"Mirk! Mirk, thank God you're here."

Mirk scrubbed at his eyes with the backs of his hands as he looked up from his book. Elijah was cutting across the common room at the back of the bordello, his cloak wrapped tight around himself. Behind the mage, just inside the curtain that separated the common room from the rest of the building, one of Fatima's ladies lingered with arms folded, smirking at Elijah's hunched shoulders and bright red face. "Oh, Comrade Elijah. I'm glad you got my letter."

But not nearly as glad as Elijah was to see him waiting at the bordello. Elijah collapsed into the chair next to Mirk’s, at the far end of a table that'd been hauled into the back room for the purpose of that night's meeting. He was panting, sweating despite how cold it was, both inside the bordello and beyond. March had long since arrived, but winter showed no signs of breaking. And Mirk was feeling it, in a constant sleepiness that threatened to overwhelm him any time he wasn't up and moving.

"Oh, no problems with that. I get so many that no one has time to sort through them. Not even me, to be honest." Though Elijah was speaking with him, his eyes still darted back toward the lady just inside the curtain, who was determined to get as much entertainment out of Elijah's nervousness as she could before heading back to work. Mirk couldn't blame her for it. It really was a rarity to see a K’maneda man reduced to shambles by the mere presence of a lady who didn't have any qualms about flashing a bare shoulder or a bit of collarbone.

"It was kind of you to be watching for it, then," Mirk said as he closed his book. He was as relieved by Elijah's presence as the mage was. It gave him an excuse to stop studying.

Elijah fixed on the book, to try to distract himself from the lady by the curtain. "What are you working on? Anything I might know?"

Mirk turned the book around so Elijah could read the title. "Not unless you have an interest in anatomy, methinks."

"A Comprehensive Treatise on the Problems Concerning Women..." Though Elijah's shoulders tensed further, his fanaticism for books got the better of him. He opened it, leafing through its pages until he got to the first diagram. Then he went white and slammed it shut, scooting the book as far away as he could reach across the table. "I say, is this even legal?"

Mirk shrugged. "It's for healers. We, euh...see it in person every day. Methinks a drawing isn't too shocking for us."

"Every day?" Elijah shook his head, rewrapping his cloak, stopping just short of pulling its hood over his head to hide his face. Across the room, Mirk heard the lady who'd shown him in laugh to herself. "You healers really are the bravest men in the City, I swear."

"Half of the diagrams aren't even right. Methinks maybe I could try to make better ones, if it meant helping everyone heal better..."

Much to his alarm, Ravensdale had been true to his word when he'd said he'd speak to Cyrus on the matter of him being banished to the Twentieth. But Cyrus had taken his own latitude in deciding how to respond to Ravensdale's judgment that a nobleman was wasted on the low-born fighters and mages. Instead of transferring him to the Tenth — and Mirk was glad he hadn't — he'd simply assigned all the most difficult officers' wives to his care. The ladies the other healers of the Tenth were sick of seeing, both the men-midwives and everyone else.

He'd been spending all his time at the infirmary ever since sorting through them, aside from when he was granted a reprieve by the arrival of fresh casualties through the field transporter. Mirk desperately wanted to help the ladies, most of whom had been suffering through their ailments for months, if not years. But he felt woefully unprepared to handle any healing that didn't involve drawing together stab wounds or scraping the charred flesh off of magic burns.

It was all very depressing, almost too depressing for him to bear up under. If the women hadn't been so grateful to find a healer who was willing to listen to their concerns rather than telling them there was nothing they could do for them other than a bit of bloodletting and a written order to stay away from the chaotic aura of the City, Mirk would have cracked under the weight of all of it. Though he was as lost as the Tenth's healers on what to do about their complaints, they seemed grateful to hear that he'd try working up potions for them, even if he couldn't guarantee their success. Which was depressing in its own way too, but not unbearably so.

And then there were all the rumors he'd been collecting ever since the ladies had started seeking him out. But that was a whole other problem entirely.

"I've written a dozen or so grimoires myself, but I don't think I can give you much help in this area," Elijah said, giving the book a final, furtive look, before locking his eyes back on Mirk. "Best of luck, though. My master in the guild always said, if you want to make a name for yourself, go do research on a subject no one else has dared to study yet."

