In deference to my brother’s wishes, I did actually (briefly) consider leaving him a note in one of our dead drops to arrange a discreet meeting. But as far as I could tell, popping up in his study wasn’t any less risky than rendezvousing elsewhere – and it sent such an entertaining message. So when he got home from the latest event on his dwindling list of social obligations, I was waiting in his favorite chair.

This time, he didn’t even look surprised – although he did hesitate in the doorway.

I beamed at him, full force.

Without a word, he eased the door shut. Then he crossed the room in two strides, seized the chairback, tipped me out – and scooted around to plonk down himself. There, said his contented expression. Much better.

Landing lightly on my feet, I shot him a reproachful glare and hopped up to perch on his desk, as if I’d planned all along to relinquish the chair in a gesture of sisterly love.

He wasn’t fooled. In the casual tone that any normal person might use to observe that it was foggy tonight, he draped his hands over the armrests and remarked, “So – a little bird tells me you have the battle plans.”

I stiffened, just for a split second – but long enough to confirm that the leak was a surprise.

Sigmund’s lips twitched, just a bit.

Willing myself to relax, I lounged back, dangled my legs, and adopted the bored drawl of a socialite forced into polite conversation with a tedious dinner partner. “A little bird. So what little bird might this be?”

“Signy,” he reproved me, “we’re better trained than to reveal our sources.”

Then he smirked at me. He dared smirk at me.

But, since he’d brought it up, aforementioned childhood training had covered quite a bit more than just the protection of sources. “True,” I replied, still swinging my legs carelessly, “but I can narrow it down. So you might as well save me the trouble and tell me – instead of wasting my time when there are more important things you need me to do.”

At the reminder, he countered, “Well – did you bring them?”

Aha, obtaining the battle plans outweighed protecting his source, which suggested it wasn’t a critical agent. “What makes you think I have them?” I retorted, hoping he would let more information slip.

Sigmund didn’t err twice. “Who else would have them?”

Who else indeed?

A grand total of six other people knew that my crew had the battle plans: Faith, Ash, Irimina, Polonia, Andrel, and the Kinclaith housemaid. I immediately ruled out my agent (whom I paid too generously to double-cross me) and the two children (who didn’t interact with anyone outside the Kinclaith household). Although I couldn’t dismiss Faith offhand, instinct suggested that I brought more entertainment into her life alive. Which left Irimina and Ash.

While I considered, Sigmund sank down in the contested chair, stretched out his legs comfortably, and enjoyed the show.

No, I concluded, I simply didn’t have enough information to rule out either Irimina or Ash – so I faked it. “It’s Ash, isn’t it.”

“Do you have the plans with you?” Sigmund repeated.

“I told you already. I don’t have them.”

He heaved the weary sigh of a spymaster dealing with a recalcitrant agent. “So how is it that your crew has the plans, but you didn’t bring them?” he inquired with exaggerated patience. When I merely tipped my head to a side and regarded him in the impassive way he hated most, he lost his temper, just the tiniest bit. “Signy, there’s an armada. We have to – we’re losing time.”

“And I told you already: I don’thave the plans. I’m working on it.”

After weighing both my words and my body language, he tentatively opted to believe me. “All right. So what brings you around?”

I gave him an elaborate shrug and eyeroll. “Well, I was going to tell you that our crew has the plans, but obviously you knew that already.”

He donned a veneer of humble dignity. “As it turns out,” he explained modestly, “I am a master spy.” Then he spoiled it by smirking.

I smacked him in the arm.

“Ow,” he said automatically, his perfunctory attitude only adding insult to more insult.

For better or for worse (probably worse, from our governesses’ perspective), our parents had not trained either of us to defer to the other. “Well,” I informed my brother, “then I suppose that as a master spy, you don’tneed my updates on who’s pushing the war with Iruvia.”

In the past, that gauntlet would have spurred him to reject my information so he could prove that he needed nothing from his (slightly) younger sister. It was perhaps a measure of his newfound gravitas as heir of House Anixis – or maybe just flat-out desperation – that he now sat up straight and responded soberly, “I would like your updates. I would appreciate extra insight.”

Whereas I would appreciate the identity of the traitor. Irimina or Ash? Depending on who it was, I’d handle the situation very differently. “Oh, I think your spy ring can provide all the answers you need.” I started to slide off the desk, alert to any sudden movements from Sigmund’s direction.

“Sig-ny!”

There. I almost had him.

Taking pains to smooth my skirt where it had crumpled a little, I started for the door. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to waste the time of a master spy, would I?”

I took one step, then two, waiting.

