d spoken calmly and without raising my voice but I could see several of them repressing the urge to move back. I smiled mirthlessly: one of these days, Praesi would learn to stop thinking that mercy and ruthlessness were mutually exclusive. I’d made the Forlorn Hope with the intent of deploying it in battle: if it could not be deployed, it could return to the gallows I’d snatched it from. There were only so many chances I was willing to give people.