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“I’ll dedicate my entire life to making you happy. If you have any enemies, I’ll kill them. Then you can dissect them if you like. Would you like that? I’ll do it. Just marry me.”

“Yes.”

“If you marry me, I swear I’ll—”

“He said yes, you dolt,” Kaylin said, nudging him with her crutch again.

Galen blinked. “You did?”

“I did.” Piper tried to pull him to his feet. “Yes. I’ll marry you. I don’t know why you want to, when you’re so much more…everything…than I am, but I will.”

“You will?”

“Yes.”

“Oh thank god,” Galen said, and swept him up in his arms, ignoring the blood and the corpse and Kaylin snorting in the background.

It had been a small ceremony, or as small as it could be, when the Bishop of the White Rat was the person presiding over it. Seven paladins had attended. Istvhan, that huge bear of a man who had worked with Piper on the problem of the smooth men, had given him a rib-cracking hug. “I told him to propose,” he had informed Piper. “He’d bought a ring a month ago and was dithering. Dreadful thing, dithering.”

“Thank you,” Piper had said, trying to regain his breath.

Now, sitting in the carriage, Galen rubbed his thumb over Piper’s ring again. Piper glanced at the side of his face and saw that the paladin’s eyes were closed and his lips were trembling.

It was good that Istvhan had come down from the north to speak to Beartongue, and not just for the wedding. Barely a week later, word had come from Anuket City that the ruins of the great temple of the Saint of Steel were being cleared at last.

“But it’s been years,” Piper had said. “I thought they’d have done it years ago.”

Galen had shaken his head. “Cursed ground,” he had said. “The high priest burned it when the Saint died. Said that he wanted to make a pyre fit for a god. I thought it would lie in ruins forever.”

It made sense. Anuket City was built on profit. If anything, Piper was astonished that the temple had not been cleared within a week to put in a warehouse.

“We are all going,” Galen told him. “All of us. One last pilgrimage, to lay the dead to rest.” He swallowed. “Will you come with me?”

“Of course.”

And so here he was, in this stifling coach, coated in dust, with three paladins pretending to be calm. A round dozen of them—seven paladins, Stephen and Istvhan’s partners, a functionary of the Rat and Jorge of the Dreaming God. And Piper himself, of course.

The coach stopped. When it became obvious that none of the three were going to move, Piper flipped open the shutter and looked out onto an expanse of burnt stone. “We’ve arrived,” he said.

They stayed statues a moment longer, and then Shane let out a long, long sigh and opened the door. They stepped out into the cool autumn sun. Piper no longer paused involuntarily at doorways, but he went last anyway.

The other two coaches had also stopped. Piper watched as the paladins emerged, and one by one, they turned to some unknown point in the ruins, like iron filings aligning to a magnet.

“The altar,” murmured Galen.

Stephen squared his shoulders. “All right,” he said. “Jorge, Clara, you know what to do. Brothers and sisters, let us end this.”

Galen squeezed his hand and stepped away. Piper gazed after him, wondering if he should follow, when Jorge tapped his shoulder.

“Come with me,” said Jorge quietly. “We’ve made preparations. Just in case.”

Piper frowned. “Preparations?”

He followed the Dreaming God’s champion to the third coach. Stephen’s partner Grace and the Rat priest were already inside it, and the other two drivers were standing on the board at the back. Clara, an enormous woman as large as Istvhan, stood outside with her arms folded. She nodded to Piper, though her eyes were still on the seven paladins. “All right,” she said softly. “In the event that something happens to set them off, we’ll have seven berserkers to deal with. You, Grace, and Zale will stay in the coach, and Matthias here will get you the hell away from here.”

“What about you?” asked Piper, frowning.

Clara smiled. “Jorge and I will stay and watch and clean up after.”