Excerpt of Rogue Spy by Joanna Bourne

"A lot of water under a lot of bridges."

"And some bridges burned forever." She sighed and stood up, turning so she ended up facing him. Every instant of that movement was graceful. Unstudied. She could have been a leaf twirled in the wind. "This is like . . . It's like when Alexander burned his ships on the shore so his army couldn't run away. We have our backs to the sea. Neither of us can retreat."

"No retreat," he agreed. In a very few moments, one of them would hurt the other. They shared that knowledge without having to say it aloud.

"I'm sorry it's come to this." She said. "I owe you so much. I would have died of despair in those first days in the Coach House if you hadn't been yelling at me."

"I never yelled."

"You became ironic. We were all in awe of you when you were ironic." She leaned against the end of the pew. Her cloak was weighted on the left side of the front. That would be where she carried a small, reliable pistol. She'd always loved pistols.

It surprised him to find himself looking down at the top of her head. He'd grown since he was fourteen.

"I cared for you, Devoir, with my whole heart, as only a child can care for another child." She spread her hands, empty, palms up. "Yet here you are and here I am, very close to enemies. I have a sudden urge to say something significant about Fate and Inevitability."

That sounded like the too-old, too-wise girl he'd known. His Vérité still lived inside this sleek brown stranger with the eloquent hands and the measuring eyes. It wasn't only bones that stayed unchanged year after year.

He wished he didn't have to arrest her.