“Oh?” I was startled. “They do not often make such mistakes.”
He shook his head. “Was no mistake. I was promptly recruited into the Common Force.”
My bewilderment must have been obvious.
“The Separatists,” he said, lowering his voice. “The Guild Inquisitor had sympathies and was funnelling young people into the Separatists. So, I was protected.”
I sat back, pondering. “I suppose I should not be surprised. There are those within with Rogue affiliations, like Lewis. Why not Separatists?”
He nodded and drank while I continued to muse.
“So you were taken by the cause at a young age,” I surmised.
“Seven,” he affirmed. “I left for a time though, I’ll admit. My feet took to roaming, as the feet of the young are wont to do. The Force encouraged it, in truth. They want us to see the world, to see that not every country lives this way.” He waved a vague hand at our surroundings, encompassing Harrow and the City States as a whole. I glimpsed something in his eyes then, something that reminded me of Pretoria, and perhaps even Madge. Drive. Burden. Conviction.
He carried on, “Lewis and I met in The Sarre, as you know, and we found ourselves a mutually beneficial business opportunity.”
“Smuggling.”
“Aye. Soldiers far from home have wants, and Baffin’s army is laced tight enough to strangle. A Guild-loaned officer like Lewis has more freedom than most, more access. And I have the skills to see it all through.”
I considered all this for a moment as the volume in the pub rose. Someone noteworthy had entered, apparently, and half the crowd seemed to want to greet them. I could not make the newcomer out.
Harden squinted across the room, too.
“Are you back for good now?” I asked once things had settled down.
He took another moment to return his focus to me. “Yes. We need all hands, with the situation as it is.”
“Like the Zealot Queen Incarnadine framing you for bombings,” I noted, citing the newspaper’s tawdry title for the woman.
He nodded. That drive was still there in his expression, but darker, more fixed. “Aye. Along with Baffin quietly funding her.”
I could not help a sharp intake of breath. There had been rumors, of course, that Baffin’s perceived passivity towards the Zealots might be calculated. But to hear him claim Baffin wasfundingthem? The repercussions were frightening and terrible.
“Why would he do that? Risk that?” I asked. “Allowing them to weed us out is one thing. Funding them is another.”
“They are doing what he wishes he could.” Harden shrugged. “Beating, tormenting, and murdering Entwined is a passion of his. But I believe it’s more than that. Baffin is setting the stage.”
“For what?”
“To save Arrent again. To foster anti-Entwined sentiment to the point where civil war will bloom, the Guild will be forced to act, and he has enough leverage to oust them.”
“Baffin cannot oust the Guild,” I asserted. “Their existence is a pillar of the armistice. It would mean far more than bombings and riots, it would be outright war.”
“Precisely,” Harden said. He started to go on, but I had more to say, and kept speaking.
“Nor would the Guild be foolish enough to risk a scrap of their power, not for Affinates and Rogues. You do not know them as I do. What proof do you have, of any of this?”
“That’s above me,” Harden said. He made a conciliatory gesture and went on, evidently changing tack, “Regardless, the situation in Harrow is worsening. We need Adepts. The Zealots may not have magic, but they have money, guns, and Baffin’s blind eye. The police will not stop them. If we Separatists are routed? A few Affinates swinging from lampposts will be the good old days.”
All at once, the ale tasted sour on my tongue. If I was honest, the grim reality he painted was not the only reason. It was the realization that his interest in me, as a person—as awoman—might be a ploy. That would leave me unwanted again, and it made me feel pitiful indeed.
“There is no hope for Harrow,” I stated. “Your admission just reaffirms that.”
Something harder entered his voice. “So you’ll abandon your home without a care?”
“That is presumptuous.” I lifted my nose, reminding myself passingly of Madge. “I do care. But this is not my home.”
