“I know exactly what I’m seeing,” said Malini. “But I don’t understand why. Oh, when you thought I was something gentle and wounded—that I could understand. But now, now you know I’ve lied to you and used you, now you know I am a traitor, impure, that I have a hard heart, that I am the empire and the empire is me—” “I don’t know,” Priya said. Her voice was a lash. “I don’t know why I care, is that enough? Perhaps I’m simply not monstrous enough to enjoy watching another human suffer, no matter
