becomes clearer every day that the Ilmarinen must be removed for the good of the country and for our economic interests. An unexpected ally has paved the way, and it is only with his knowledge of the inner workings of the court that I believe we have a hope of succeeding. Seith happens to hold the key to their undoing; his paramour is the court Seer, and he is confident that he can keep her visions at bay. Without forewarning, they will be easily eliminated.
Feeling sick to her stomach, Hara turned to another page.
Transition has not been easy, but it has gone as smoothly as we could have hoped. Thankfully, we had all the contracts signed and sealed, and workers are already arriving in such great numbers that we can hardly house them all. The first order of business will be to expand the factories, and so there is a considerable amount of labor being devoted to building. Now that the battle is won, Corvus’ uneasiness has abated and he has stepped into his role as Empirator, a title he has adopted.
Unfortunately, Seith has been difficult about this. We tasked him with finding the Seer, for she had somehow escaped with her child before the attack, but he has deserted his duties. Turnswallow has thankfully stepped into the role we had hoped for Seith, since we will risk no uprising from their kind. He found the Seer just this week, and has assured me that she has been taken to Herebore. The child was not found and is presumed dead.
Hara’s arms went limp as she looked up from the page. There it was, and if it weren’t for her curiosity, she could have easily missed it. But she had learned more than what she had seeked to find.
Seith, the dark blot on the Ilmarinen line, was her mother’s lover.
Her heart ached at this knowledge, and at the knowledge that the reason for the coup—the real reason—was because the Ilmarinens did not want to use magic to create weapons. She thought of villages like Caerwood, leveled to the ground in a matter of minutes. And now this new weapon Gideon spoke of, capable of wiping out cities in an instant. Introducing magically enhanced weapons to a place without running water, where they still depended on candles for light, was monstrous. The Commander’s dream had come to pass.
But the leaders of Norwen and Lenwen had agreed. All this time, she thought that Corvus and the Commander had worked alone when they overthrew the Ilmarinens, but it was a conspiracy between realms. War was profitable for all, and the Ilmarinens were standing in the way.
“Find anything interesting?”
Hara dropped the journal into the chest and whirled around.
Commander Falk stood hunched in the doorway, his mouth pulled into an ugly smile that looked more like a sneer. He closed the door and approached her.
Was there any way to salvage this?
“My Lord, forgive me, I was just waiting for your return.”
“Were you?” he said.
“Yes, you see, I have news about a rogue witch that might be some trouble, and I thought you . . . ”
She broke off as Commander Falk went to sit in one of the chairs before his desk and rested his hands over his stomach. When she stopped talking, he gestured for her to continue.
“Go on. I want to see what you prepared to say.”
“M-my lord . . .”
“Or was it Gideon who came up with this story?”
said Falk, his tone even.
“Clever of you to be the one to break into my office. I almost forgot that Recruiters were able to bypass the wards. I’ve been waiting for them to trip for weeks.”
Where is Gideon? Thought Hara desperately. Something had gone terribly awry in their plans.
“So, what were you looking for?”
he said, resting his hands on his stomach again, the picture of leisure.
“I . . .”
She would feel stupid going along with some story that they both knew would be a lie. The silence stretched until he spoke.
“It doesn’t really matter,”
he said with a dismissive gesture.
“I was just curious. What matters is that you know how to make gold.”
Hara snapped out of her racing thoughts and panic threatened to overwhelm her. She hadn’t been careful enough.
“No, I don’t,”
she said, trying to make it sound as though the idea was absurd.
He leaned over and picked up the broken lock that rested on the floor. Hara swallowed hard as he turned it in his hands, inspecting it, bending the warped pieces with ease.
Then he got up from his chair and reached out a hand. Hara flinched when he touched the side of her neck. The many heavy rings on his hand were cold.
“Not a blister or even a red mark,”
he said.
“There’s no need to play games. I already know the truth. I’ve had you followed ever since you arrived here; especially when you began visiting the laboratories.”
