The ten most important members of the Scout Regiment spent all day riding back to the Survey Corps headquarters, and in those twelve hours, Erwin didn't say a word to Levi. He told himself that there wasn't a good opportunity, even though he knew that he and Levi could easily fall back behind the others if they wanted to.

But he didn't want to. He didn't have an answer yet. He didn't know how he was going to trick the Eli faction, smoke out the spies, and keep Levi alive—all at the same time.

And until he had a solution to the problem, he couldn't bear to look Levi in the eye.

Just about an hour after sunset, they galloped back through the gates of the HQ grounds. As they left their horses with the stable hands and dispersed—Levi's squad members back to the barracks, the officers to the main building—Erwin finally gathered up the nerve to pull Levi aside.

"Do you have a minute?" he asked.

"Obviously." Levi closed the stable doors and turned to Erwin. "Is this about the commission?"

The nerves tingled in Erwin's fingertips.

"What commission?" he asked quickly.

"Some messenger dropped a commission off before you got back last night," Levi said. "Bradley gave it to you, right?"

"Oh," Erwin said. "Yes. Well."

He was circling again, hunting, getting ready to dive—

And the courage left him.

"We can talk about the commission tomorrow," he said. "I meant to tell you that I'm not in any danger of assassination. At least for the immediate future."

The reddish glow of twilight made it hard to read Levi's expression. "You sure?"

"Yes," Erwin said. "I'm positive."

"Okay." Levi set off toward the main building, waving a hand loosely back at Erwin. "I'll see you tomorrow then."

He didn't look back.

Erwin watched as Levi trudged up the hill. He almost called after him—but instead found himself giving Levi a three-minute head start before following. By the time Erwin had entered the main building, Levi was nowhere to be seen.

He stayed up all night thinking.

There were spies in the Survey Corps. Somehow, Erwin had to get them to reveal themselves—but in many ways, this last task was more difficult than its two predecessors. It was one thing to kill Titans, to retrieve coffers, to invent new formations, to herd livestock. It was another thing entirely to hunt for a needle in a haystack.

To find a liar in a crowd of friends—that was the truly impossible trial.

As Erwin stared up at the ceiling, lost in thought, someone knocked on the door before opening it slowly.

"Commander?" a voice asked timidly.

"What is it, Maynerd?" Erwin asked, only half paying attention.

"If you don't need me for anything else, sir, I was going to…"

"Oh," Erwin said. "Yes. Go to bed. Thank you, Maynerd."

The door closed, and Erwin sank back into his thoughts. As he turned the dilemma over and over in his mind, he found himself constantly circling back to one question. It was the question he couldn't answer, the piece of the puzzle that just didn't fit, no matter how hard he thought.

Why go through so much trouble just to kill Levi? Revenge wasn't a strong enough motivation. By making this deal, the Eli faction had conceded a year of time to Erwin. That was a year in which Erwin could cause more trouble, could find evidence against them, could think up more ways to win this twisted game. What made Levi's death worth that risk?

There was something missing. There was something Erwin couldn't see yet.

What was it?

It didn't make any sense. None of it. Unless…

Unless…

Unless it wasn't just Levi they meant to kill.

"As long as your bodyguard was around, killing you would be impossible."

And in an instant, the whole plan laid itself out in front of Erwin's eyes—as if it had been inevitable, as if somewhere inside him, Erwin had always known that things would end exactly like this. He knew how to smoke out the spies. He saw with perfect clarity how to expose the Eli faction, how to claim his victory once and for all.

But for this plan to work, the spies had to think Levi was dead.

How long could Levi survive alone in Titan territory on two gas canisters? Was it three hours? Five? Eight?

How much was Erwin willing to gamble?

That morning, Erwin gathered the Survey Corps out in the field by the training forest. He briefed them on the recon mission that would take place on the following day. The actual briefing took less than twenty minutes. Travel to Trost tomorrow, then ride out and back the day after. No carts. Every soldier would participate.

The crowd of Scouts appeared a little bemused but relieved all the same. After everything they had been through, they weren't going to question a simple scouting expedition.