Behind me came his flat confession: “Yes. I have contacts within your crew.”

I didn’t turn. “I know.”

An agonizing pause, while I debated whether a third step would break him, and he weighed whether to trade his source for my intel. Then he appealed, “They seem to actually care about you. In case you’re wondering.”

That told me exactly who it was. But I still didn’t turn.

“They were wondering if they could help extricate you from your current situation.”

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Unpredictability had always worked best on Sigmund. Swinging around, I twirled back, plopped into his lap, and draped an arm around his neck. “Really,” I teased. “They want to extricate me from my current situation?”

With a rueful sigh, he wrapped an arm around my waist and leaned his head against mine. “They seem to think that you’re in danger.”

“Am I?”

Even though I’d asked in jest, all traces of amusement drained from Sigmund’s face. His arm tightened. “Aren’t you? Signy, even if I do nothing, eventually the Patriarch will send others. So either we have to find some way to convince him not to, or yes – you are in danger.”

That was true. There had been others. There would be more. And, eventually, there would be someone better or simply luckier than I, and that would be the end of that.

I didn’t want to die.

And I certainly didn’t want anyone I loved to die.

In a soft, subdued voice, I said, “Let’s hope this plan to save Iruvia works, then.”

Braced for more hubris, Sigmund exhaled in relief and cradled my head against his chest, as if the gesture itself could shield me. “Hopefully. At that point, I don’t think the Patriarch could really claim that you betrayed the country. Even if he were still of that opinion, you could probably seek asylum from House Ankhuset.” That was the House that ran U’Duasha’s justice system, such as it was, and prided itself on fairmindedness (or at least the appearance thereof). “Which I realize wouldn’t be the same, but you wouldn’t have to live here anymore.”

“You’re suggesting that I get adopted into House Ankhuset,” I clarified.

Something about my neutral tone made my brother deeply uneasy. “I don’t know. I haven’t explored this option in depth, but it did occur to me.”

Why would I slink back to U’Duasha as a minor, insignificant, supplicant vassal of a different House? What was the point? Mylera’s words drifted through my head: I never want to go back. I like life here. I’ve built something I can be proud of.

As had I.

But my brother meant well, and so I wrestled down my indignation and switched topics to answer his earlier question. “I spoke with Odrienne Keel, as I’m sure you already know.” (Especially since he was the one who’d provided the letter of introduction.) “Some of her contacts told her that the Church of Ecstasy has been preaching against Iruvia.”

Sigmund’s shock was particularly gratifying. “Why?” he demanded.

“Don’t know. I need to look into it, but…. Oh! This might be connected! The Church has a ritual to bind demons into the bodies of high-ranking clergymen.”

“What?”

For all the horror of the Ascension ritual and poor Kallysta’s sacrifice, I still relished scandalizing my brother. “My sources tell me that they’ve been performing this ritual increasingly often of late. We managed to disrupt the most recent one. But now it occurs to me that perhaps these two things are not unrelated.”

“What do you mean?” Sigmund asked, wary.

“Well, if you want to fight Iruvia, you basically have to fight the Demon Princes,” I rehashed Ash’s argument, which made a great deal of sense even if he had betrayed me. Who was I to reject reasonable analyses just because I disliked the source? “Or, at the very least, you want to be prepared to fight the Demon Princes. In that event, wouldn’t it make sense to have demons of your own?”

Sigmund looked as if he hated the undeniable logic of that conclusion. “I’m still very disturbed by the implications of this – even though I don’t doubt your information,” he hastened to assure me. “How many do they have?”

I shook my head. “Don’t know. One fewer than they were planning.”

“That’s probably for the best.”

Smug, I laid my head back against his chest. “We thought so too.”

“Well…,” he said, absently running his fingers through my hair and fiddling with the ends, “that is definitely going in the next report.”

There was something hypnotic about the way he was stroking my hair, something that evoked peaceful evenings curled up together on a sofa in front of the fireplace, staring into the ever-changing flames. “We’re planning to do something else that will…purge Church membership even further,” I confided. “There’s a criminal organization called the Hive, whose members tend to be devout members of the Church.” His curt nod snapped me out of my contented mood, and I sat back up to declare, “We intend to take out the head of that organization.”

“Are the two connected?” he asked swiftly.

“Not directly, that I know of.” Although the inner workings of the Hive were still a mystery. “This is more to spread mayhem throughout the city.”

“Mmm.” Sigmund considered the utility of thinning the ranks of Churchgoers and allowed, “That in itself could be useful.”