A memory of Geremy Flints dashing down a hallway in the Research wing came to her, and Hara felt her blood running cold. He had a perfect memory—he would have heard every one of their conversations and recited them back to Falk. Even if he hadn’t heard specifics, Falk was no fool. He could piece together the details.
How terribly clumsy and arrogant she had been. She had been willing to sacrifice her own safety to help Sarai, but now that she was staring at the consequences, she wanted to go into the past and scream at herself.
“So, what will it be, hedgewitch? Games or no games? Turn this ring to gold right here and now,”
he said, removing a ring and holding it before her.
“I can’t,”
she whispered.
“I thought you might need persuading,”
he said, and he snapped his fingers. The two guards entered the room, and before Hara could make a dash for the door, they had seized her arms.
Falk brought his arm back, and then a hot burst of fire exploded and spread from her stomach where his fist made impact. The wind in her lungs burned away with the pain, and she dragged in labored sips of air as they began to escort her out.
Hara knew there was no use screaming, even if she could. They took her down winding halls and through rooms within the Commander’s suite, and then they opened a heavy wooden door and shoved her inside. Hara fell splayed to the ground as the Commander strolled in after her.
“I’ll make this simple. Turn all of these stones to gold by tomorrow morning,”
he said, gesturing around them. There were stones and large rocks strewn all about the windowless room, piled waist high in some places. He had been planning this for some time. Hara desperately tried one last attempt to sway him.
“I am helping Sarai Winthrope to finish her experiment. She is trying to find a way to grow gold, and I offered to help her work on the theory. If you let me go, her work will be finished all the sooner. But I swear to you, I am not an alchemist.”
“Who knows if she would ever be successful?”
he said as he adjusted the heavy rings on his hand.
“In this case, an alchemist in the hand is worth two in the bush. Besides, she would share her discovery with everyone in Perule, the mine owners would grow angry, and it would be a headache to deal with. Far less complicated to have my own private golden goose.”
“I told you, I cannot do it,”
she said desperately. She hoped that if she sounded sincere enough he would question his resolve.
Falk turned toward the door. As he opened it, he said.
“I grow tired of this. If you do not succeed in producing gold by tomorrow morning, I will have you killed like I should have done with your mother twenty years ago.”
Hara felt her heart plummet.
He gave her that lopsided grin again.
“You do look so much alike.”
Gideon
The gangplank sounded hollow and brittle as Gideon stalked along it. He had told his father to meet him at the arms factory to oversee a new product, knowing that the allure of a new investment would draw him far from the palace, but it was past the time he should have arrived.
Gideon descended the winding staircase and stalked into the offices.
“No sign of him?”
he asked the factory foreman. The man adjusted his collar nervously and pasted a simpering grin on his face. He was no doubt eager to have Commander Falk himself tour his production line.
“Not yet, my lord.”
Unease crept under Gideon’s skin, and without another word, he dashed from the small room and past the deafening rows of machines. He reached the alley between buildings and pressed the outdoor panel to summon an autocar. He fidgeted as he waited, each second ticking by heightening his anxiety.
Finally a vehicle approached, and he climbed aboard before it had stopped. Gideon did not see the rows of vast factory buildings whizzing past; all he could see was Hara. She would be in his father’s study by now, and his father . . .
Maybe he was simply late, and even now he was stepping through the factory gates. If that was the case, Gideon would apologize, make some excuse, and he and Hara would try again later. He prayed that there was no reason to panic, but as he entered the city, he couldn’t stop the fidgeting of his knee or the sweat from slicking his palms.
He leapt from the vehicle when it stopped and immediately boarded the funicular. Curse the slow contraption. A whirlwind would have been preferable.
At the top of the cliff, he made his way through the many corridors, almost sprinting, until he came to the hall where his father’s rooms were. The two guards opened the doors wordlessly at his approach, and he slowed his pace. Gideon fought to get his breathing under control and smoothed his clothing as he traversed the winding passages.