Erwin dismissed the soldiers. He watched them scatter across the grounds to their various duties. Even after everything he had done to them, they were still here. They still trusted him. They would still follow him anywhere.

Levi hung back after the briefing. He stood by Erwin's side, but said nothing, as if waiting for his commander to speak first.

"Did you need something?" Erwin eventually asked.

"We haven't talked about your negotiation," Levi said. "With the Eli faction."

"Right." Hands clasped behind his back, Erwin shifted uncomfortably. "Can we discuss it tonight? I have paperwork I have to do before then."

"I can help with the paperwork," Levi said.

"No." Erwin's stomach was twisting itself into knots. "I'll see you tonight."

"Erwin, you can't—"

"I'll see you tonight, Levi," Erwin interrupted, turning away.

He still couldn't look him in the eye.

Erwin spent the rest of the day pacing back and forth in his office, trying to invent an alternative plan. If he could just figure out who the spies were before they set out for Trost, they wouldn't have to leave the walls at all. He could cancel the expedition before it had begun.

But either there really was no other way, or Erwin wasn't smart enough to see it, because no matter how many times he ran the numbers, no matter how much he worked through the calculations, he came to the same conclusion.

He was fishing for sharks, and Levi had to be the bait.

The door swung open a few minutes after six, and Levi stepped through.

"You could learn to knock someday," Erwin said, but without any real irritation.

"Whatever. You were expecting me anyway."

"Yes," Erwin said hesitantly. He looked down at the floor.

"Do you want to take a walk?" he asked.

Levi stared back at him.

"Since when do we take walks?"

"The sun is just setting," Erwin said. "There's still some light left."

"Okay," Levi said, a little irritably. "Fine. We'll take a walk."

They set out in silence across the grounds, curving down and around the hill, until they found themselves walking through the scattered trees around the pond. The twilight was casting a pale pink glow on the brackish water. The more the light faded, the harder it became to read Levi's face.

Though, to be fair, Erwin had never been all that good at reading Levi in the first place. And he had certainly failed to do so in this case, because when they had reached the far side of the pond, Levi was the first one to speak.

"You're an asshole," he said.

Erwin stopped in his tracks.

"What?"

"You weren't going to tell me," Levi said flatly, turning to face Erwin. "And that's a pretty shitty thing to do to me."

"Tell you…what?"

"That you made a deal with Eli's friends." Levi crossed his arms. "That I have to die in the expedition."

"Levi," Erwin said. He could feel the blood rushing into his head. "How did you—?"

"I was never going to let you go without me," Levi said. "I broke in before anyone got there. I hid under the counter. Heard the whole thing."

"I told you not to—" Erwin began.

"I didn't ever say I wouldn't go, and also, that is the last thing you should be thinking about right now."

And then it dawned on Erwin—that Levi had spent the last two days thinking that Erwin had made a deal with the devil, that he had every intention of sacrificing Levi to the Titans.

"I didn't," he said quickly. "I mean, I didn't mean—I'm not going to—you're not going to—"

"Shut up," Levi said, but there was no energy behind the words. He sounded detached, almost lethargic. "Everything's fine. You did what you had to do."

"Levi, you don't understand."

"I mean it," Levi interrupted. "You're not an asshole because you're going to kill me. I get that part. You're an asshole because you didn't tell me. Did you really think, after everything, that I'd run off on you?"

"I'm not going to—"

"I have to admit, when you asked whether I'd die if you ordered me to, I didn't really think about the answer because I never thought I'd actually have to do it."

"Levi," Erwin said. He could feel his frustration building. "I have a plan. If things go right, you won't die."

"Don't lie," Levi grumbled. "It's worse if you lie."

"I'm not."

"I know you. You think I need to have hope—you think that'll make it better—and you'll say whatever you need to say to get me there."

"Levi…"

"But ever since Furlan and Isabel died…since I watched you riding away…I think maybe I've known ever since then that I'd die a Scout."

Instinctively, Erwin reached out to grasp Levi's shoulder, but he jerked away.

