This is a disgrace.

The building was squat and ugly, stones of grey instead of blue, with only the blandest, most modest of pillars at the front to even suggest that it was a temple. Levian’s presence was drastically minimized, a slight pattern of the serpent’s coil etched into the walls the only sign that this was supposed to be a temple to him.

“Your temple is quite robust,” Camille said, choosing a flattering emphasis rather than lying directly. Framing could be wildly misleading even when the words were true, and more amusing besides. “A far cry from the ruins of the prior Great Temple.”

“I’m pleased that you think so.” Pierre Cadoudal looked as if the Great Spirits had spent months devising the perfect human to embody the unremarkable. His height was unimpressive, and his light brown hair was cut short enough to avoid making any statements. Even the blue streak was nearly unnoticeable, and far enough from the roots that it had to have been quite some time since he had dyed it. “Mr. Clochaîne and I prefer to think of this as a new start, unencumbered by the mistakes of prior leadership.”

“It’s certainly a drastic departure,” Camille agreed, refraining from visibly seething. “I imagine your outside perspective was key to shifting the direction of the Acolytes in the wake of the Foxtrap.”

“Outside perspective?” Cadoudal raised an eyebrow. “I served the Acolytes for several years under Lady Sarille before her demise. All the better to bear witness to her mistakes.”

Liar. I would remember you.

“Of course.” Camille sucked in air through her teeth. “Though your name doesn’t sound familiar. I would have thought I’d have heard of every Acolyte in Malin by now, the way people spoke of the Foxtrap in Guerron.”

Cadoudal exhaled. “They might have mentioned a Phillippe, perhaps. I thought it best to re-frame my presence here for the new regime.”

Phillippe…

“I would hope Lady Camille might have spoken of me, at least. I let her into the temple on the day of the Foxtrap, when she made her compact with Levian. But then, it was a small thing. Perhaps not everyone has every last detail of that day seared into their memory the way I do.”

I do.

Phillippe had not made much of an impression, simply another of Mother’s followers, but Camille remembered that.

She had played out each moment in her head a thousand times, trying to find a way that Mother and Father might have survived. If King Romain had fled instead of leading the sortie, if Mother could have sacrificed the wounded to destroy the navy instead of her own life, if…

It was not productive, replaying the past, but it was also hard to avoid. Many a night had been spent awake recalling all of it, these… seventeen years. It seems so recent, still.

“She mentioned it,” Camille offered. “Mentioned you, I mean. If she hadn’t been allowed in, that day might have been even worse. It was a near thing, making a pact of her own before the city fell. The line of Levian’s High Priestesses could have ended.”

“Wonderful that she thought of me.” Cadoudal shrugged. “Though ultimately it made little difference, with Aurelian Lumière finishing Avalon’s work for them.”

“Of course. Still, many of us benefited from the tutelage while she was alive to provide it.” Actually… “Your temple must be as out of sorts as we are in Guerron, knowing that the High Priestess is dead.”

“Is she?” Cadoudal scratched his chin. “I’m not familiar with this new pistol weapon, but Camille Leclaire slipped back into the sea, where her power ought to be strongest. It may be that she survived.”

“No, it’s impossible,” she said, a touch too quickly. “The way Lumière has been treating us, there’s simply no conceivable reason that she wouldn’t have returned to help by now. I wouldn’t be surprised if he arrests all of the remaining sages once Lady Annette’s trial concludes. If Camille Leclaire does live, she would have to be the most callous sort not to return and aid us, without humanity entirely.”

Unless she had no other choice, if the only way to save Lucien and Annette and the Empire and herself were to liberate Malin…

“If she does live,” Camille continued, “relaxing on some hidden beach while we suffer, then it would be just as well for her to remain dead.”

“True enough.” Cadoudal smiled, smiled, as if the very order of the world weren’t on the brink of total collapse. “Sarille certainly didn’t hesitate to leave all of us behind. Why not little Camille as well?”

There was limited space on the ships!

Camille bit back a retort. Nothing to be gained from admonishing him. Better simply to plan accordingly. The Acolytes moved in such lockstep with Clochaîne that it should not have been any surprise to see them falling into the same complacent malaise.