Finally he came to his father’s office and found the door ajar. Heart in his throat, he pushed it open and found his father sitting behind his desk. Surprisingly, his mother occupied the seat before him. She rarely came to these austere quarters, preferring the comfort of her own rooms.
Where was Hara?
“There he is,”
said his father, gesturing for Gideon to take the seat beside his mother. Not knowing what this was about, and not wanting to implicate Hara, he remained silent as he took the seat. A small journal rested on his father’s desk.
“Apologies for not meeting you at the block-C factory. Tracking bullets are an interesting development, but I had a more tempting opportunity here,”
said his father.
They had been expecting him. He had no reason to barge into his father’s office when he was supposed to be at the factory, yet they had both been sitting here waiting.
“You tried your best, my darling. But now there is no need. We have her,”
said his mother, patting his knee.
“I know you feel warmly towards her, and rightly so! Your father and I are also very grateful that she helped you. But she can help us so much more.”
“What?”
said Gideon, keeping his face frozen and blank so as not to reveal the roaring chasm that had opened in his chest. He needed to hear them confirm his worst fear before he would respond.
“Geremy Flints reported her activities to me and all but confirmed that she is an alchemist. She is working on transforming a roomful of gold as we speak.”
They were looking at him triumphantly, and Gideon realized that they believed he was in on their scheme and that he should be pleased. He cleared his throat and trained his face into what he hoped was a glad expression.
“Well, good. She did not fight?”
“Oh, she begged and denied it, but she will break,”
said his father.
“What concerns me is what she was reading.”
He tapped his finger on the cover of the journal.
At least for this, Gideon did not have to playact.
“What is that?”
“My personal accounts from the time of the coup. Now, answer me this Gideon: is she a spy?”
“No,”
said Gideon. He tried to come up with a reason for Hara getting caught reading his father’s personal effects, but he could think of nothing but the truth. A version of the truth, anyway.
“She knows very little of our history. I suspect that she was just curious.”
“Curious about her mother,”
said his father, and Gideon’s mouth went dry.
“She is the very image of the Seer who escaped.”
“She would attend the meetings in the throne room. Always quite striking,”
said his mother.
“I . . . she did not tell me her mother was at court before,”
said Gideon.
“I have no ill will towards Hara. She was only a child, after all. But if that child learned intimate state secrets and decided to open her mouth, I would be less forgiving. It’s not hard to imagine her having ideas of vengeance. The leadership of Norwen and Lenwen has changed, and the new blood might not have the same principles as their fathers.”
His father leaned forward, and his contented manner transformed. His eyes were like those of a reptile, flat and soulless. There were very few times in his life that Gideon felt frightened by his father, but his sudden change in expression made his skin crawl.
“I know you orchestrated this, ensuring I would be away so she would have access to my quarters. I don’t know what sort of spell she has worked over you to ensnare you so, but I will make you a promise right now.”
His father stood from behind the desk, leaning forward on his fists.
“If you do not convince her to cooperate, she will be executed come the dawn.”
His mother stood as well, and Gideon slowly gained his feet. His father turned to her.
“Show him where she is, Eleanora.”
His mother firmly took his arm, and Gideon took a moment before turning his back on his father.
“Don’t think you are safe from the same fate because you are my son,”
said the Commander.
“If I find there is some conspiracy between you two, I will have you both executed publicly for treason. In the meantime, your quarters will be guarded and your movements followed.”
Gideon paused, his back still turned, then he allowed his mother to steer him out of the room and deeper into the Commander’s quarters.
It was all over.
What began as a personal mission to find Hara’s mother had resulted in her imprisonment and the threat of death for treason and spying hanging over their heads.
Even if by some miracle Hara was set free, he would never have a moment alone with her again. She was their lucky token now, a mine that never ran barren, and they would sooner execute Gideon than give her up.
