I'm not dead, I swear.

"It's a trap," said Altair.

Well, obviously. "I hadn't noticed."

"You can't go," he snapped. "This Miraj is some farmer who can barely keep a cow, much less afford a ransom of three hundred silvers—the Templars will know that the Assassins are involved. They'll be waiting for you."

"Good for them."

He made a low wordless growl of frustration and seized my arm. "This is serious," Altair said, "and you are being flippant—"

"Oh, perish the thought."

"Malik will tell you the same thing," Altair said, his voice low and hard.

I pressed my lips together and did not answer. We walked back to the bureau in silence, Altair's tight grip a reminder of the leash the Hashashin had on me, always, but I was too angry to pull away. To tell me what to do, as though I did not know myself; to order me about, as though I could not make up my own mind—

I was furious.

It made me reckless, perhaps, but I did not care. I wanted this Templar dead.

—

Malik was of much the same mind as Altair, when I told him of what I had done. "It's obviously a trap," he said, frowning at me across the desk in his cramped study. "Why did you spring it? Now he'll know that his raids have failed to oust us from the city—"

"So that we could kill him," I said, a trifle impatiently.

"Yes, because it will be so easy." Malik didn't roll his eyes, but he looked as though he wanted to. "He'll be expecting us to try exactly that when he goes to meet this—this Miraj of yours. Did you think to ambush him? He would bring guards."

"Not there. At his house, when he returns."

He raised his eyebrows at that.

"He won't be expecting it. And we can search the place as well, for any information he might have on our operations—I know you've been considering doing that anyway. Have you found a better opportunity than this?"

"Sometimes," Malik said, sighing, "I really can't tell if you're just making everything up as you go along or not."

Sometimes I couldn't tell, either.

"We don't need to overpower him," I said, leaning across the desk. "We don't have the men for it, I know; but to take him by surprise where he would expecting it least—"

"Taking him by surprise wouldn't be the hard part," Malik said. "It would be leaving again, after the encounter, that would be rather more difficult. Isra, we don't exactly have the men to fight our way out of his house, either, if we were to be surrounded."

"You wouldn't need that many."

Malik looked skeptical. "Oh?"

"You would only need one," I said, "to kill him and be done with it—and it needn't even be a man."

That earned me a hard stare.

"No," Malik said flatly, which was unpromising. I sighed.

"Why not?"

"Because it's a stupid idea!"

"It's not a stupid idea," I protested, a little stung. "One man might slip away where half a dozen couldn't; you should know this, you've been trained in subterfuge and all that—"

"I meant," Malik said, "that it's a stupid idea for you to go. Alone." He leaned back in his chair and glowered at me. "Because I'm fairly certain that's what you're suggesting."

It was exactly what I was suggesting, but it wasn't stupid. "Why not?" I demanded again. "How many people would notice another maid in the halls? I could poison him and be gone again without anyone realizing it—"

"You're not going anywhere near this foreign Templar," Malik snapped. "He's too dangerous. Do I have to make a list of all the reasons why letting you go would be a terrible idea? You don't know the layout of his estate. Any of the household servants could catch you and raise an alarm. The city guards hate us because we blew up a warehouse. You could get lost—"

"He killed Sarai," I said.

Malik stopped.

"That's still not a good reason," he said at last, but his voice was quiet.

The rafik of Jerusalem could be a powerful obstacle, if he chose to be one. And a pigeon could fly from Jerusalem to Masyaf and back in the space of three days—

I rose.

I came around the desk, and Malik scrambled up so quickly that it was comical—the quill tumbling out of his hand, the chair knocked over in his haste—and he took a step back as I approached, and another, and another, until he was up against the wall. "What are you doing?" he demanded, wary.

I touched his shoulder—gently, on the side where his empty sleeve lay pinned against his chest. "You know full well what the Templars have taken," I said. "Would you have them go unpunished for it? For everything they have done?"

Malik stared at me, torn and unhappy. "Isra, don't."