"Stop. Don't."

"Why?"

"Because you're my fucking commander," Levi said, his voice growing more heated. "Because I'm a goddamn soldier and I'm supposed to salute and say sir and die when you tell me to, and it'll be worse for everyone if you suddenly start acting now like my life is any more valuable than any of the other soldiers who—"

"Your life is now, and always will be, dearer to me than my own."

"—died at Benien, or outside Krolva, or—"

Mid-sentence, Levi froze. The only sound was the crickets calling to one another across the pond. Suddenly white as a sheet, Levi stared out into the dim light, standing so still that he might as well have been a statue.

"What did you say?" Levi finally asked.

"Your life—"

"No," Levi said with a sudden, unexpected viciousness. "You're joking."

"I'm not."

"Then what…" Abruptly, Levi raised a hand to cover his mouth. It wasn't until five or ten seconds of thick silence later that Erwin realized Levi's hand was shaking.

"I should go," Levi said, turning to leave.

"Don't," Erwin said. It came out more harshly than he had intended. He repeated himself more gently. "Please. Stay."

Levi didn't turn back toward Erwin, but he didn't walk away either.

"Listen," Erwin began.

"No," Levi interrupted, his voice strained. "No, you listen." He pointed at Erwin. "When I first joined the Scouts, I joined to kill you."

"I know."

"No," Levi said, growing a little louder, a ferocious expression on his face. "Don't talk. If I could have, I would have. I would have killed you, and you wouldn't have been the first man I killed."

"Levi…"

"No," Levi snapped. "No, no, no, listen, listen without talking for once in your life. You don't know how I survived in the Underground before you met me. You don't know what I did. And don't," he added, pointing as Erwin opened his mouth, "don't try to tell me I'm any different now, because he made me who I am and he did a shittyjob and he made me all wrong, and nobody can fix me, nobody."

"Levi."

"William was right—I'm a rat," Levi hissed, "and you, you're a…" He ran his hands through his hair, turning his back on Erwin for a moment before whirling back around. "I wasn't even good enough for him, and that's fine, but it means I've spent all these years becoming better than anybody else at exactly one thing, and that's killing things—killing people, killing Titans—and if that's the only thing I'm ever good for, that's fine too, because you couldn't wash all the blood off my hands if you drained every river and lake in the whole fucking walls."

"Levi—"

"And you might as well be a saint, so don't you dare," Levi spat, ignoring Erwin, "don't you dare tell me that I'm worth all that to you, because it's fine for us to work together and strategize and talk about nothing sometimes and kill Titans, and I…" Levi's voice cracked, and he paused for half a second before continuing. "And I'll follow you until the day I die, but if you think my life is worth even half of yours, then you can go straight to hell."

This last, vehement curse rang in the air between them. Erwin opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. After a few moments of tension, the tightened muscles in Levi's murderous expression softened just a little, and suddenly he just looked tired—tired and so much smaller than he had ever seemed before.

"I didn't know," Erwin said at last.

"Yeah, well," Levi said darkly. "Maybe you don't know anything."

And before Erwin could reply, Levi had already stalked off into the trees.

For a few more minutes, Erwin stood looking out over the pond. He listened to the crickets. He waited until he was sure that he would not catch up with Levi when he left, and then he began to make his way back around the marshy shore. The moonlight lit his way as he walked calmly across the field, surrounded by the peaceful stillness of the grounds at night.

When he arrived back at the main building, he wound his way down the halls to the back staircase. Slowly, methodically, he climbed three stories, opened the old, rickety door, and stepped out onto the empty roof.

Erwin crossed over to the ledge and sat down, letting his legs dangle out over the edge. The training forest and the pond lay spread out in front of him, the obstacle course barely peeking around the hill in the distance.

He waited for an hour. Next to him, a patch of small purple flowers grew out of a crack in the bricks that lined the ledge. Erwin picked one of the flowers and twisted it in his fingers absentmindedly as he gazed out over the grounds.