"I'm not very interested in becoming a great mage," Mirk said with a shrug, tucking the book back into his work bag. Better to give Elijah one less thing in the room to be terrified of.

But the second the book was put away, a new problem arrived to accost Elijah. Fatima shoved aside the curtain, limping into the room after scolding the woman who'd been lingering nearby to get back to work. Her eyes skimmed over Mirk, locking on Elijah instead, as she thumped down into the chair across the table from him. "So you've decided you're not going to be useless after all?" she questioned, jabbing at him with her cane.

Elijah shrunk away from it, the shield against offensive magic around him tightening, as if he expected her to unleash a spell on him. "Er...beg pardon? I don't recognize you, I'm afraid..."

"I've been writing you for a whole goddamn month! Have you found out anything more about Richard and Paul yet?"

"Er...ah...I haven't gotten any letters..."

"I tried sending some girls too, but you ran away every time one got near you."

The light of realization crept over Elijah's face. That time, he did cave to his insecurities, drawing the hood of his cloak up and tugging it down low over his forehead. "You sent them? I thought maybe they were just looking for money..."

"They don't need to go begging for work. You officers will pay any price to not have to actually talk to a woman before getting off," Fatima scoffed. "Except for you. Apparently. Should I send a man next time? We've got a couple of those too."

"No! No, no, that won't be necessary," Elijah quickly reassured her. "It's just...I...what's your name, again? Maybe I just thought the letters were more warnings from the guilds..."

"No names. Never any names. That's your first lesson," Fatima finally turned to address Mirk, her frown deepening. "And you. Where's Genesis and the rest of his layabouts? He won't return my letters either. And he’s the one who ordered this meeting to begin with."

"Gen's never been very good with correspondence," Mirk sighed. There was a stack of letters a full foot tall that Genesis had been avoiding ever since they'd moved in to the low-born officers' dormitory. At the start, Mirk had collected them and brought them up along with his own. Somehow, they all returned back to the matron's desk on the ground floor by the next time he checked in. The matron herself was growing very annoyed by it all. "And he's been off-realm with the other Easterners on contract for the last two weeks."

"Then why the hell did he tell us all to meet tonight?"

"He must be planning on coming back," Mirk said with a helpless shrug. "But you're more than welcome to write to me instead of him, Mada—"

"Fatima. You actually know my name; you don't have any excuse."

"Euh...yes, Fatima. Sorry. But methinks it really might be better if you write to me instead of him. I might not be able to tell you everything he has planned, but I do open my letters every day. Or you could send one of the ladies to me. I'm sure they'd appreciate being healed too, if someone's not feeling well."

Fatima sighed, throwing her head back to glare at the ceiling as she heaved her stiff leg up onto the chair beside her. "Why does the only useful one of you lot have to be a healer?"

Mirk resisted the urge to offer her a sympathetic hand or smile, left only with the option of shrugging once more. "Maybe if I knew more about what you had planned I could help more? Gen said something about the arrow in his note..."

"Not until I'm sure this one is on board," Fatima said, turning her glare back at Elijah. "Genesis already gave you the talk, right? About his old K'maneda nonsense?"

Elijah nodded. "It...I...well. I wasn't sure about things at first, but now that I've been looking around more..."

"Looking around?"

"I'm just a mage," Elijah said. "I only joined because I got blacklisted from the guilds. And Alistair promised me all the grimoires I wanted and decent pay if I came to work for the K'maneda. And...well. I'll be honest, doing combat magic to earn my keep sounded a lot more interesting than making firestarting spell papers and magelights to fill my guild quotas. At least it did at the time," he added in a low voice, his mouth screwing up in a troubled expression. His eyes remained hidden in the shadow cast by his hood.

"Did it?"

"He tries to keep most of us strong mages at the rear, unless we need to tackle a fortification. Or unless someone actually wants to go to the front and fight that way. I...well...I sort of volunteered for one of those spots on our last contract. That combined with how he acted at the Festival...I can't just stand by and do nothing any more."

Fatima's eyes narrowed. She leaned across the table, whipping out a hand and yanking back Elijah's hood before he could protest. Or raise his casting arm to attempt to stop her. "He let you go to the front? How did you make it back alive?"

