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would do anything that would jeopardise Wánměi. But Wánměi is free and the Wiped are already lost to us.”
    “They aren’t,” I stressed.
    “They’ve been lost to us from the moment they left our shores.”
    He moved forward; his proximity did not relax me. I tried not to show that he’d thrown me off balance, but there was something about Cardinal Beck that left me unsteady. Which was ironic, a more steadfast man you could not get.
    “Look all around you, Selena,” he ordered. “Look at what being wiped has done.”
    I stared out across our new more secured base of operations, my eyes landing on Irdina. So hard. So unforgiving. And beside her my father; a leader in charge of a lost army. My eyes moved to Trent next. I saw the strain there. I saw the worry. The concern for me, for us, for everything. He didn’t trust my father. He didn’t trust the Masked or the Merrikan soldiers. And now he didn’t trust me.
    “Being wiped changes things,” the Cardinal said softly. “And changing them back is an impossibility.”
    I didn’t nod my head in agreement, but I did agree. We’d all suffered so much, lost so much. But the Wiped? They’d lost everything.
    “You knew that, didn’t you?” Beck was saying. “You know rescuing them won’t change a thing.”
    I tipped my head up and stared into dark eyes; chocolate with a hint of whiskey.
    “That’s why you did it, isn’t it?” he pressed. “That’s why you planned an ambush so secretively. Merrika wants something. Your father wants something. The rebels want something. They all want something that doesn’t exist.
    “Unless we make it. Unless we change history.”
    “Change history?”
    He crouched down beside me, out of the shadows, in plain sight. His shoulder brushed my hip, but he didn’t shift farther away. For a Cardinal to touch an Elite there would have to be good reason. We were of the same class but not. Elite but not Honourable. A Cardinal could never be that.
    But that was Old Wánměi. That was a world away from here.
    I wondered just what the Cardinal was up to. Because it sure as hell wasn’t to have a chat with me.
    “I think you know this,” he said in that deep, soft voice he’d been using; as if to lull me.
    “That history needs to be changed?” I asked archly. Did he think I was born yesterday? I was the daughter of an Overseer, raised in Ohrikee. I knew how the game was played.
    But what the Cardinal was playing, I had no idea.
    “That history will repeat itself if we don’t change it.”
    And he had me there. It was exactly what I thought needed to happen.
    “History can’t be changed,” I said just as softly.
    He looked up at me, held my steady gaze.
    “No,” he agreed. “So what was your plan?”
    I pulled my eyes away and looked across the room. It took a second or two for me to focus properly, and then I wished I hadn’t. Trent was watching me. Watching us. His eyes flicking between the Cardinal and my face, his body taut but hands relaxed.
    I’d cursed his overprotectiveness recently. I’d lashed out, if truth be told, in order to do as I pleased. I might have had altruistic reasons, but the method was pure revolt. And now I missed it. His possessiveness. His ability to protect me from myself.
    “Why should I trust you?” I said to the Cardinal, my gaze locked on Trent’s.
    Beck laughed; it was deep and highly amused. He was watching Trent too.
    “Because I agree,” he said simply.
    History needed to be stopped. Or, at least, the repetition of it did. And Cardinal Beck agreed.
    “And because,” he added, standing to his full height and looking down at me; effectively turning his back on Trent, “I won’t prevent you from doing what needs to be done, Selena Carstairs. My orders are quite clear on that.”
    “Orders?” I looked up at him, breaking eye contact with a steaming yet inactive Trent.
    “President Tan has ordered me to assist you and only you.” He leaned down, reaching out to me with a