"Why not?" I asked. "Isn't it true? Don't tell me this Templar doesn't deserve to die, because I won't believe you."

"No, it's not—"

"Then let me do this," I said, moving closer. "It needn't be as difficult as you say, Malik—just get me in, and all the rest will follow."

"I can't—"

I lowered my voice, gazed up at him through my eyelashes. "Yes, you can," I murmured. "Help me, and I would be grateful—"

"Stop."

His voice was so sharp that I actually did stop. Malik was scowling, his hand on my shoulder to hold me in place, and he looked like he wanted to kiss me or throw me out the door or both. "Don't," he said again. "Isra, I am the rafik of Jerusalem. Al Mualim sent me here to be guidance for the assassins here, and if you seduce me into this it would be making a mockery of my judgment and his—is that what you want?"

"I think I've made it sufficiently clear what I want," I said.

Which was not an answer, and Malik knew it. But his voice was gentle enough for a man who was furious with me, and with himself: "You can't have it," he said. "Or—you shouldn't have it, and you know very well the reasons why—and if you press me on this, I may very well give in, so do not press me."

"But—"

He shook me, less gently. "Do you trust me or not?"

"Yes," I said.

"Then trust me when I tell you that something is a bad idea," Malik said, his voice low. He let me go and brushed past me, past the fallen chair, past the desk and out the door. I stared after him. A few moments later I heard his footsteps going down the stairs, loud and angry, and I nearly sat down before remembering that the chair had tipped over. My head hurt. I missed Sarai, and Malik was unhappy with me, and there was a Templar I was not allowed to kill. What was I supposed to do? Just wait?

I despised waiting.

The inkwell shattered when I flung it at the floor. The ink had long since dried, dark clumps of it sticking to the clay as shards went flying everywhere, and I wanted to cry but couldn't.

Malik might have given in, if I had pressed him—

But he was right. I should not have tried.

—

The assassins obeyed me because Al Mualim had told them to. The rafiks took orders from me because Al Mualim had said they should. What was I? Some peasant girl bought for a handful of gold, and I doubted that my parents had even haggled over the price. I was too young and too female to have any sort of authority of my own; the assassins heeded me only because Al Mualim wished it so.

Such loyalty we had, so pliant and unquestioning! The Templars might have admired it, even, for they carried on so about imposing order upon the world. Our hierarchies were clear. Our orders were clear.

Either I trusted Malik's judgment, or I did not. And I did, because Al Mualim would not have named him rafik without reason—I knew that it was not a duty I could fulfill, for all my wits and training; I knew that Malik gave sound advice that I should not ignore—

What would I have said?

Your brother is dead by their hands. And would you deny me the justice that you so desire also? And please, Malik, I would be so grateful; did you not want this for Kaddar?

—

Malik avoided my gaze for the rest of the day.

I would have avoided myself too, if only I could, but of course I could not abandon my own thoughts. Night came slowly. Assassins filtered in and out, bringing reports and reconnaissance, and I listened with half an ear as Malik debriefed them in the common room. The news was not promising.

Majd Addin, calling for another round of executions. The pope's bloodhound sniffing at our trails. The city guards turned against us: after all, were we not the ones who had killed Talal, and blown up a warehouse right beneath their noses?

And were we not the ones who had murdered the merchant Yusuf and his entire household? An innocent man, slaughtered in a display of our brutality—

How clever of this bloodhound to pin the blame on us; no one would ever suspect the truth, and word was spreading throughout the city that we were merciless, honorless killers. I hoped Miraj loved his sister enough to take our gold despite the rumors—although I supposed that it hardly mattered now, when I would not be going to see this Alessandro whether the exchange occurred or not. The injustice of it was too great for words.

He had killed Sarai, and I could not touch him without breaking the Creed; I would put the brotherhood in jeopardy if I tried.