“Still, something must be done,” she said instead. “Else Levian will wither into impotence, and our very order along with him. A new compact, perhaps, dangerous though it is without family precedent to fall back upon.”

“It’s one possibility.” Cadoudal, concerningly, did not sound overly concerned. If I really had died, all would be lost. Why was that so hard for them to understand? “There may be a better path, though. As it is, none of our order have spoken with Levian in seventeen years, nor drawn on his power.”

“No magic?” Why even exist, then? Clochaîne’s money might be an answer, but surely it paled in comparison to the power of the great Torrent of the Deep.

“Avalon takes a dim view of human sacrifice; continuing in that vein would have seen our wholesale annihilation.”

Continuing like this is annihilation of all the Temple of Levian stands for. “Avalon is perfectly happy to sacrifice lives, so long as the energy of the fallen is wasted instead of used. Just look at the bodies swinging above the beach.”

Cadoudal frowned. “It is not my place to criticize. The Foxtrap happened, young Carrine, and we simply have to accept it and move forward accordingly. It may even be a better path: now we help people, providing guidance when needed, care for the ailing, shelter for the unsheltered, alms for the hungry. And we ask nothing in return.”

“Nothing? So the practice of giving offerings has ended as well?”

“Well, no.” He glanced over his shoulder at the small gathering of people, mostly elderly, clustered inside the temple itself. “We ask for offerings, but that was always so. Now people willingly provide us with the wealth to sustain ourselves in the absence of Leclaire funding.”

“Wealth? You’re collecting payment from people who walk through your doors?” Camille choked out.

“It’s the only way to keep those doors open, you must understand. Think pragmatically. It isn’t as if King Harold is blessing any sages with his patronage and good cheer. Even keeping the Forresters from stringing me up by my entrails is challenging enough.” He seemed to notice her expression, restrained though it was compared to what she felt. “It doesn’t entitle anyone to special treatment, mind. Better seats, a room named after them, a small mention for local merchants who need the support… Trivialities, Carrine, which pale in comparison to the prior cost of human life.”

“And the injustice?” she found herself saying, the words for once escaping her lips before she could think to shut her mouth. Felicitations, Lady Leclaire, you are no better than Florette. Still, it was worth probing how amenable he might be to change, whether the current course was driven by cowardice or personal benefit.

Cadoudal raised an eyebrow, clearly waiting for her to continue. At least he didn’t seem hostile or disapproving.

Nothing else for it now. “The very injustice of the occupation, the poverty, the exploitation. You yourself mentioned that anyone could find themselves in a noose for saying the wrong thing, law be damned.” She chose to emphasize that, rather than the spiritual degradation, since the man did not much seem to care about it. “The castle still stands in ruins, the once thriving heartland of the Empire along with it. Farmers toil and workers labor each day, yet all their production flows back across the water, with only scraps returned to where it belongs.”

“Your point?” He looked disapproving, but not offended, which was something at least. “This is the way things are, Carrine. We can struggle futilely against it, or make the most of it, and I choose to do the latter.”

“You—”

“We have to choose our battles, and fighting Avalon is a suicidal fool’s errand. Lady Sarille and King Romain proved that in the Foxtrap, with nothing to show for their efforts. I understand that you are still young, and the state of things pushes against you, but I am not so arrogant as to believe that I could succeed where they failed. Rather, I do the best I can with what I have.”

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Now you gouge the very people you claim to help like some common swindler, while failing your principal duty to serve as a bridge between the people and the spirits. It was hard to keep her face impassive, but that was what was required, and so Camille did, tightening back so that the traitor would no longer notice anything amiss. “Of course. I understand, despite my youth. We can only do our best, after all.”

“I’m pleased to hear it.” Pierre Cadoudal dipped his head respectfully, at least refraining from that infuriating hand shaking custom Avalon insisted on. “Now, if you will excuse me, I ought to make an appearance.”

“Of course. It was my pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Useless…

It was valuable information, at least. The Acolytes would be of no help, another leech like Jacques Clochaîne benefitting too much from the status quo.

Mother would rise from her watery resting place to discipline him, if she knew what was truly going on within her temple.