Eventually, they came upon a thick wooden door with two guards stationed on either side. They stepped aside when they saw Gideon and his mother, and Eleanora knocked.
“Hara, dearest? I am so sorry for the way you have been treated. I promise it will not always be this way,”
she said in a voice as warm and sweet as honey.
“Gideon is here, and he wants to speak to you.”
His mother gave him a hard look and a nod.
Feeling sick with himself, he spoke to the wooden door.
“Hara . . . I’m so . . . I’m so very sorry,”
he said softly.
There was no response from within the room. His mother’s eyes bored into his, urging him to continue. Then he remembered that Hara’s life depended on him convincing her to make gold.
“Please, just . . . just use your power this one time. It will save your life. Please, Hara, you have to do this.”
He couldn’t keep the raw desperation out of his voice at the end, but there was still silence. He turned to his mother.
“I need to go in there and see her.”
His mother hesitated for a moment, then she nodded. She produced a heavy key and unlocked the iron bolt on the handle. Gideon opened the door trepidatiously, not wanting to see the despair and betrayal on Hara’s face.
He lifted his head, but other than massive piles of rock, the room was empty.
Then a flash of gold caught his eye. He stepped forward and picked it up.
A tiny stone, probably the smallest in the room, had been transformed into gold. His mother came into the room behind him and gasped.
“What trickery is this?”
she said in a shrill voice.
She saw the small piece of gold Gideon held, and she snatched it out of his hands.
After inspecting the weight of it, his mother knelt to the ground and began to siphon through the stones, trying to find any other bits of gold among the rubble.
Gideon glanced around the windowless room, and that was when he realized that the walls were draped in a forest tapestry.
He barely stopped the smile that threatened to break across his face as his mother made an impatient sound and dashed from the room, no doubt running to show his father the gold piece.
Hara’s insurance.
They would never kill her now, even if she was caught.
Gideon turned and left the room, ignoring his mother and father’s angry shouts as he made his way out of the Commander’s chambers.
While they were occupied with organizing a search and trying to understand how a witch could escape a locked and windowless room, Gideon surreptitiously made his way to his bedchamber.
As his father had promised, there was a guard posted outside his chamber door.
Gideon hid his outrage with a nod, and the guard stepped aside.
Good.
Perhaps it was all the better; now there was a witness to assure his father that the last anyone had seen of Gideon was him returning to his rooms.
He closed the door, hoisted himself into his tapestry, and tread the familiar path to Hara’s room.
He half hoped that she would be there, but it did not surprise him to find that it was empty except for Seraphine, who paced agitatedly before the window ledge.
Hara’s writing table was bare, and there was no sign that she had packed a satchel or had even returned to this room.
Then he saw a glint of silver from the corner of his eye.
He stared at the support in the center of the window frame, and then he saw it again.
In a few long strides he went to the closed window and knelt, studying the silver knot wrapped around the base of the support.
Quickly, he shoved the window open and leaned out.
A long silvery thread swayed in the wind, stopping just before a rocky ledge that jutted over the plummeting depths of the valley below.
The ledge was just wide enough for a foothold, and as it wrapped around the outside of the palace, it widened slightly.
Gideon studied the thread and discovered that it was made of several smaller strands, like yarn.
He tested it—the knot was secure and the steely yarn was as strong as a rope.
Seraphine meowed at him, and he glanced at her.
He could not let this line stay here.
Any sign of Hara’s escape had to be destroyed.
He untied the bonds, working around the tough metal fibers.
At last it came loose, and Gideon let it fall down into the rocky chasm below.
The cat stared at him plaintively, and he said.
“Now, why would she leave you behind?”
The cat returned to its pacing at the window, clearly longing to follow wherever Hara had gone. Understanding dawned on him. The cat could find a way to escape on its own without detection, but it had been waiting for him.
He crossed his arms.
“All right. Lead the way.”