I stood at the entrance of the alley for three minutes and watched her come back to herself, the hands first, then the shoulders, then her head coming up, trying to remember what went wrong. She is thorough, even in shock.
She catalogs everything.
Point is, she did not see me.
She was never going to see me.
I was back in my room before she reached the dorm entrance.
Valen arrives at seven the following morning without knocking, which is his only mode of entry, followed by Azriel, who knocks on the already-open door out of what I can only assume is reflex.
“That was some work last night,” Valen says, dropping into the single chair in my room like he owns it, which in some technical sense he does since the Order funds the building. He lights a joint. “Marcus Fell. Victor’s inside man. Discovered this morning by groundskeeping in a condition that suggests someone made a series of very firm points.”
“He had his hands on her,” I say. “And he laced her drink. I couldn’t stop him without drawing attention to myself. I had to do what was necessary.”
“Yes,” Valen says pleasantly. “He did. And now he has two broken fingers, a fractured orbital socket, and a very passionatenew commitment to reconsidering his career choices.” He exhales smoke at the ceiling. “Well done. Truly. Gold star. The Order is, naturally, furious.”
“The Order can register a complaint.”
“They have,” Azriel says from the doorway, arms crossed, his expression doing the thing it does when he is trying to be angry and finding it difficult. “Formally. In writing. There are three separate memos.”
“I’ll read them later.”
“Saint.” Azriel steps into the room and closes the door behind him, which means this is the serious part of the conversation. “You were supposed to be watching from a distance. You were supposed to flag the situation and let campus security handle it through Order channels.”
“Campus security?” I mock.
“Yes.”
“The same assholes in campus security who have been on Sokolov’s payroll for the past two years and whose head of department attended the same Order meeting where her scholarship was approved?”
A pause.
“He has a point,” Valen says.
“He always has a point,” Azriel says tightly. “That is what makes him impossible to argue with and also a significant liability.” He looks at me. “Saint, you left a man in an alley. She was ten feet away.”
“She didn’t see me.”
“This time. What about next time? What if she’d been more alert? What if she’d come back to herself thirty seconds earlier?”
“She didn’t.”
“That is not a risk management strategy. That’s luck.”
“I don’t believe in luck,” I say. “I believe in calculation. I calculated the fact that Victor is targeting her, and I was right.”
Azriel steps closer. “You calculated the window from the perspective of a man who spent years in a controlled room. The real world has variables, Saint. She is a variable. She is sharper than you are giving her credit for, and if she starts putting pieces together?—”
“Then she puts them together.” I shrug, not giving a fuck.
Silence.
Valen looks at me with his cold, measuring eyes. “And you are comfortable with that?”
I say nothing.
“Fascinating,” Valen says, in the tone he uses when a situation has become interesting in a way that does not bode well for anyone involved. He stubs his joint on the windowsill. “The man who has not cared about a single variable for years is suddenly comfortable with uncertainty.” He stands. “This is either very good or catastrophically stupid, and I genuinely cannot tell which yet.”
