Slate was in command, but Caliban had always known that if she floundered, he could step in and lead. And if I had, just then, I would have killed us all. Worse, even as he’d been silently judging the forger and the assassin for being what they were, it was Slate who had been willing to sacrifice herself to save the rest of them. Slate who’d been begging the assassin to keep her from giving them away to the enemy. All the platitudes he’d mouthed over the years about self-sacrifice, and here he was being shown up by a forger who’d been arrested for treason.
