Hilma pulled a puff from her pipe and immediately regretted it. A coughing fit broke out as she desperately tried to push the smoke from her lungs.

Oh this is truly rank! Who the fuck recomended this to me? Was it Gellon? Gods that man must have mithril lungs because this is horrible.

“You ok sweetie?”

“Fuck- y-you.”

“Now now, you can’t get too snippy with me. You ought to be thanking me for what I’ve done.”

Hilma expelled the last of the miasma from her lungs, pulling in several deep breaths as surety for her body’s hunger for air. She snuffed her churchwarden with her nearest snuffer, itself a white marble utensil encoiled by an elegant gilding in the shape of a snake. She raised her gaze to meet that of her counterpart, Cocco Doll looking back at her with an upturned brow. The events of the past two months had placed them in close proximity to each other, and they had developed a working rapport. It was thus that she understood his action as jest, but even then she found it difficult to draw the true meaning of the gesture.

“How did the council with our esteemed ‘King to be’ go?”

“He can’t do math.”

“What? Cocco-”

“I’m serious. We were negotiating the money we would front, and he negotiated his share up.”

“Are you serious?!”

“Didn’t I just say as such?”

Her astonished silence lasted for a twip, before she began to laugh harder than she had in years. This served to aggravate the latent pain in her airway, but she could not care; completely losing herself in the moment.

“How?!”

“Fractions. He doesn’t understand fractions.”

“Oh my Gods. Oh my- Are we sure we aren’t doing business with the wrong brother?”

“Honestly Hilma… It’s not off the table.”

Hilma paused, realizing that Cocco Doll was not playing with his words.

“If he’s that gullible…”

This could be a genuine risk, no? Any silver-a-dozen schemer could probably draw any such answer out of him.

“I feel similar. In any case, our course of action is the same.”

“Hm, perhaps so.”

“There’s no possibility for us to suddenly throw ourselves behind Zanac; even if there was-”

“It would be unideal. Yes, I agree Doll. Do you know if he’s close with his brother?”

“More likely, the matter of significance would be if his brother is close to him.”

“True…”

“I couldn’t imagine having a man like Barbro as a brother.”

“So, in plain language, no?”

“It would be implausible.”

Zanac does seem to be the wisest among that generation Royal Family. Barbro is a well-established dullard, as is Renner. She’s almost a picture perfect airhead, no? Ironically, she has made the most accomplishments of any of them compared to the baseline. She managed to ban slavery, a not insigificant boon to her popularity. The minor margrave-harking actions of Barbro can in no way compare, and I don’t think Zanac or the other two sisters have done anything of note besides get married. Ah the Vaiself bloodline runs thin.

“We’ll need to discuss the merits of a King Valleon instead of an Andrean another time.”

“Agreed. In brass tacs, he assented to assassination, as did Boullope.”

“Do you think they’ve determined your identity?”

“Unlikely; Boullope may suspect along those lines-”

“But it’s not as if that matters.”

“Exactly. Say Hilma, are we not getting into the habit of finishing each other's sentences?”

“Indeed, shame we share the same taste in men, lest we could make a reasonable coupling.”

They shared laughter, although noticeably falser than before. Hilma was partial to Cocco Doll, but no more. Divisions were at their core, rivals of one another. No matter how closely the interests of two aligned, no bond deeper than a base utilitarian need could be forged. There could be no friends in such a life as the one they shared.

Still, it has not stopped us from making ever deeper ties, especially in the sight of our shared rivals. It seems our organization is adopting ever new forms.

The phase of Eight Fingers was beginning to shift. Nearly unimaginable a year prior, a series of events ignited the metamorphic fires of organizational shift. Starting with the slavery ban that earned Renner her epiphet as golden, the complete erradication of the rebellion in Re-Uloval, the sudden assaults from the Blue Rose, and a number of smaller events that became too numerous to count, clear lines of division were forming within the organization. The general outline of such were those that had sought to provide aid to the now ailing Slavery Division, those being Gambling and Narcotics. Oddly enough, Internal Security did so as well, throwing their swords and fists on the scales in favor of the newly forming group. The fact that this group contained three members who were relatively young, a woman, an open homosexual, and three members who willfully flaunted tradition had caused them to earn the derisive term “reformist.” Hilma and Cocco doll took to the term, and they flung back the label of “traditionalist.”

“What are the actual expenses we expect to pay?”

“They’ll pay four standards, which is fine. I imagine Zero won’t want more than seven for the work, so at most we’re out three.”

“Agreed. He’s lowered his rates lately.”

“His blind bloodlust has its advantages for us, no?”

“Indeed. He must be savoring the violence as of late.”

