“Ooookay…?” Ash raised his eyebrows at my rudeness to our guests, but apparently decided to trust my judgment. While I sprinted to my compartment to change into a noblewoman’s afternoon gown and retrieve Grandfather, I overheard him saying apologetically, “We’ll start laying the groundwork. We’ll contact you.”
Unruffled by the abrupt dismissal, Salia replied, “You can reach me through Nyryx.”
By the time I returned to the common room, the two Reconciled had already departed, and Ash was locking the door behind them. Maddeningly, Faith hadn’t twitched so much as one ruffle since I left her.
Looking between Ash in his Coalridge workman’s garb and Faith in her fuschia dress, I hinted, “We should make sure we’re not seen.”
With pointed patience, Ash inquired, “Where are we going, exactly?”
Oh, right. I hadn’t actually told them yet. I wasn’t going to, either. “We’re going to a townhouse. In Brightstone. You can play noble or whatever you prefer.”
“Umm, sure. I have a lot of friends in that area….” Only marginally less confused, Ash retired to his compartment.
While he changed, I danced from one foot to the other and tried to convince Faith to put on something that at least covered her kneecaps. She simply stared regally into the distance, like an oversized, over-infuriating cat. When Ash reemerged wearing a suit and top hat, she unfurled herself from her chair, fluffed out her dress in what she deemed a dignified manner, and strolled towards the door.
“What do we do about her?” I asked Ash helplessly.
Before he could answer, Faith cast an arch glance at me. “Are you embarrassed, Isha, to introduce me to your friend?”
Embarrassed didn’t begin to cover it.
“No,” I snapped back. “I’m just trying to make sure that no one knows we’re going to see him.”
After all, every time I snuck into his study, Sigmund reiterated that we absolutely could not be seen together, and I did occasionally respect his wishes. After my own fashion.
“Hmmm. I suppose I can put on something slightly different.” At the sudden hope on my face, Faith instantly changed her mind. “Or just wear a cloak. With only subtle pink stitching.” Off to hercompartment she ambled, most likely to rummage through her closet until she found her most extravagant outerwear.
Sigmund was going to slaughter me.
However, contrary to expectations and after an acceptable period of time, she did actually produce a mint-green cloak with only one single layer of ruffles, which was literally the most un-Faith-like thing I’d ever seen. I couldn’t fathom why she owned it in the first place. So even though it still couldn’t pass for normal anywhere outside Silkshore, I gave her points for effort.
----------------------------------------
I deducted them again, very soon afterwards.
That cloak must have had a faulty fastening, because right in the middle of Unity Park, it popped open and blew all the way back over her shoulders to reveal a full-frontal view of her very, very short dress. However, the gods or Grandfather must have been watching over us, because nearby nobles were too busy flirting to notice, and the cloak stayed shut until we reached Sigmund’s townhouse.
Pretending to be nobles making our social circuit, I announced to the butler, “We’re here to call on Lord Finnley Tyrconnell.”
Looking down his nose at Ash’s lesser-nobility garb, the butler replied stiffly, “I’m afraid Lord Finnley isn’t home right now.”
Given that all the lights were on upstairs and I distinctly saw a man’s silhouette through the drapery, I guessed that Lord Finnley was indeed at home, but wanted to work and had ordered his staff not to admit anyone. This was what I got for trying to enter his home the legitimate way.
Producing a calling card with a fake name that he’d recognize, I presented it to the butler. “If you would let your master know that I stopped by on an urgent matter – ”
At that point, Faith took matters into her own hands. Flinging open her cloak to reveal her heart-attack-inducingly-short, almost-knee-length skirt, she cried, “That’s okay! We’ll just wait here on the doorstep until he returns!”
In the process of taking my card, the butler froze.
I gave him a look of sympathy that wasn’t even the slightest bit feigned.
That might have been more overt than it needed to be? Ash hand-signed at Faith.
She dimpled right back.
“This way, please.” Haste would have been below his dignity, but the butler waved us inside with considerable alacrity. “Lord Finnley will be with you momentarily.” He took our cloaks (handling Faith’s with the tips of his fingers, as if frilliness might be contagious), ushered us into the parlor, glanced around pointedly as if taking inventory of all the valuables, and mounted the stairs with a measured tread.
“Oh, I’m disappointed,” pouted Faith. She plopped right into the middle of the largest sofa, picked up a pillow, and hugged it to her chest. “I didn’t even get to use the ‘Every moment spent away from him is another dagger in my heart’ line!”
That was probably a good thing. For the butler.
After a purposely long wait, Sigmund entered, his hair slightly mussed, his face grim. “Thank you,” he said to the butler. “That will be all.”
The butler took one look at his master’s expression and vanished into the servants’ quarters.
Shutting the parlor door a little harder than necessary, Sigmund stared at the three of us. “What on earth?” he demanded, making it sound more like a statement than a question. “What are you all doing here?”
Embarrassed and dismayed, Ash glowered at me. You get to answer this one.
“I was really very clear with both of you – ” Sigmund glared equally at Ash and me – “that we need to be discreet.” He enunciated the last part with great precision.
At the rebuke, Ash practically wilted. Trust another Slide to have developed a hero-worship complex for my brother!
Pretending that I didn’t see Ash’s accusing air, I began, “You really need to hear this and I didn’t think – ”
At my word choice, Sigmund’s lips tightened. Indeed, you didn’t think, he hand-signed angrily, using the same system that I had unfortunately taught to both of my crewmates.
