They went to the administrative records room at the ninth hour.

Rethon was at the left table with the quarterly accounts. The door was open a third of the way. Doros was at the window with a document, his back to the room.

Lysander and Ampelos stood at the window corner.

Lysander spoke first.

"The second Carian contact," he said. "The testing period. Two months minimum before Daidalos will commit to structural integrity."

"And the third." Ampelos’s voice was pitched at the specific level of a man who believed the room was empty. "Even if the third responds favorably, we are looking at four months before the construction program can resume at anything like the previous pace."

"The three paused vessels."

"Will stay paused. There is no other conclusion."

"Hector’s timeline."

"Cannot hold. We both know it cannot hold."

A pause.

"Does Priam know."

"Priam knows the Thracian situation. He does not know the cumulative effect of the three delays together." Ampelos looked at the harbor through the window. "I do not want to bring him numbers that might change by the time they reach him."

"Three more weeks."

"At least."

They went out.

In the corridor Lysander did not speak.

Ampelos said: "It is done."

"Yes."

"You are thinking about what you just said."

"Yes."

"It was all true."

"Yes." Lysander walked. "That is not what I am thinking about."

Ampelos said nothing further.

’What I am thinking about,’ Lysander thought, ’is that Rethon is sitting at that table right now, having heard two people say things they did not know he was hearing, and he believes he has information. He will meet Teles within the week. Teles will write south. And Agamemnon’s network will receive accurate intelligence from a trusted source about the fleet timeline.’

’All of it true. None of it complete.’

’I have been in this palace for two years and I have tried very hard to be the kind of person who builds things rather than the kind who manipulates them. I am not entirely certain those two things are still separate.’

’This is fine. I will think about this later.’

’I am thinking about it now.’

He went to the training ground and ran the drill until the thinking slowed.

Paris found him there.

Not at the gate — inside, sitting on the low wall, the position he had occupied so many times that Lysander had stopped noticing the wall separately from Paris.

He was already there when Lysander finished the twelfth repetition.

"How long," Lysander said.

"Three repetitions."

Lysander set the sword down. Sat on the ground across from the wall — the position that put them at the same level.

"Tell me," he said.

Paris looked at the practice marks.

"Hector came to find me this morning," he said. "Before the third hour. At the harbor school."

"He went to the school."

"Yes. He stood outside for a moment. Then he came in. He sent the children out."

Lysander waited.

"He sat down across from me and said: what do you want." Paris stopped. "Not about the trading houses. Not about Ampelos’s network. He said: what do you want. I understood what he was asking."

"What did you say."

Paris was quiet for a moment.

"I said: I want to do something that no one else can do." He looked at his hands. "I said it without thinking. I have thought it many times but I have never said it. Especially not to Hector."

"What did he say."

"Nothing. For a long time. Then he said: be careful with that feeling."

"That was all."

"Yes. Then he stood up and left."

The training ground was quiet. The palace beyond the wall doing its afternoon. The practice marks in the dirt.

’Be careful with that feeling,’ Lysander thought. ’Hector knows what that feeling produces. He has watched it produce things in himself. He has watched it produce things in Troy. He has seen what happens when a person with that feeling and the capability to act on it meets the wrong moment.’

’He is not telling Paris not to want it. He is telling Paris what it costs.’

"Why are you telling me," Lysander said.

"Because you are the person I tell things to," Paris said simply.

"And because."

Paris looked at him.

"And because I think you already knew."

"Yes," Lysander said. "I knew."

"Since when."

"Since the training ground. Your first departure. You said: I want to do something useful. That was the beginning of the same sentence."

Paris was quiet.

"Am I going to do something that cannot be undone," he said.

The question landed in the training ground and sat there.

’He is asking me the thing I cannot answer,’ Lysander thought. ’Not because I do not have thoughts about it. Because answering would change what he does. Cassandra told me: how you are with them is part of what shapes the decision. If I say yes — I push him toward caution that may become paralysis. If I say no — I push him toward action that may come too early or in the wrong form.’

’Neither of those is my decision to make.’

"I do not know," Lysander said.

"That is not an answer."

"No. It is not."

Paris looked at the practice marks.

"Hector said: be careful. You said: I do not know." He stood. "Everyone knows something and no one is saying it."

"Yes," Lysander said. "That is accurate."

Paris looked at him for a moment — not angry, the look of someone who has confirmed a suspicion and is deciding what to do with the confirmation.

Then: "The children in the eastern dialect sessions. They have started teaching each other without me. I noticed it yesterday."

"Tell Arsini."

"I already did."

He went out.

Lysander sat in the training ground.

’He will ask the question soon,’ he thought. ’The actual question. Not what do I want. The specific question about the west. About what he specifically can do there.’

’Cassandra said this season.’

’Hector said be careful.’

’I said I do not know.’

’None of us are lying. All of us are watching the same thing from different angles and arriving at different incomplete truths.’

’This is either wisdom or cowardice. Possibly both.’

He picked up the sword.

Ran the sequence six more times.

Arsini was outside the supply office when he returned.

Not waiting — passing. She had the look she had at the end of a long day that had required different kinds of attention from beginning to end.

She stopped when she saw him.

"Paris," she said. "He told me the children are teaching each other in the eastern dialect."

"Yes. He mentioned it."

"I watched it this afternoon. Three children, none older than nine, conducting what I can only describe as a language lesson. Self-organized. No adult involvement." She looked at her tablet. "I wrote it in the session record. I did not know what category to put it in."

"Put it in its own category."

"Yes." She looked at him. "You look like someone ran the drill eighteen times."

"Eighteen," he said.

She almost smiled. Almost.

"Good night," she said.

"Good night," he said.

She walked on.

’Eighteen,’ he thought. ’She counted the repetitions. From the school window. While conducting sessions and reviewing records.’

’For the water allocation.’

’Obviously.’

He went inside and sat down.

The timber correspondence. The coastal watch report. The two lines on the clay piece from three nights ago that he had turned face down and had not turned back over.

He turned it over.

The mechanism before the action. What does using Rethon make me.

He looked at both lines.

He added a third: The same thing I was before. And something else.

He picked up his shard.