—

It was another restless night. Harun offered to fetch me a drink—on Malik's orders, I suspected—but I sent him away, and spent a few hours in fitful sleep before giving up entirely. The hallway and stairs and common room were all deserted as I slipped out into the courtyard. We assassins kept an odd schedule: not quite nocturnal, but it was a rare thing to see the dawn.

Altair found me that morning.

I was tired, but not tired enough to miss the look that he gave me. "What?" I demanded.

"You can't do this," he said.

"Well, I'm not," I snapped. "Miraj will go arrange the ransom all by himself, and you were right and Malik was right and I'm not going anywhere near this Alessandro anytime soon, so I hope you're happy."

He ignored me. "Why aren't you in bed?"

Because Sarai's ghost trailed me everywhere, and I saw her face when I closed my eyes. "I'm thinking."

"About?"

I glanced at him. He looked serious—but then, Altair always looked serious, and the sky was not yet bright enough to make out anything else. "The raids," I said at last. "It was a ploy to look for me—or Sarai, I don't know which—but he knew what he wanted. Someone told him. I think it was the Crimson Rose."

"The whorehouse?"

"Yes." They had been the only ones to see my face besides Talal, and Talal had not been indiscreet, despite his other sins. "This foreign Templar must have made it known that he was looking for a woman, and the Rose told him about me. Does that sound right?"

"Yes," Altair said. And: "Are you going to tell Malik?"

I hesitated.

"Lover's quarrel?" he inquired, almost gently.

The Hashshashin pride themselves on secrecy, but there is gossip all the same.

"We were lovers for all of one evening, and the experience so traumatized him that he vowed never to do it again," I said bitterly. "So—no, I wouldn't call it a lover's quarrel. But I was—unkind."

"I see," said Altair.

And maybe he did see; he had been in Solomon's Temple, after all, and it was his own thoughtlessness that had caused such a disaster there—

"I was going to bring up Kaddar," I blurted out.

Altair glanced at me, startled. I plunged on: "I was going to talk about the Templars, and how they killed his brother, and make him angry enough to help me. He left before I was finished, but I think he knew what I was going to say. And now Malik hates me and this foreign Templar is still not dead and—"

And I was babbling, and I didn't care.

"I can't apologize," I finished finally, staring out across the empty courtyard. "He wouldn't believe me. He'd think it was some—some sort of ploy—so I could go after this Templar again, and he would probably be right. That's exactly the sort of thing I would do."

A hand was on my shoulder. "You're tired," Altair said, and I leaned against him, feeling my pulse quicken in my throat.

"I can't sleep."

"I've noticed," he said dryly.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to ramble. Sometimes you make me nervous."

I hadn't meant to say that out loud, either—but it was the least of my problems, now, and I was past caring. Altair let his hand drop. We sat in silence for a little while and watched the sun come up.

"Malik doesn't hate you," he said at last.

"No?"

Altair glanced at me, his eyes almost golden in the brightening dawn, the set of his mouth—well, slightly less stern than usual, if that meant anything at all. "Believe me," he said. "I would know."

A/N: So, I've been working on another story (original fic, which is why I haven't been updating). It's exciting stuff! There are elves in it and everything. That is where I disappeared to. Er, in case anyone was wondering. Sorry for the wait.

This is how I summarized this chapter in my head:

Isra: I am such a bitch! ::ANGSTS::

Malik: My brother is dead! ::ANGSTS::

Altair: My best friend hates me! ::ANGSTS::

dead!Sarai and dead!Kaddar: oh for fuck's sake you guys get a grip

Notes: I've always imagined that the Assassins were a one-man show, with the one man being whoever was the leader at the time, and all the members being totally devoted to him up to cult-like levels of creepy. I mean, okay, being willing to die for a cause isn't unusual, but: they have a garden in the middle of the desert filled with naked women (that was totally in the game, how did ubi get away with that), they were into drugs (or so the legend goes), there's the self mutilation (cutting off your own fingers?), and they're fanatically loyal to their cause and follow orders without question. Does that not scream 'cult' to you?