"I almost didn't," Elijah said, too distressed by the memory of it to have enough space left in his head to worry about Fatima glowering at him across the table. "He sent two of the djinn and one of the older front magicians to keep an eye on me. It...wasn't good. We all came back, but the other three had to spend a lot of time with the healers..."

"Ravensdale really is an idiot," Fatima said, settling back into her chair and folding her arms. "Anyone can tell just from looking at you that you don't belong at the front."

For the first time since she'd entered, Elijah lifted his head and looked Fatima straight in the eyes, without cringing away. A long moment passed. Then a spark of Elijah's usual excitement returned as he leaned further across the table, squinting at her. "Oh! Is that what you are? I had been wondering..."

"If you say djinn, I swear—"

"Of course not," Elijah said. "You're not like a djinn at all. You're a sensitive, aren't you?"

Fatima only scowled at him in response.

"Euh...methinks I haven't ever heard of those before," Mirk babbled into the uncomfortable silence that'd fallen over the table.

"A sensitive," Elijah said, leaning back and blinking rapidly. He must have been using his magical senses to peer across the table at Fatmia rather than his physical eyes alone. "Very rare! I've never actually met one in person, I've just read about them in books. A sensitive's elements and orientation are perfectly balanced. So they can't do magic, but because they're so even, they can feel how others use theirs. Or at least, that's what Mancini theorized when he went to do research on that remote island in—"

"Whether or not I have any potential has nothing to do with the fact that you're still an idiot," Fatima cut in. "Besides. Who needs potential of their own when you people go stuffing it into every last thing you make?"

Mirk studied Fatima as well, though he at least had the sense to be less obvious about it than Elijah. "Is that why I can't feel you? I don't mean to be rude, but you do feel a little, euh, different than most people."

"It's part of the reason," Fatima admitted, snatching her cane off the table, spinning it over her wrist instead as she leaned back further in her chair. "The other reason being that I take precautions against empaths, unlike everyone else in this place. I'd rather keep my thoughts to myself."

Mirk mulled this over, wringing his hands in his lap as he watched Fatima and Elijah stare each other down across the table. The mage was nearly fit to burst from all the unasked questions he doubtlessly wanted to ask her, while Fatima, Mirk assumed, was already thinking up ways to avoid them. Rather than allowing the situation to come to a head, Mirk elected to present them both with a question that rose to the front of his mind and that immediately troubled him. "If a person with balanced elements and orientation can't be read well with empathy, why can we all feel Percival's emotions from two floors away? Yule said that Percival's are the most balanced he's ever seen. Well. They are now, at least."

Elijah dug in the pocket of his cloak for something, coming up with a dogeared ledger scrawled with notes too illegible for Mirk to read. He dropped it on the table, flipping through it with one hand while rubbing at the back of his neck with the other. "I've been looking into him, like you asked me to. But that's an interesting observation, Mirk...hmm, well, if we take what Werner has to say about the effects of his draining experiments at face value, then even once a mage has his—"

Fatima couldn't help herself. She leaned forward across the table again, that time pointing an accusing finger at Elijah rather than her cane. "Werner is a hack. The conditions of his experiments make all his results worthless. You can't test on a starved mage and expect him to react the same as a healthy one. Bozkurt proved that when he put those mages he found in the—"

"Oh! You've read Bozkurt? I only managed to get a copy when I was shipwrecked that one time...but you know, you might have a point. Though I still think Werner has a point too. At least as far as his claim that age has to be factored in, you know, with the channel theory he borrows from—"

"Olsson? Don't get me started on him. His whole theory was bought and paid for. Swedish potioners' guild wanted to be able to gouge people for their new defense tinctures."

"Er, really? How did you...?"

"Because he spent half his fee at Lord Wilcock's gambling house. And the rest of it at the Gardens," Fatima said.

"Well, I suppose that does put a different spin on things," Elijah admitted, going a bit red around the edges as he flipped through his ledger again. "Though you can't deny the part that's backed up by Axton's Push-Pull Factor. Everyone agrees on that."

"And he was sexless as a doornail. So if we keep Axton in, and then add in Al-Khatib's Draining Quotient, you might be able to get somewhere. Though you've probably never heard of him."

"Of course I've read Al-Khatib! Only in translation, but I got my hands on the one Lennox commissioned from the Porte instead of the one from Isles. Isles barely even knows English, judging by all the errors..."