“Carrine?” one of the workers sweeping the courtyard called to her on her way out, a messy mop of dirty-blond hair tied back poorly on his head, with strands flying everywhere from it.

Camille continued walking, but slowed when the man stepped in front of her. “It’s me, Claude.”

“Oh.” They had stripped him of his position after all. Now that she looked, it was easy to see where the blue in his hair was missing, roughly chopped and not yet grown in enough to look even. “I’m sorry, Claude.”

He sighed, leaning the broom against the wall of the front yard. “Nothing to do with you, like I said. But if you see Florette, make sure to punch her for me, will you?”

Camille frowned. “Given what you told me, she’s far less to blame than you are. A punch doesn’t seem deserved.” Not for that, anyway. “Why did you fight back when your only function was to act as a distraction?”

“Why do we ever fight back?” He stared into her eyes. “The Guardians were lying about me pushing someone into the harbor; you can get a noose for that, but they expected me to be grateful that they were only beating me for it. I just couldn’t let it stand.”

Camille bit her lip. “I suppose I can understand that, even if it was foolish.”

“You know, as poor as my standing is, I could still talk to Philippe if I really wanted to. I could mention that we met in jail, might tarnish your perfect image a bit.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t dare.”

He shook his head. “Not going to. I’ll lie even if I’m asked. Don’t worry.”

“Then why even mention it?”

A trace of his confidence returned, straighter posture, with the ghost of a smile. “I’m doing you a favor, and I want you to know it. That’s all.”

Camille sighed, purposefully dramatically. “Thank you, Claude.”

“You are quite welcome. Just make sure you remember.”

She set a hand on his shoulder, despite an ingrained instinct not to. “I will. Hang in, and things should get better.”

“Nothing will get better if we just sit around and wait for it to.”

She patted him on the shoulder. “I have no intention of waiting around. Don’t worry. I have something else in mind.”

≋

Seeing the state of Chateau Malin was nearly as heart wrenching as The Great Temple of Levian had been. Perhaps even worse.

For all that had befallen it, Camille had been nearly insensate as she’d wandered by, still recovering from the brink of death and incapable of truly beholding it in all its decrepit enormity.

In the sober sunset light, this was almost worse, even though she’d been here a fraction of the time she’d spent at the temple.

Blue stones littered the ground, glimmering faintly where they caught the light, but none of the castle itself was still standing. A few walls at waist height, half of a tower already worn down by the sharp wind, paths through the vegetation indicating where roads used to be maintained…

In time, even that would fade, until none would be able to see the great castle that had once seated the rule of the entire continent. Unless I succeed.

Telling the Perimonts first that they would meet on the beach had simply been a strategy, using the corpses as a wedge between Simon and his father, however minor it was, but conducting the festivities here had another purpose as well: it was a constant reminder to herself of what had been lost.

With something this precarious, she needed every edge she could get. The Acolytes certainly weren’t going to step in.

Nor would Florette be of much help, apparently. She’d started jittering the moment Prince Luce’s missing ship had come up, her eyes going vacant. Perhaps she was having trouble keeping track of the conversation, despite her impressive grasp on Avalon’s tongue in such a short time, but in any case she was doing nothing to help probe for useful information.

“And the pirates?” Florette asked, focusing on the least important part of Simon’s news.

Simon shrugged as he gave her the obvious explanation of their execution, then turned back to Camille. “If Prince Harold is truly to respond with commensurate force, global trade may be drastically impacted. In fact, depending on where his ire is drawn and the scale of his response, they might see a return to the dark days of the Foxtrap, with cities starving as currency inflates beyond tenable bounds.”

“Dark days for Guerron, perhaps, or the Arboreum. Wherever Avalon attacks. But not for you, surely?”

“It’s a matter of degree,” Simon admitted. “War has its costs even for the victor. Science and technology have flourished, but they might have in any case. Certainly, things slowed down a little once peace arrived. We stand so far ahead of the rest of the world already. And the expense… Towards the end, entire companies were deserting because we couldn’t afford to pay them punctually. Had Harold III played things smarter, Robin Verrou wouldn’t be pestering us now, nor would security restrictions on our every machine need to be so draconian.”

“You prefer peace, then.” That’s very good to know.