For almost two years, he had waited for Levi. He had waited for Levi to adjust to life as a Scout, to learn to take orders, to accept his own position as a leader, to gain the respect of his subordinates, to trust his commander, to let down his guard for long enough to let another human being in.

He could wait a little longer.

Another hour went by. Erwin hummed a little, picking at the leaves of the flower in his hands. Sleep tugged at his eyelids, but he ignored it.

He heard the door shut behind him, but he didn't turn around to look. He felt, rather than saw, the figure walking up behind him. He didn't turn.

I knew you'd come here, Erwin almost said, but he didn't need to. Levi knew that he knew.

That was why he was here.

Levi sat next to Erwin. He drew in a deep breath, and then let it out again. Both his palms lay open in his lap, his fingers loosely laced together.

"I'm going to tell you everything," Levi said. "Everything I ever did."

Although Levi was looking up at the sky, not at him—and although Levi was the one who had approached Erwin, and not the other way around—Erwin felt inexplicably as if he were the one walking toward a wounded animal, reaching out slowly with open hands, keeping his movements gentle, controlled, so as not to frighten it away.

"Just you. And then you'll be the only person who ever knows."

"Levi—"

"Until the day you die," Levi interrupted. "You're going to carry it with you."

The wind picked up a little.

"And what you said earlier, about my life being—"

Levi broke off. A second or two passed.

"When I'm done, you're not going to think that anymore. You might…you might change your mind about leaving me out there."

Erwin did not interrupt. He did not protest. He kept waiting.

"After my mother died," Levi said, "I stayed there alone in the room. I don't know how long—a few days, maybe a week. Nobody came, and I was too scared to leave. I guess I would have starved to death if Kenny hadn't shown up.

"He said he knew my mother. He seemed…sad. That she was dead, I mean. I thought he was my father. He must have been…otherwise, I don't know why he would have saved me. He took me in, kept me fed, let me live with him. He'd go out in the morning, then come back for a few hours in the afternoon, then leave again at night. I didn't know at first that he was going out to slit people's throats."

Although the breeze was gentle, Levi drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, as though he were protecting himself from a cold wind.

"I'm not sure what he got out of it. Sometimes he robbed the people he killed. Sometimes he did it because they'd offended him, gotten on his bad side, shit like that. But I think at some point, he'd just gotten addicted to it. I think he liked to feel in control—like he was king of the Underground or something. That's what I thought he was, anyway. Sometimes people would catch me stealing things, and they'd be about to hit me, and then they'd recognize me as Kenny's kid. Then they wouldn't hit me.

"After a couple months, he started taking me with him. We'd break into someone's house—just some person who'd never hurt anybody—and he'd explain to me the whole time what he was doing. He'd stuff a rag in the guy's mouth to keep him from screaming, and he'd tie his hands back to keep him from fighting, and he'd slit the guy's throat, and he'd talk me through all of it, like I was in school, like there was going to be a test.

"He gave me a knife eventually. He taught me how to use it. I wasn't strong enough, so at first, he'd do the restraining part, and he'd tell me to—" Levi stopped. His voice had started to shake. "He'd have me kill them."

For several long moments, Levi was quiet. When he continued, he spoke so softly that Erwin could barely hear him.

"Eventually he started teaching me different ways to do it. He showed me where all the organs were. He guided my hand at first, so I'd be able to find them, but I caught on fast. I learned how to strangle them too—I didn't have to be strong for that, just needed to know the right spot to press. I figured out where the arteries were. I learned how to cut them in one stroke. I knew I'd gotten it right when the blood spurted out everywhere."

Levi drew in a deep, shuddering breath.

"I didn't like doing it. I wanted…I wanted my mother back. I wanted to go home. But I couldn't have that—so I tried to make him love me instead. I learned everything he taught me. I was good at it. I murdered people—lots of people, innocent people—just because he told me to.

"I wish I knew how many people it was. I wish I could tell you I remembered all their faces. But I don't. I guess I got used to it. Sometimes I think I can remember some of them—sometimes I dream about their eyes—but I'm never sure if I'm just making them up, or if I—"

His voice cracked.