Mirk lost track of the conversation then — in reality, he'd lost the main thread of it at the first name Fatima had turned around on Elijah and brandished at him in place of her cane. But he didn't need to understand any of the barbs they threw at each other, or be able to sense their emotions, to follow what was being left unsaid. For the first time since he'd first met Elijah, he wasn't petrified by a woman, his excitement and enthusiasm for magecraft shining through in its place. And for Fatima's part, though she seemed a bit disgusted by Elijah, she was still talking with him rather than at him. And with each foreign name Elijah recognized, the less tense her shoulders grew.

"Mirgosha! I've come to save you!"

He was startled out of his wistful appreciation of the pair's debate by a booming voice from the curtained hallway. K'aekniv had arrived, his wings still streaked with muck and soot from the field, though his overcoat had spared his uniform the worst of it. And though he had one of Genesis's countless black handkerchiefs tied around a fresh cut on the back of one of his giant hands, he didn't seem bothered in the slightest by it.

"Save him from what?" Fatima asked, hauling her leg down off the chair it'd been propped across and shoving it back from the table with her cane. "And you're late."

Grinning, K'aekniv waggled a knowing finger at the madam. "When your voice goes soft like that, it means someone's got you talking about big mage things. And it's not Mirgosha for sure. He likes to talk about fun things, like a normal person. So it's this one? You look a little familiar..."

Elijah had clammed up again, grasping the edge of the table like he expected K'aekniv to flap his wings and blow him into the wall. Though that might have been because Alice was fast on the half-angel's heels, her baby bound to her chest with the same salvaged wrapping as the last time Mirk had seen them. The pair sat down on either side of the table, Alice beside Elijah, while K'aekniv sprawled out in the chair Fatima had pushed away from the table. Neither Elijah nor Fatima seemed particularly enthusiastic about who'd chosen to sit beside them.

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"Hello, Mademoiselle Alice," Mirk said, waving to her. "Is Ella well?"

"Getting big!" Alice replied, cheerfully, as the baby tugged on the strings to her bodice. "She'll suck me dry and be the size of a horse by May, I'm sure."

"Er...ah...um...why are we..." Elijah stammered, determinedly looking at everyone and everything other than Alice and K’aekniv.

"If a baby eats good, then it's all easy from there," K'aekniv said, nodding across the table at Alice. "She'll be as strong as you! Look at those arms!"

"I'd hate to think of how much you ate. Your poor mother," Alice joked back at him. Though Mirk noticed that she reflexively tensed the muscles in her arms at K'aekniv's mention of them. They were, indeed, even thicker than they'd been the last time Mirk had seen her.

"Well, you know, Father Sergei, he didn't put out much. He said he had to go looking in three different villages to find enough women to help."

"I don't want to hear about your wet nurses," Fatima said, rapping K'aekniv's leg with her cane. "Where's your creepy little friend? He's the one who dragged us all out here."

"...I was...delayed. Being in your debt, I will...endeavor to keep things brief."

As always, Genesis neglected to use the door like the others seated around the table had. Instead, he stepped out of the shadows cast by the chair at the table’s head, frowning down at it for a moment before pulling it out and joining them. He was much worse for wear than K'aekniv. Though the commander wasn't bleeding, he'd wrapped one knee and its opposite elbow up in the remnants of a shredded uniform for extra support. And there was a ring of bruises blossoming around his neck.

"Are you all right, messire?" Mirk asked, snatching up his work bag from the floor beside his chair, preparing to get up and help.

But Genesis waved him off with his uninjured arm. "It would be more...expedient to discuss business matters first. Fatima. What is your appraisal of the current...state of affairs among the commanders sympathetic to Ravensdale's aims?"

"They all want to murder each other," Fatima replied, flatly. "But that's always the case. Lina says Richard is convinced that he's next. But my gold's on Lorenz."

"According to Lina, Richard's thought he's next for the last ten years," Alice chuckled, as she gave into her baby's tugging and began to unlace her bodice. Across the table, K’aekniv sighed wistfully at the mention of Lina’s name, but didn’t comment otherwise. "I bet it depends on who Percy blames for what happened to him."

"Has anyone come to see him yet at the infirmary?" Fatima asked Mirk.

"Not yet," Mirk said. "No one other than Cyrus, anyway. But..."

"But?"