“I think it's smarter, that’s all. You won’t find me parroting those insipid humanitarian arguments against the taking of human lives no matter the cost, but Guerron is an excellent example of why war isn’t necessary at all. Prince Harold would do well to emulate his father and brother in realizing that.”

They think that way too? It was only Simon’s supposition, but still… Very interesting, more for what it said about Avalon’s King than a likely-dead prince of little import. “I’m inclined to agree. It strengthens all of us. And I’m pleased to hear that King Harold is of the same mindset. He’s been so absent of late, it’s difficult to tell.”

Simon chuckled. “Well, if I’m right about what he’s doing now, it’s exactly along the lines of what I envision. In fact—”

“Drinks!” Florette shouted, interrupting him at a potentially key moment. “Something strong, yes?”

“Umm, sure,” Simon agreed, abandoning the prior thread of the conversation. “Gin, I think, given the temperature.”

Camille narrowed her eyes. “Do you need to go get them right now, Celine? Wouldn’t you like a moment to talk first? You’re shaking.” What could possibly be wrong with you? For all that Florette was an irritating scoundrel, she was usually more in control of herself than this.

“No, I’m not.” Florette shook her head, denying the obvious reality before her. “And this comes first.”

Idiot.

“Fine,” Camille said instead of pressing further. Perhaps getting her out of the way for a few minutes would be better anyway.

“Is she alright?” Simon asked once Florette had ducked away. “It’s troubling news, to be sure.”

“That, and she’s had too much to drink,” Camille lied. “The downside of helping plan the festivities is that you can start early.”

“I’d think that would be the upside.” He winked. “Anyway, I was hoping to catch you alone anyway.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, well, Gary mentioned that you had some trouble with the law?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“He didn’t arrest you on the beach for consuming hallucinogens?”

Camille bit her lip. “I was simply inquiring. There’s no issues with legality in Guerron, and I wasn’t yet sufficiently familiar with the specific legal peculiarities of the current Maline administrative—”

Simon held up a hand as he interrupted, “I’m not judging you. I’m only bringing it up to say that maybe I can help.”

“Help?”

He smiled. “Far be it from me to refuse a damsel in distress. I ask only that you remember that it was me who saved you.”

Camille blinked. “From what? I’m free already.”

“Well, until your trial. The Acolytes’ solicitor got you out until then, but you still need to return to be judged for the crimes you were charged with.”

Is he making this up to look helpful? “I wasn’t aware of that. Justice under the Empire’s laws is a great deal more final.”

Simon snorted. “Well, just look at the gallows on the beach and you’ll see we can be plenty final on our own. But anyway, what I’m saying is I can help. Captain Whitbey should be arriving soon, and with Gary along too, dismissing them all should be trivial. It pays to have friends in the right places, Carrine.”

“Is that right?” Definitely lying to impress me, then. “I should be ever so grateful if you do. The thought of another moment in that cell…” She shivered exaggeratedly. “I’m lucky to have you as my champion, Simon. Especially against your father’s justice. I can’t imagine how hard it must be.”

Simon blinked. “Well, it’s the Guardians, really. Not Father.”

“But they report to him, don’t they? In Malin, at least. Lord Perimont gives Captain Whitbey orders, does he not?”

“He does…” Simon stared off contemplatively for a moment, but it did not take him long to find his resolve. “What my father doesn’t know won’t hurt him. You let me worry about him.”

“Of course,” she lied. “You have my sincerest gratitude!”

Florette returned then, looking somewhat more settled, at least. Perhaps the drink had leveled her off a bit.

In any case, she refused Camille’s offer to help once Simon left, and there was no easy way to push further without straining their cover identities.

Especially not once Simon returned with his sister in tow, along with that bastard knight that had imprisoned her in the first place.

If you really want to help, Simon, let me kill him. That would be far more gratifying than collecting intelligence on Whitbey and the Guardians.

But the purpose of tonight was progress, not gratification.

When Captain Whitbey stepped out of his coach and made his way towards the gathering, that became all the more important to keep in mind.

Camille shot Florette another glance, and the girl at least seemed to acknowledge the significance. Finally, a rational response from her, and at just the right time.

Their target had arrived.