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what the One must be up to, bringing another desert child to the Temple. She’d just dismissed the housemother, ordering her to treat the girl no differently than the others—­which pretty much guaranteed she’d be harder on her.
    A tap on the door made her smile joylessly.
    â€œCome in,” she ordered, unsurprised when a tall man in a deep maroon tunic slipped through the doorway.
    â€œCrone,” he greeted her, and she nodded and gestured to the other chair.
    â€œTemplar,” she replied, as the highest-­ranked scion of Voras seated himself. “What brings you here this evening?”
    He appraised her coolly, and she stared back at him. Thirty years her junior, he was the third replacement Voras had chosen since Ivanha had chosen her as Crone. Voras, the deity of war and passion, valued strength over experience, which meant she had to deal with an insolent puppy every decade or so. This one was finally beginning to realize that she could cut as deeply with her cunning as he could with his straightforward aggression.
    â€œI hear you have a new girl,” the Templar said, arching an eyebrow.
    She nodded and waited, wondering what his god would have told him.
    He frowned at her, no doubt used to women wanting to give him more than he asked for. But her goddess had taught her well; Ivanha knew that the key to keeping control of men was to not give them what they wanted. It was to make them ask, sometimes beg, until the want became a need. So Ivanha’s Crone waited for him to come to her.
    He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Have you seen her yet?” he asked.
    The Crone nodded placidly. “I felt it wise to interview her before putting her in with the other girls.”
    The Crone didn’t add that her feli had come to her with an urgent summons from Ivanha asking her to take the matter in hand. And then the blasted feline had disappeared, so she could not report back to Ivanha for orders. The Crone believed that Ivanha could monitor what she was doing and saying, but even the highest-­ranked acolytes had to channel through the feli to get orders and hear what her deity wanted. The One constantly meddled in the deities’ business, directing her contrary creatures so the deities could not manage their domains properly. She was like a controlling parent, unwilling to believe the deities could manage without her. Unlike a controlling parent, the One would never die and leave her children in charge.
    Her face must have shown some of her frustration because the Templar leaned forward.
    â€œWill she be a problem, then? Will we take care of her like the last problem that came from the desert?” he asked intently, fingering the sword by his side.
    The Crone snorted and stood, turning her back on him and pacing a ­couple of steps away. He hadn’t even been around when that particular flower had come out of the desert. The Crone was the one who’d had to cover over that blunder, who’d had to put out a false trail, leading suspicions away from the Temple after the Templar’s predecessor made a mess out of the situation. And here was this Templar, anxious to blunder and chop his way into another disaster.
    â€œShe does not look like Iamar,” she told him, turning to face him. “She could be a flower for our Temple, a rose that gives us the scent of the Southern desert.”
    â€œOr she could be the thorn that festers and poisons the Temple, like the last one,” the Templar stated bluntly. “How would you know until it is too late?”
    â€œShe is protected; Iamar was not.”
    That startled him. “The One?”
    The Crone nodded. “The One has shown a greater interest in this pledge than the other. According to Counselor Elida, the feli flocked around her as she was taken, indicating the One’s special favor.”
    He narrowed his eyes, as though thinking. She couldn’t help but notice that thinking took