"Cyrus told Ravensdale about me," Mirk said. "Though I'm not exactly sure what he said. I ran into him at the ball I chaperoned Comrade Commander Margaret's daughter to last week. Ravensdale, not Cyrus."

There was a moment of silence. Then the interrogation began.

"That is...difficult," Genesis said.

"We train the girls for months before letting them at the commanders," Fatima insisted. "You're not ready for undercover work. Is he on to you? Which of the other commanders were there? We need to make sure the girls are warned ahead of time, they need to know what to say if they see you, and..." she trailed off, grabbing for her own notepad in the side pocket of her trousers.

K'aekniv was more optimistic, flaring his wings out for balance as he rocked back in his chair. "Eh, well, maybe if it's just the rich ones, and not the ones that want to beat you for looking at them wrong it's not so bad. It could work."

"You are a little too honest for that kind of thing," Alice said. Though at least she paired her criticism with a smile instead of horror.

"I don't know," Elijah said. "You seem to know what you're doing. With people, anyway..."

"Coming from you? That's just proof he's not ready," Fatima snapped.

"I didn't know that Ravensdale would be there," Mirk cut in, when everyone quit their arguing just long enough to catch their breaths. "I didn't even know Casyn would be there until he arrived with the carriage."

"Oh, well, with him, you're good. He just wants to beat people, but he's such a big idiot it doesn't matter. And it's me saying that," K'aekniv said.

"Who all was there?" Fatima asked again, scrawling something on a fresh page of her notepad, with an odd device that was halfway between a quill and a pencil. "We didn't have anyone at that ball. It must have been the debutante one, right? That's why we didn't send anyone, all the officers who'd go to that kind of ball are looking for an honest woman, not one of us."

Mirk nodded. "At Lord Emerson's. There were a dozen officers there, maybe...but for commanders, there was Casyn, Ravensdale, and...euh...the big and small mages who go places with Ravensdale. Methinks they're commanders, though I don't remember..."

"Fat one's Paul. Mage, but they put him in charge of Fifth Infantry. Skinny one's Richard. Eleventh Mage." Fatima frowned. "Didn't know either one of them was looking for a wife. Lina claims she has Richard totally hooked. Could just be there to keep an eye on Ravensdale."

"Methinks that's the case," Mirk confirmed, noting that K’aekniv sighed again at the mention of Lina’s name. His emotions — even louder for the fact that everyone else’s were quiet or shielded, with the exception of Alice — betrayed no hint of jealousy, or feelings of betrayal. Only regret. "Neither of them danced with anyone. And Ravensdale didn't bring any of his djinn along with. Ravensdale danced with Miss Catherine twice, once with Miss Abigail, Lord Wainright's daughter, once with Miss Jane, Grand Master Abbot's granddaughter, and twice with Miss Paulina, Grand Master Greene's niece by way of his brother Phillip. Methinks he danced with Miss Abigail only because she's so sociable and he didn't want to be impolite, though. Miss Paulina or Miss Catherine are his choices for the season, though methinks Miss Jane has a temperament more suited to him. Not that I'd recommend him to any young lady, but methinks she'd be less troubled by his indiscretions. Her heart lies with her studies, not the menfolk."

Fatima's marker froze over her paper, as she slowly pivoted to face him. "You remember all that right off the top of your head, do you? But you can't remember the difference between Paul and Richard?"

"Bien sûr," Mirk replied with a shrug. "I was listening for what they all thought of the commanders, but methinks the English way is to ignore people you dislike instead of gossiping about them. Freezing is what Miss Esther called it. I wish there was more I could do for her. But I could only stand to listen to her grandfather talk about papistry long enough for him to let me dance with her once. Methinks he wants to try to convert me...saving souls is a very honorable thing in his faith..."

Fatima glanced down the length of the table at Genesis. "Is he always like this?"

Genesis nodded. "The only...requirement is meeting an individual once."

"But it is much harder with K'maneda," Mirk explained. "No one here ever introduces themselves properly. They come up and start talking to you right away. I'd know much more about the officers who'd gone if they'd bothered with it."

"Maybe this isn't a total disaster," Fatima said, grudgingly, as she picked up writing again. "What did you tell them about why you're there?"