This had only escalated with the death of Unruh. The events of the four weeks prior to his death had put each member of the nine-fold table in mind of a paranoia. It had so gripped them that many of their underbosses, capos, and otherwise found themselves on the wrong-end of the knives they had so wielded against others. The most dramatic of these purges had been a spellborne court market bombing conducted by an overzealous member of the assassin division, who himself woke up dead on the aftermorrow. Following Unruh’s presumably torturous death at the hands of Six Arms, many had expected the attacks to abate, and when they instead escalated, tensions compounded. It was becoming increasingly clear that Hilma either lied about Unruh, or that there was more than one pair of eyes through which Lady Aindra could peer. Both possibilities introduced unique problems and solutions.

“Oh, yes, speaking of which.”

“What is it, Doll?”

“One of Banking’s marks flipped.”

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“Oh really? Who?”

“Fenthrop.”

“The Count or the Baron?”

“There’s a Baron Fenthrop?”

“Deep in the westlands, I would be surprised if they weren’t related.”

“Noble bloodlines are so asinine… But yes, ‘Count’ Fenthrop.”

The situation had been made ever more explosive by the sudden implosion of the banking division following Unruh’s death. Each head had sought to create scores of dead as a result of the intra-divisional cleansings, thinning the upper ranks precipitously and leaving the pinnacle of each group ill-supported. At the three meetings since his death, a new member had sat in the Banking chair each time, slowly descending in rank for each new iteration of the leadership. The current head was a thirty something by the name of Gellen, himself having only been a vice-captain two months prior.

Soon that seat will be filled by a branch manager. We needed only to kick the door in for it all to collapse, no?

“The cause of his betrayal?”

“The collapse of the banking division has left a lot of people skittish; he probably heard something from whatever replacement handler he got, misinterpreted it as a threat, and ran. Him trying to flee has put him in actual danger.”

“Ironic.”

“Tell me about it. Say, have you had many issues?”

“You can’t possibly be so bold as to ask that. Who’s running him down?”

“Assassination. Though, I doubt they’ll get him.”

“Why?”

Cocco Doll raised an eyebrow in response, looking quizzically at Hilma.

“Oh you gotta be shitting me. Really?”

Fenthrop is in the company of the Blue Roses?!

“Yup.”

“Godsdammit.”

What more information will land in their hands this time? Obviously there’s still an ear for them somewhere in the upper ranks, but who? Gods, we have so many problems to clean up. Worse, everyone is running bottom heavy. Fuck, this is becoming a headache.

“What does he know?”

“Likely nothing significant-”

“We say that every time someone gets nabbed, yet we still get hit in ever worse ways. They clearly aren’t pulling that much information from them. I mean for fucks sake, every time they sieze someone, they simply release them into the prison system where Zero and his ilk pick them up. From those reports he sends, you’d think the Blue Roses would have run out of viable information a month ago.”

“...Mhmm. It’s frustrating.”

It feels like we’re getting completely outmaneuvered. Unruh was a fun fiction to create, but I genuinely thought that Captain I knocked off, Melnan, was the rat. Who could it be?

“Well, I should be off.”

“Oh, you have business to attend to? Do tell.”

“Ah, as if I could fulfill your request.”

“Indeed; see you at the next general council, Doll.”

“You too, Cygnaeus.”

Cocco Doll stood and exited her office, her exhaling as the door closed. Hilma needed to relax. She began to think of solutions to her quandaries, using the intermittent time to dump the contents of her pipe into a wastebasket. Most of the half-burnt leaf disposed of, she began to clean the bowl with a cloth, returning the wood lacquer to its glossy sheen. Spinning her chair round, she rolled to a collection of small urns, picking a smooth blend to round out the afternoon. She picked up a sparker, an arcane contraption she had bought at her last flit to Arwintar. Using it, she lit the leaf, let the flame consume it for a moment, and pulled in a tentative puff. Satisfied, she pulled in deeper, blowing a ring as a mark of her ability. Smoking was more than a base vice for her, it was contemplative.

There are three possibilities here. One, the mole is already dead, and attacks will taper off. Two, the mole is alive, and attacks will continue until they are dead. Three, there are multiple moles, and multiple people need to be put down. One is so hopeful as to be entirely untrue. Three seems unlikely too, I don’t see how any group of individuals could have so entirely dodged suspicions with organizational paranoia being what it is right now.

This was a conclusion that Hilma had already reached weeks ago, but all her investigations into the matter were frighteningly inconclusive. There was no evidence that pointed to anyone specific; worse, it seemed like everyone who could have been collaborating had already been killed. Hilma looked at the stack of letters on her desk; interrogation reports, Laira crop surveys, and monthly updates abounded, overflowing in her inbox. She had been putting off fighting her pile down, but she needed too now lest she mark herself unfit for her position. She began to work.

“Report from Jeln… Buds are underdeveloped, unlikely to be quality… recommend burning the crop.” “We present an offer to you… twenty gold coins per standard of Black Dust.” “Distribution networks remain stalled by blockade at… Recommend avoiding and using alternate routes...” “...Captain Kelda is confirmed to be dead… Ledger missing from site…” “...Unruh’s assets in E-Pespel to be managed by… through the duration of the crisis…” No, wait. That last letter. What did that say?

