After the door had been firmly closed, and Miranda had put up her silence field again, Blair leaned back, stretched, and asked, "You want to do it first or me?"

She paused briefly then said, "Maybe you should go first. You only have to deal with one child and I have three."

Smiling wryly she added, "Since Akane can't be here, I feel I should speak for Jason too."

Miranda plopped herself down on the chaise and stretched out. "You might as well let me say it for all of them. What we both want to say boils down to pretty much the same thing. The only difference is that Eugenia has already declared for this occupation. Whether or not the others will at some time in the future isn't something we'll discover for years."

Blair nodded. "Be my guest. I don't really feel like talking right now anyway. You talk. I'll brood."

"OK. Sounds fair."

Miranda ticked her points off on her fingers:

"1) They're much too young to get involved in something like this.

"2) They have absolutely no idea of what or how to do what we're going to ask of them.

"3) We both know that incompletely or improperly trained agents have a tendency to end up injured, crippled, or dead.

"4) This time they're OUR children, and we'd rather be dead ourselves rather than risk them getting even a skinned knee."

She threw her forearm over her face so her tears could soak into her sleeve instead of running down her cheeks. Her slightly muffled voice finished with, "That covers about everything doesn't it?"

There was a strained silence for a full 30 seconds before Blair spoke, "Yes, I think it does. So let's get down to brass tacks. How are we going to arrange things so the risk to them is as little as possible?

"Obviously we can't have them patrolling the streets and hoping that they spot Avi if he's using an invisibility spell or something similar. None of them have the ability to control their faces enough to convincingly pretend that they didn't see him."

"You're right Blair, and we probably don't have to. The first thing I did this morning was order that anyone I could think of as a conceiveable target was to be moved into the guest suites at the ducal residence by 2 p.m., which makes the area we MUST cover much smaller."

"Manda dear, don't you think that it might make Avi just a TAD suspicious when he finds out about it?"

Miranda sat up on the side of the chaise and supported her trunk with her arms. "I don't think so. I have my rumor mongers spreading word about it being Baron Svensson's birthday tomorrow. Duchess Henrietta has, as a show of gratitude for his travelling here to negotiate a new trade treaty, invited all those he planned to meet, along with any nobles in town, to a surprise banquet this evening and a huge birthday party tomorrow, before negotiations begin on Monday. I seriously doubt that anyone will refuse to go. There's no way that any of the invitees would stay away from a chance to make a profit.

"It's going to seem that she's trying to soften him up so as to get some concessions that the King's envoy might not otherwise be able to negotiate."

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Blair steepled her fingers and pondered. "Yes.... That should work. Avi must be extremely paranoid to have survived this long, but this isn't totally unheard of. I can think of three previous 'spontaneous' parties of this size here and there in the past seven years or so. They were all in the South, but I'm sure Avi must have heard of at least one of them.

"We're going to have to do this without increasing the guards at the gates or inside the residence, unless we can fabricate a darned good reason. If we add more randomly, the chance of him cutting and running is probably near 100%."

Miranda stood and began to pace, following the wear patterns in the carpet from other feet that had done the same during other perilous situations. "True. Definitely true. However, I think I know how to handle it and still keep the children safe.

"Jason will be our first line of defense, if you will. We're fortunate that the main gate is the only entrance other than the one that takes you through the Guard quarters. Even Avi's not likely to chance that. We're going to have to test Jason, but if he was feeling and seeing what Yoko felt and saw when he was at home, his range for sensing strong emotions has to be at least four hundred meters. Unless it's only that far with someone he's 'linked' to. We'll have to test that too.

"Anyway, we can put him and a couple of guards in that little room directly above the doors to the residence. We'll have one guard standing, just as always, and the other and Jason can be sitting out of sight. He doesn't need to see Avi, he just has to 'feel' him. I think that the second guard should be one of Hiroshi's advanced students though, just in case, don't you think?"

Blair closed her eyes, and pulled up her mental map of The Residence. "Yes, that will work. There's enough room for three people there, even if it is a bit cramped. And also yes to your other suggestion. Hiroshi's best students have all been thoroughly trained in close-quarters combat, with or without weapons.

"I think we're also going to want to make sure that the visible guard looks bored out of his skull. I assume you have someone in mind for that?"

"Hah! Who do you think I am? Of course I do."

Miranda peered at Blair. "You must really be worried to ask such a stupid question. This time though I'll give you a bye. I'm probably just as worried as you are."

Blair gave Miranda a mocking bow. "Oh thank you soooo much."

Her expression became more serious. "And the twins?"

"Inside but up on that balcony running around the main hall. Since it's on the second floor, there's already very limited access from both the inside and outside. Once we get them up there, we'll make sure that there isn't any access at all. We'll physically block off the doors to the stairs on the inside, and close and bar the storm shutters for the rooms on the third floor, if they aren't already. Nobody likes those rooms anyway.

"I know. I know. That might make it more enticing to Avi. But let's do this too. We'll have more 'bored' guards stationed on the side and back walls, and we'll put them just 10 feet apart. They'll complain about being pulled in to work on their day off. They'll talk about gambling, and mostly they'll talk about their romantic encounters. Not all at once, of course, but one or two of them often enough that anyone below them who might try those walls to get in will know that there's no chance of not being seen.

"That's going to leave the front entrance as the only possible way in. Mind you I think that's what he'll do anyway. He's a brazen fellow. That's how he must have gotten in when he assassinated Count Pushkin. The only way in was past the guards and everyone else at the meeting."

Blair nodded agreement. "Yes. That sounds good. We can put the girls in those little cubbyholes on either side of the long axis. If we put them in page uniforms and put their hair up under those cute little caps the pages wear, they'll look like boys. We can have the seneschal give them hand signals now and then and have one or the other scurry off for a couple of minutes before they come back."

"That's not entirely a bad idea Blair, but probably he should do it not more than twice altogether. More than that would be out of character for a page up there. Pages are assigned there mostly to watch and see how to behave properly when they get old enough to be given more responsibility."

"Yes, OK. We can do it that way. Let's get them back up here and go over it. I'll have to explain things to Akane somehow, and I have no idea at all what I'm going to tell her."

"Honey, that's going to have to wait. First we have to see if we can keep Avi's target alive, and then make sure that none of our guards or operatives end up dead."

Neither one of them had the strength to add, "Or our children."