"I did it for six years, Erwin. Six years—all those people—and I—I didn't even—"

Levi buried his head in his arms. His shoulders shook. For several minutes, there was no noise except for the rush of the breeze, the distant crickets chirping by the pond, and Levi's faint, muffled sobs.

Humanity's strongest soldier was weeping.

Carefully, Erwin wrapped an arm around Levi's shoulders. He expected Levi's muscles to tense, for him to pull away, but this time—for some reason—he permitted it. Erwin kept silent until the shaking in Levi's shoulders began to subside, until his breathing grew steadier. Only then did Erwin speak.

"You were a child," Erwin said quietly. "You did what you were told."

"That's not everything," Levi said, just barely lifting his head up from his arms. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve, a hint of anger buried in the sudden movement. "My mother had a tea set. It was the only nice thing she owned. She pawned it—because of me, because we needed the money—and kept saying she'd go back for it, but she never did. When I was twelve, I found it, but I didn't have the money to buy it back, so I tried to steal it, and they caught me, and they hit me—a lot—and I was never strong before, but then suddenly…suddenly I was."

"You were what?"

"Strong." Levi stared out into the darkness. "It was like someone had lit a lantern inside me. I was angry, but I was calm too. Everything was simple. I saw a list of instructions in my head, and all I had to do was follow them. I did…and then the men were dead. I'd killed them."

Levi shook his head slowly.

"I ripped one of their faces off," he said softly. "I remember looking down at my hand, and there it was. A face, dripping through my fingers."

As if subconsciously, Levi's right hand twitched.

"Kenny left after that. I guess I did something wrong, but I still don't know what it is. He didn't say goodbye or anything. Just…walked away. Maybe he thought I was…"

Levi let his sentence fade without finishing it. Erwin could feel his shoulders tense.

"But I was strong after that. I made sure everyone knew not to touch me. I could hurt anyone who tried to hurt me. I made them afraid of me. Kenny was gone—nobody knew where he went—so people said I was the new king of the Underground. But I didn't want to be king. I just wanted everyone to leave me alone.

"You asked me once what a thug does, so here it is. I stole things. A lot of things—money, food, stuff I could sell. I hurt people until they gave it to me. I sold the most expensive stuff on the black market. When junkies didn't pay their debts, the dealers would send me to choke the money out of them. When someone cheated one of the black market peddlers, I'd go and teach them a lesson. Sometimes things went wrong. Sometimes people ended up dead. Most of the time, I didn't mean to do it—most of the time, I just went too far. But it doesn't matter. Even without Kenny, I was still exactly what he made me."

In his left hand, Erwin absentmindedly picked up the purple flower again. He twirled it slowly in his fingers as he listened to Levi talk about his years alone in the Underground. For long minutes that turned into hours, Levi told the stories sporadically, sometimes in extended detail, sometimes in short bursts, sometimes blurting out a brief memory in the middle of a longer narrative, sometimes jumping haphazardly back to his days with Kenny, sometimes slipping ahead to a story about Furlan or Isabel.

He told Erwin about one particular old man with blue eyes that Kenny had made him kill.

He told Erwin about how Furlan had begged to join Levi until he finally gave in.

He told Erwin about when he was seven years old and hid in a cesspit for nine hours so that a pair of merchants wouldn't catch him stealing.

He told Erwin about when he had first walked inside Furlan's apartment and spent the next twelve hours scrubbing it clean.

He told Erwin about when he found ten-year-old Isabel in a pile of garbage.

He told Erwin about the reason he never held a teacup by the handle.

He told Erwin about the men he had murdered because they cut Isabel's hair.

He kept his promise, and he told Erwin everything, and some of it will remain on that rooftop forever, because it was never meant for anyone's ears but Erwin's. And as the night slipped away, as a hint of navy blue just began to dip its finger into the black sky, Levi started to slow down.

"Everyone assumes that I always wanted out of the Underground," he said eventually. "They think I was trapped—that I spent all that time just trying to get out. Well, I didn't. For eight years, I barely even thought about the surface, and when I did, I thought of it like a fairy story that people told their kids. For twenty years, I never saw the sun. I'm not even sure I believed it existed.