"I was honest," Mirk said. "The Circle wants to make amends with the English. Miss Catherine is my introduction. And the English mages didn't need to be told that Miss Catherine needs a better chaperone than her father. They didn't seem fond of my manners, but they did seem to be glad that Miss Catherine wasn't left on her own. Methinks it's a bit strange for it to be an unmarried foreign mage chaperoning instead of one of Comrade Commander Margaret's relations, but anything is better than nothing."

"Well, you're there to get information for us too, now," Fatima said. "Though don't go telling anyone that. They weren't suspicious about there being another K'maneda there? Not the English, or the officers?"

Mirk shook his head. "The English understand that I'm not like the officers. And methinks the officers think I'm no one. Other than Ravensdale, maybe, depending on what Cyrus told him. Though..."

"Though?"

"All that's changed since the ball at the infirmary is Cyrus has assigned more of the officers' wives to me. H and the other officers had never liked dealing with them. Methinks they might think they're punishing me more than helping me. Comrade Eva was always willing to help before, but the ladies weren't fond of her. Not because she was cruel, but..." But Eva had the worst bedside manner of nearly all the healers in the infirmary, perhaps with the exception of Yule. It was better to deal with either of them when half-delirious with pain, not when wide awake and capable of being bombarded by their constant questions and thoughtless asides.

"I'll have the girls keep an ear out," Fatima concluded. "In the meantime, you need to be careful. These people aren't like your rich friends. None of the commanders would pause a second before knifing you if they thought you were coming for their position."

"Euh...but I'm not. Am I? Other than Ravensdale, but that's different."

"They all must be...dealt with," Genesis said. "Once Ravensdale falls, the rest will...follow. With certain concessions."

"You want to get rid of all the commanders?" Elijah blurted out, his horror escaping his mage shielding and pressing hard against Mirk's own. "Just Ravensdale is almost impossible! But if you add on Paul and Richard and K'syr and North—"

"Certain individuals can be...reasoned with," Genesis interjected, lifting his good hand to cut off Elijah's rambling. "North among them. K'syr is...another matter entirely. But. In regards to our present issue...I have concluded my study of the Destroyer's arrow."

"And?"

Genesis paused, dipping a hand into his coat pocket and drawing something wrapped in a handkerchief out of it. It was only the arrow's head, a bit of metal that fit comfortably in the palm of Genesis's hand. But the commander handled it delicately, with the barest tips of his fingers, keeping them well away from its edges. Mirk knew Genesis must have fastidiously polished it clean dozens of times by then, but it sucked in the light cast by the back room's dim oil lamps rather than reflecting it. "It will be adequate to serve our purposes. The Destroyer who crafted it is...deceased. It can be negotiated with to break the magic on the djinn's collars. However. Aside from...understanding that said magic has been crafted to be resistant to my own, I have no further information on the collars’ mechanisms."

Fatima sighed. "None of the girls have managed to get anywhere near the djinn. Can't you brute force it?"

Immediately, Genesis shook his head. "It is not that manner of magic. Our information from Am-Gulat and Am-Hazek suggests that Ravensdale employed a...competent mage in crafting them. Perhaps if the Destroyer attached to this was alive, it would be...theoretically possible. However, we would be unable to use the arrow for anything, in that case."

"What do you mean?" Fatima asked. "A blade is a blade. Or an arrowhead, in this case."

"Destroyer magic doesn't work like that," Elijah said. "I've only read a little bit about it, since they don't want to record their own weaknesses but it's...well, it doesn't follow the normal rules. It can't be repurposed or redirected. There was that one book I got off-realm that talks about the time the Great Mirror Mage tried to stop a Destroyer from taking their realm...though that might have been a parable more than something that actually happened..."

"I do not know of a...mirror mage," Genesis said. "And it is...incorrect to state that it cannot be redirected in any instance. The chaos allows for infinite possibilities. However. The destructive capacity of a Destroyer's weapon is connected to their will. If a Destroyer does not will their weapon to destroy, it will...only be as effective as a mortal weapon made of similar materials. And this arrow, though made of a...certain metal with excellent conductive powers, is insufficient to sever the djinn's collars. After studying this device, I have concluded that there is sufficient undifferentiated destructive potential remaining inside of the arrowhead for a...single shot. We will have one attempt to sever a single djinn's collar. If we fail the first, there will be no second."