Hilma retrieved the previous letter she had read from the burn pile. It was a report from one of her spies embedded deep in the Gambling Division. As much as she liked Noah Zweden, this did not abate her need for all possible information, and this necessitated such tradecraft. She had skimmed it before, but now felt the need to read it in full.

“Number of shifts have occurred in Gambling Division Structure. Pertaining to the raid on the joint effort between Gambling and Slavery in Re-Alberg on Lower Wind Thirty, Gambling Division Captain Ale Opdun Nane Kelda (Note: false baron) confirmed to have been at the site at the time. Disappeared after the raid. Gambling Internal Security found lead as to his location on Upper Fire Four, found him on Upper Fire Seven. Captain Kelda is confirmed to be dead, body found rotting in creek four miles south. Is believed that Captain Kelda was in possession of a transaction ledger at the time of the raid. This contained sum total transaction records for the activities of the Gambling Division from dates Upper Wind Twelve to day of raid.-”

Total transaction records for two months?! Good Gods, that's horrid.

“-Ledger missing from site, is likely Blue Roses have seized it. Divisional Head Noah Zweden is aware of this. No recommended action. Gambling division has practiced record encryption for the last two years.”

Hilma leaned back in her chair, rapping her fingers against her desk. Her eyes drifted up to the ceiling of her room, her eyes tracing circles around the engraved copper plates which - although only exposed on the ceiling - ran the breadth of the room’s walls. These shielded the space from divination magics, and she considered this quirk of her own information security as she evaluated Noah’s tactics.

Encryption, eh? I think I remember that from an old report, one of uh- oh who was it? Ah, one of Nelara’s finds. Brings back memories, she was a good woman. A shame Assassination got to her. She didn’t deserve that fate.

Hilma waxxed nostalgically about her old underling, a woman she had come to respect as an equal, even if lower in rank. She ran close to death one too many times, and the cold talons of the next life had finally grabbed her, pulling her into the ground never to be spoken to or laughed with again. Hilma withdrew a key nestled in a hidden pocket in her evening-gown, and used it to unlock a desk drawer. Inside was a thick, tome-like compendium. She withdrew it, and brought it close to her mouth.

“Aiwenor.”

With those words, an engraving on the book flashed, briefly casting room in a sharp luminance. Had she not spoken that name, the book would have ignited upon its opening, burning to a cinder before any of its contents could have been read. Hilma had a childhood fascination with the myth of the Eight Greed Kings, and even now she fantasized about making a pilgrimage south to see the city in the sky itself, Eryuentiu. It was thus that she selected its elvish name as the code phrase for her innermost records. She opened the book and flipped through it to the notes she had kept on the division. She found the passage she was looking for, a clipping of an old intelligence report.

“Believed that gambling employs ISHS-4λ.” That's ‘Imperial Security Bureau Standard Four…’ something. Ah I need to remember my elvish alphabet; “λ” is hyarmen, I think.

Hilma cocked her head, trying her best to remember what she had learned from a crash course in Imperial Cryptography.

That method is fairly secure, especially for encrypting large amounts of records. Each new entry to a ledger is case shifted from a table in a unique way, vowels and consonants separately. Each case shift is consecutive, building on the others. Takes little work to encrypt a very vast amount of information. Still, it is technically possible for someone to rebuild the shift table if they have a seed of what, four entries? Or rather, if they could manually descramble four entries with frequency analysis. I imagine it wouldn’t be possible for the Blue Roses to do as such, that would require a fairly gifted mathematician. Still, if they could, that record could be devastating to the entire divisional operation. Hell, even the joint payments we made to Count Fellenor could be indicted. The courier to him was intercepted last week by-

“Shit.”

Hilma swallowed, suddenly struck by an overwhelming sense of anxiety. She took a hit from her pipe, and then a much longer one, realizing with a start that she had missed a potential method of intrusion.

Possibility four, there is no mole. Whoever is feeding information, providing targets, and directing the Blue Roses is doing so through scraps of information alone. Is that even plausible? They must have significant backing, a number of people behind them for the amount of information they must have acquired. They’ve done what, near forty interrogations? Gods, are they receiving support from the ISH itself? That would solve the manpower problem. No, there would be financial trails for that, and I don’t see a reason for El-Nix to want to hunt us here. We probably help advance his goals simply by existing. Slane is also a possibility, but from my understanding the vaunted youthful Aindra has a long standing rivalry with them. It would need to be someone they visit on a common basis.

Hilma sighed to herself, realizing she had much work in front of her. She sifted once again through her burn pile, looking for the latest report on the movements of the Blue Roses.

They visit the palace often enough, ostensibly social calls to the Golden Princess. They must be using it as an opportunity for council. I’ll need to figure out who they’re in league with. Gods that’s clever. Why didn’t I think of this before? I suppose no one would suspect using the Princess as cover. That’s cold-blooded of Lakyus; building a fake and, among the nobility, well-known friendship with Renner. I’m almost impressed.