"It was Furlan who wanted to get out first. He kept saying that if we pooled all our money, we could make a life on the surface. But then I found Isabel, and we had to support her too. When she got a little older and stronger and learned how to use the ODM gear, maybe we could have put the money together then. But we started hiring a lot of kids to do odd jobs for us…reconnaissance, snooping, petty theft, that kind of thing. We didn't need the help, but they needed the money. And that meant we still couldn't scrounge up enough to get out.

"Isabel's the one who really wanted to go. She talked about it all the time. She saved this bird once—took care of it until it could fly again. She released the bird in this spot where the cave ceiling opened up and we could see the sky." He paused. "That was the first time I'd ever seen the sun. I remember looking up at the sky, and all of a sudden, I couldn't breathe. I wanted to fly out like the bird. For the first time in my life, I wanted to leave.

"You know the rest. We joined the Scouts. I wanted to kill you, so I left them behind in a rainstorm. They got eaten alive because of me. And when you found me there in the rain, I told you that I'd become a Scout just to assassinate you. I think I told you because I thought you'd kill me. Because that's what I deserved.

"And damn it, Erwin, you let me live. You let me live,and I didn't understand because if I were you, I would have killed me in a heartbeat. You looked at me and you saw something I've never been, but it made me want to be…"

He struggled for the right word.

"That," he said finally. "Whatever you were seeing."

Levi fell silent—whether because he had finished or because he was thinking, Erwin didn't know, and he didn't ask. As they sat in the quiet darkness, Erwin tried to imagine those first few months after the expedition that killed Furlan and Isabel. He pictured Levi sneaking up to the roof in the middle of the night, sleeping for only an hour or two so that none of the other Scouts in the barracks would find out about the nightmares. He thought about Levi struggling to gain the respect of his squad, trying to do what everyone expected of him, and somehow always ending up in Erwin's office, facing punishment again for repeated insubordination. He imagined Levi learning how to wake up to sunlight every morning, learning how to shut his mouth and open his eyes and follow orders he didn't understand. He thought about Levi right here, right now on this roof, finally trusting someone enough to open his hands and drop his weapons.

"I think," Erwin said, "that you might be the bravest person I've ever met."

A choked laugh escaped Levi's throat.

"You don't…" Levi looked up at Erwin. "You haven't changed your mind?"

"You are worth just as much to me as you were an hour ago." Erwin squeezed Levi's shoulder. "And as you will be ten years from now."

One glance at Levi's face, and Erwin quickly looked away. For a few minutes, he pretended to be very interested in watching the wind in the trees around the pond. By the time Levi spoke again, his voice was steady.

"You said ten years. You think there's a way for all this to end that doesn't kill me?"

"If my plan works," Erwin replied. "If things go right. But the margin of error is a little wider than I'd like it to be."

"Go on."

"I know there are spies among our ranks. As long as I can get them to reveal themselves, I can make them confess."

"They're Scouts," Levi pointed out. They've already fought Titans. What are you going to threaten them with?"

"I'll figure something out." Erwin flexed his free hand, letting the flower fall. "Believe me."

But Levi didn't look satisfied yet. "How are you going to find them?"

"I don't have to. As soon as they think you're dead, they're going to come to me."

Levi frowned. "Why?"

"Because you're not the one they want to kill."

Levi's head jerked up. "What?"

"I mean, they do want to kill you," Erwin said. "But it's primarily a way to get to me."

"What about buying the votes?" Levi still didn't sound convinced. "Why go to all that trouble if they still want to kill you?"

"Think about it. They already bought the middle faction's votes. If they wanted me out, they could have me out. There's no reason for a deal, no reason to negotiate, unless there's something more important that they want."

"They told you what they want," Levi interrupted. "It's revenge. They think I killed William."

Erwin shook his head. "Not good enough. They're after a political goal, not a personal one. They wouldn't give up the guarantee of pushing me out if they weren't getting something better."

"And 'something better' means your death?"