Silence fell over the table once more. Fatima shifted in her chair, fixing her attention across the table on Alice. Though she'd been listening to the conversation, her eyes were trained down on the infant nursing at her breast. "I've done the best I can with the bow. Crossbow, composite. It cost a fortune. But we need someone to shoot it. Someone who can pick up the slack if something goes wrong with the lever."

Alice was clever enough to put all the pieces together without being told the plan outright. "I'm sure one of them has to be stronger than I am," she said, glancing up just long enough to nod across the table at K'aekniv. "Him, for starters."

"Look at me, Aliska. I can't hide. If I get close to those djinn, Ravensdale will know something's going on. And everyone else is a little the same. Even Pasha and Mordka are no good, and they're strong in the wrong way."

"I was...under the impression that you'd been preparing for this eventuality. Fatima," Genesis said.

"We have been. All of us," Fatima said, her voice lowered. She'd cast aside her marker and picked up her cane instead, spinning it thoughtlessly around her wrist as she stared across the table at Alice. Her infant daughter had gone back to sleep. Rather than lacing her bodice once more, Alice was stroking her hair. It'd grown in fully by then, black and curling. "You weren't supposed to have a kid."

"No. But here she is."

"I can see if Rebecca can do it."

"Rebecca's got two boys."

"But they're not babies," Fatima protested.

"We'll make sure we've got five, six men on you. And we don't know where we'll get our shot," K'aekniv said, heaving his giant frame forward and staring intently at Alice, bracing his elbows on the edge of the table as he leaned down so that he was speaking at her rather than the air over her head. "If it's out in the City, it's good. Me and the old folks have lived here twenty years now. We know all the best places."

"An...assault in the City is inadvisable," Genesis said. "He will have had time to...prepare for contingencies."

Alice finally looked up again. To Mirk's dismay, it was at him rather than the others. "What is it you're always saying? Something about providence..."

"Providence makes no mistakes," Mirk sighed, staring at the baby in Alice's arms.

"If we all do this, let the djinn go, get rid of Ravensdale, will she have more than this?" Alice asked, turning to look at Genesis. "Will things really be different?"

Genesis didn't reply for a long time. When he did, he forced himself to meet Alice's eyes. "Nothing will...ever be certain. But I...have given my word that I will change...this. A K'maneda holds to their words, or they die. There is no third way."

Alice laughed to herself, shifting the child in her arms, pressing her closer to her neck. "Well, if the Lord and you both want it, who am I to say no?"

"That is not what I was implying."

"Oh, I know, Comrade Genesis. But if Miss Fatima thinks I'm the best, then I'm the best. Give me the bow, and I'll start work right away."

"You'll train at least six hours a day," Fatima said, stabbing at the table with one finger to accent her words. "No more jobs. This is your job now. And you need to give me the details on that arrow so I can make a mock-up, Genesis. Won't exactly be able to replicate whatever interference its magic causes, but I'll fix the bow to compensate."

"I can help with the maths?" Elijah offered, in a small voice.

"I can do maths myself. You need to start paying attention more to what's going on around you. Find out who's planning on making their move next. Even if they're not insane enough to go for Ravensdale, we can use whatever plan they're working on to hide ours. And find out which one of Ravensdale's goons came up with the magic on the djinn's collars. You said that Am-Gulat said something about some bastard named Erv?"

"Yes, Erv," Mirk confirmed.

"Right. We know every commander's background except for Ansel, Paul, Richard, and Victor in the Sixth, but I doubt it's him. My money's on Ansel. So keep an eye on him in particular. Could be some high-ranking officer instead, but if Ravensdale tapped him for something as important as controlling the djinn, he'll have wanted something big in return. And Ravensdale will want to keep him close."

"Ansel's an assassin, I can't..." Elijah trailed off for a moment, sneaking a sideways glimpse at Alice and her child, then nodded. "Right. Ansel, Paul, Richard, Victor. I can keep track of them. Paul and Richard will be the easiest, but I can do the other two too."

"I am...familiar with Ansel," Genesis said. "I will attempt to monitor him as well."

"I'd tell you to keep your giant nose in your own business, but that's pointless," Fatima said. "You need to get your spells straight. We need more information about those collars. Elijah will work at it from his end. Which means you need to work at it from the other side," she added, finally turning toward Mirk. "Get those wives who've decided they like you to cough up what they know. And see if you can't get your rich djinn friend to help out. He said that some relative of yours has some idea?" Fatima asked, waving at hand at Genesis, though she didn't look at him.