“Yes. We plan to take out Djera Maha and use that to trigger a bloodbath among her followers.” A slight tension in Sigmund’s shoulders indicated that he didn’t really like me risking myself that way, but he didn’t try to dissuade me. “However, we don’t have many contacts among the nobility.”

“Mmmhmmm,” he replied noncommittally.

“It has come to my attention that Elstera is a member of one of the societies of nobles who oppose the Hive.”

“Mmmm.”

Since he wasn’t taking the hint, I spelled it out for him: “We were hoping to draw on their resources or, at the very least, their knowledge of the internal structure of the Hive.”

Here, Sigmund wrapped his other arm around my shoulders, and his chest rose and fell in an especially self-satisfied sigh. “So – here’s the part where I get to be insufferably smug again.” When I stiffened and tried to rise, he pinned me in place. “Because my contact already asked me about this.”

Of course Ash had. “I’m sure your ‘contact’ did,” I said drily.

As if I hadn’t spoken, Sigmund continued, “I’ve already talked to Elstera. She’s…not interested in helping your crew. For a lot of reasons – not the least of which is your continuing association with the smuggler Irimina Kinclaith.”

Huh, that was what offended Elstera most? Not the framing of her nephew or the murder of her agents – but our ties to Irimina? “Maybe you can help me understand something. Who was Taji?”

“Taji Nur?”

Was that Irimina’s friend’s full name? I pretended that I’d known it all along. “Why did Elstera have her killed?”

“Taji Nur was a member of that same smuggling operation. Elstera was hoping that if she sent a…message, the flow of ghosts would stop.”

“The flow of ghosts,” I repeated, hoping to elicit information without coming out and asking for it.

“Yes,” was Sigmund’s only response.

I gave up. “What ghosts?”

He gave me a long look, as if I were acting obtuse to extract more intel than he was willing to give. “The ghosts…that they were smuggling?”

The very soul of helpfulness, was my Sigmund. “Which direction was this flow of ghosts?”

“Out of Iruvia. Into Doskvol.”

That made absolutely no sense whatsoever. “Why does Doskvol need more ghosts?” I asked, puzzled.

“It doesn’t.” All of a sudden, Sigmund realized that my ignorance was genuine. “Wait! I thought you were close associates with the Kinclaiths! Lady Irimina’s crew smuggles ghosts out of U’Duasha to the safety of Doskvol so they don’t get destroyed by the U’Du.”

And if Taji had been murdered in U’Duasha…. No wonder Irimina wanted Elstera dead and bottled for eternal torture. But the better question was: Why was Elstera so determined to cut off ghost smuggling? This whole city was infested with ghosts – who cared about a few extra? “That doesn’t seem so bad.”

“Signy, we cannot have bands of insane Iruvian ghosts terrorizing Doskvol! It looks bad for everyone! Also, I realize you’ve become somewhat inured to this whole ghost thing, but they’re dangerous. They need to be destroyed.”

At that, I couldn’t resist my inner Faith. I freed one arm and patted him comfortingly on the head. “Awwww, is my master spy scared of a widdle ghost?”

My master spy gave me an extremely unamused look that promised terrible retribution just as soon as he ended this conversation. “At any rate,” he enunciated, “Consul Avrathi was hoping that if she cut off the Iruvian side, then the whole thing would fall apart.”

“And did it?”

“No. As it turns out.”

“Who’s gotten smuggled out? I haven’t seen many Iruvian ghosts floating around Doskvol.” At least, no more than the expected number based on the Iruvian population here.

As ghost importation was Elstera’s obsession, not his, Sigmund dismissed the question. “I don’t have that much detail. I just know that the Northern Option is still very much in operation.”

“Interesting.” I thought for a moment longer, then decided that Irimina’s crew was not my problem. “Well, it’s a shame Elstera won’t help us. I guess we’ll just have to do it alone.”

“I can prod her,” he offered, taking the hint this time. “But I don’t know that I’ll get much.”

She must really detest Irimina, then, if she were willing to cross the scion of House Anixis. “Any kind of information you can get out of her will be welcome,” I said with perfect honesty. “In the meantime, I did get a letter of introduction to Ian Templeton. According to Odrienne Keel, he’s still recovering from his Ironhook Prison ordeal, and the distraction of writing a new play might be good for him. Also, I promised her to convince him to print A Requiem for Aldric. We’ll see how that goes.”

“Good, good.” Sigmund registered and filed away that information as a detail to follow up on later, but I could tell his mind was already drifting elsewhere. Probably to how best he could exact vengeance for that condescending pat on the head.

I wasn’t quite done with this conversation, though. “So – brother mine, are you going to tell me how you made contact with Ash, or do I need to interrogate him?”