"Right. Even in the Garrison, I can still cause problems for the royalists. As long as I'm alive, I'm a threat to the king."

"So why this whole song and dance about wanting me dead?"

"They can't kill me as long as you're around." Erwin tapped a finger on his knee. "They've been getting reports from their spies for a long time. They know that even before you knew I was being threatened, you still caught the assassin they sent—and now that you're on guard, they have no chance of reaching me. With you gone, they finally have a shot at killing me."

"So what do we do? How do we deal with the spies?"

"We go on the expedition. We follow all the rules. We leave you outside the walls. The rest of us come back, and within a few hours, the spies will try to kill me—and then I'll know who they are."

"Wait." Levi stiffened. "This plan involves you surviving an assassination attempt?"

"I've thought through everything," Erwin said quietly. "More times than you can imagine. It's the only way to make the spies show themselves."

"How do you even know it'll be the spies?" Levi asked. "Why not another assassin who doesn't know who hired him—like the first one?"

"Because we won't leave from Trost," Erwin said. "I'll change the location last minute. I'll make up a good reason—I'll say it's because of the weather or something—and tomorrow we'll ride northeast to Karanes instead. You're right, there are almost certainly assassins waiting to do the job in Trost. But they can't kill me if I'm not in Trost."

"Won't the spies get suspicious?"

"Not if my reasons are plausible enough," Erwin said. "If I divert course for a good reason, it'll look like I'm just trying to follow the first rule—meeting the deadline."

"And if there are no assassins…"

"…the spies have to do it," Erwin finished. "They can't afford to let the opportunity pass."

"How do you know they'll come after you right away?"

"They call you humanity's strongest for a reason." A humorless chuckle escaped Erwin's lips. "Even after going to great lengths to make sure you're left alone forty miles into Titan territory without a horse, they can't be absolutely certain it will kill you. They have to kill me while they know you're gone."

"I don't like this plan," Levi grumbled.

"I'll send for you as soon as I have the spies. You shouldn't be out there for more than a few hours."

But even if the spies act quickly, the odds aren't very good.

Erwin pushed the thought aside.He couldn't dwell on that right now.

"That's not what I meant," Levi said. "I don't like that you're going to have to fight off spies—we don't even know how many—that are hellbent on killing you."

"They don't know that I know. They won't think I'm armed. I will be. That should be enough advantage."

"Here's a better idea," Levi said suddenly. "We tell my squad. They hide and keep watch while you're waiting. When the spies show up, they take them down."

Erwin shook his head. "We don't know that we can trust them."

"I do," Levi said. "I know. They're not spies."

Erwin opened his mouth to argue, but the words never made it past his lips. Levi was as suspicious a person as Erwin had ever met. If he was confident that his squad was reliable, maybe it was time for Erwin to rely on that confidence.

"All right," he said. "Well, that would reduce the risk considerably."

For me, not for you, he thought, but did not say.

"It could still go wrong," Levi said.

"You're the one who has to fight off countless Titans alone for who knows how many hours. I just have to deal with a couple of traitors—and I won't even be alone."

"It might be more than a couple. You don't know—"

"Levi," Erwin interrupted. "I've assessed the risk. This is what we have to do."

And maybe Levi had known all along that Erwin was right, because he didn't even try to suggest the only alternative: that Erwin could call the whole thing off and allow himself to be voted out. He and Levi could join the Garrison—but then what? The Eli faction would fight him at every turn. He would never be free to pursue the secret of the Titans until he had defeated his human enemies for good.

But as he sat together with Levi on the roof, a flame of fear was still licking at his insides. It had nothing to do with the fact that he would soon face the traitors hidden among the Scouts. With Levi's squad there, the risk to himself was negligible.

No, as he and Levi watched the sky brighten on the horizon, it was something else entirely that shortened his breath and constricted his chest. Even though he had never had any trouble with heights, the distance from the roof to the green grass below was starting to make him dizzy. He closed his eyes, but no matter how hard he tried to suppress the sensation, he could still feel his stomach dropping as if, after months of circling, he had already begun to dive.