"My godmother," Mirk said, nodding. "I'll go visit her soon. Monsieur Am-Hazek is in her employ, so I can speak with him too."

"I want a copy of the debutante ball schedule. If Ravensdale's decided he needs a woman now, he'll be likely to show up to at least some of them. You can never count on him to show up to everything, but since you'll be there anyway, it doesn't matter. But I'll see if I can sneak some girls in the backdoor if the right bastard is hosting. We've got no in with Lord Emerson, so that one was going to be a loss no matter what. But not all of the other lords keep their vows, even if they claim they've bought in to whatever religious nonsense the English are all obsessed with."

"Yes, right away," Mirk said, ducking his head, though he caught himself before he could fall forward into a proper seated bow. "I'll follow everything, Mademoiselle Fatima."

Fatima rolled her eyes. "There's no beating the titles out of you rich folk, is there?"

Genesis sighed. "...no."

"But what about the rest of us, huh?" K'aekniv asked Fatima, prodding her in the shoulder. "Are we just here to look good?"

"I don't need to tell you what to do," Fatima replied, jabbing K'aekniv in the leg with her cane in return. "For one thing, you can't plan your way out of an empty bottle. All the infantry's the same. You drill them and beat them until they bark on command. And you'll do that whether I ask you to or not, because you all want to live to fuck around another day."

If Fatima had been hoping K'aekniv would be chastised by her scolding, it was hopeless. Both K'aekniv and Alice broke out into gales of laughter, K'aekniv low and rumbling, Alice snorting and higher. Her child wriggled against her chest, but didn't wake. Fatima crammed her notepad back into her trousers, then levered herself to her feet, scowling at the both of them. "Are we done here? I've got work to do."

Genesis nodded. "I will...inform you all when I have...progressed further on the required magic."

"You'll all report back as soon as you hear anything," she said. Though she paused before limping off to narrow her eyes at Elijah one last time. "And you'll be checking your letters from now on. Or else I'll have to find you a minder, and you won't like her nearly as much as Big Nose likes his, I can promise you that."

Elijah managed a poor attempt at a salute, swallowing hard. "Yes, Miss Fatima. Well, wait. Er. Comrade? Maybe Comrade Lieutenant..."

"How the hell this army wins a single contract with idiots like you in charge..." she muttered to herself, just loud enough to hear, as she made her way to the curtain across the room and passed out of sight.

All the people Genesis had gathered for the meeting cleared out soon after Fatima made it clear they'd adjourned: Elijah vanished with a disheartened round of apologies and vague well-wishes and a ripped teleportation spell paper, while Alice and K'aekniv put their heads together over baby Ella and headed off for the front of the house, to confer about how best to train for combat and what songs worked best to quiet a restless infant.

Which left Mirk alone across the table from Genesis.

"Big Nose?" Mirk said into the silence, managing to find a smile for the way that Genesis refused to tuck the arrowhead back into his coat without first checking to make sure it was well polished. "Methinks it isn't nearly that bad, messire." Though he was admittedly biased in Geensis’s favor.

"A name is...inevitable with Fatima. As appears to be the case with all people. She is...useful enough for it to be tolerable," Genesis said, as he finally put the arrowhead away. He tried to stand up. But his injured knee refused to comply with his demands.

Mirk did get up, however, already rummaging through his bag for a potion that might help with some of the commander's bruising. He was making an effort to be more mindful of his potential ever since the incident with the staff. And he knew that it'd be best to save what he had left to heal the ring around Genesis's neck, lest he try to scrub them away himself with one of his cleaning potions. "Methinks we'll just have to heal you here. You don't mind, do you? All of the ladies seem to have gone out for the night."

"I believe my opinion on the issue...matters as little as my opinion on all your names."

"I'm only your minder, apparently," Mirk said. "Though methinks I'm not quite sure what she meant by that."

"More...nonsense. I assume."

Mirk decided it’d be better not to share that he was more preoccupied with what Fatima had said about Genesis liking his minding than he was by her judgment about what role he had to play in their plans. He’d had a difficult enough day already. And from the looks of things, Genesis had as well.