“All the Houses will have questions tonight,” he said. “I can hardly blame them. I’m sorry, Harrow, we couldn’t recover your cavalier either.” Her brain listed sharply. “Gideon’s gone?” “Everyone else is accounted for,” he said. “We have had to settle for partial remains of the Seventh House and the Warden of the Sixth. Only you two were confirmed alive. It doesn’t help matters that I can’t even go down there and search.” Harrow found herself saying, distantly, “Why can’t you go back? It seemed to be the whole of Cytherea’s plan.” The Emperor said, “I saved the world once—but not for me.”