Ash looked vindicated. Faith yawned.
I quickly amended myself. “There was no time to waste. I didn’t see any point in wasting your time by having you learn the same information twice from the two of us – ” I waved between Ash and me – “when you can hear it once from all three of us.” I flapped a hand in Faith’s direction.
“Yes.”
The curt syllable held no approval whatsoever of my judgment call. Circling the parlor, Sigmund closed all the curtains. When he finished, he still didn’t sit. Instead, he planted himself before us like a headmaster disciplining a bunch of unruly schoolchildren.
Cold eyes fixed on mine, he bit out, “I cannot believe you were so reckless as to have all three of you come here.”
Even more humiliated now, Ash flushed, scowled at me harder, and seconded his new idol, “Well, let’s be about this, Isha.”
I glared right back. As if he never miscalculated anything! So judgmental. “All right.” To Sigmund, I said, “We all know why we’re here – ”
“Wait!” Faith interrupted. “I don’t! I’m still trying to get caught up!” She turned to me, eyes wide in artless confusion. “This is Finnley Tyrconnell, right?”
“Yes,” Sigmund replied before I could give away anything else.
Faith tugged on my arm, bows and ribbons aflutter in her anxiety to get my attention. “Isha! Isha! Did you finally give him the battle plans?”
Sigmund’s accusing gaze pinned me in place.
“I did not!” I exclaimed. “Because you have them!”
“Oh. Right. Well, that’s inconvenient for you.” Releasing my arm and settling back down, Faith gave the pillow a soothing pet. “Sorry, where were we?”
His sober expression masking the furious mental calculations that he had to be making, my brother stated, “So it is you, Miss Karstas, to whom I should be making my pleas.”
“Why, yes!” Faith batted her eyelashes and simpered, “I would soooo love to see you on your knees, pleading with me.” Then she burst into giggles.
I was so used to her antics that my only response was a long, loud groan, but Sigmund darted a furtive, slightly guilty glance at me as he replied, “I definitely need those. To some extent, you can name your price.” Realizing that maybe he should have been more specific, he added tardily, “Assuming it is less than I would need to pay a crew of Shadows to steal the other extant copy.”
Faith drew herself up with great dignity. “Well, while we finish the apparently-more-relevant discussion, I will consider my price,” she proclaimed, playing the haughty Brightstone grande dame to perfection. Then she spoiled it with a little bounce of excitement. “Oh, wait, no, I know already! After careful consideration, I have determined my price!” Leaning forward, all blushing trepidation now, she explained, “You see, I have a dear and desperate love for a lady whom I wish to marry, but I need assistance with the chase and the hunt.” (Funny, I wouldn’t have said that Irimina required that much persuasion.) “I need you to help make my dear, beloved Isha – ”
“What?” I yelped.
“ – accept my offer of marriage.”
“What?” I cried. “Not Irimina?”
Folding her hands in her lap, Faith gave me a long, earnest look. “No, Isha. Just you.”
“What?” echoed Ash.
“Is this why you’re all here in the middle of the day?” Sigmund sounded as if he were on the verge of losing his temper and throwing all of us out of his house.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
“No!” Ash tried to defend himself. “This is not why we’re here!”
At the same time, I snapped, “No! It’s not!”
Satisfied by the chaos she’d created, Faith shrugged and lounged back against the sofa cushions. “I honestly don’t know why we’re all here. Isha hasn’t told me yet.”
Sigmund’s hard, suspicious eyes shifted to my face, and something about his stance reminded me of the night he confronted me in the railcar, regretful but ready to execute his duty. “Execute” being the operative word.
“No!” I said again, as if repetition formed the better part of persuasion. “We’re here on House business!” Well, I was anyway. For emphasis, I stabbed a finger at Grandfather, which I was still wearing, then realized that maybe reminding my brother of aforementioned duty wasn’t the best move. “No!” I repeated. “There is nothing going on between me and Faith!”
Faith gasped and recoiled as if I’d run her through. “Isha! How can you deny our love like this?”
I cast a pleading look at my brother, who appeared almost flustered. With an abrupt, slicing sort of hand gesture, he pronounced, “We will discuss that later.”
“There is nothing to discuss!” I practically shouted.
Sigmund’s intense eyes met and held mine. “The battle plans are a thing to discuss.”
“Yes! But not – ” I threw up my arms in frustration. “Ugh! You know what I mean.”
“I do.” His face was inscrutable, but in that carefully controlled way that meant he’d learned something that upset him.
Much too late, Ash dragged the conversation back on track. “Well, let’s be about discussing the reason that we’re here.”
“Yes, Isha, let’s,” Faith urged, as if she hadn’t been the one to derail the entire discussion in the first place.
I didn’t start immediately, though. I was still parsing Sigmund’s expression, trying to figure out if that terse “I do” had anything to do with Bazso. After all, my longstanding relationship with the head of the Lampblacks was common knowledge in the underworld, and my brother had to have investigated all my contacts thoroughly.
In the end, it was Sigmund who broke off our staring match and exclaimed, “Somebody had better tell me why you’re all here in the middle of the day despite my express instructions not to be!”
Before Faith could open her mouth, I answered, “Because we found out what’s going on with the Church and the war it’s trying to incite with Iruvia.”
All traces of anger vanished from my brother’s face, replaced by instant, intense focus. “I see.”
Still fearing more interruptions from Faith, I rushed on, “I’m almost positive that the Church is trying to steal the Demon Princes – ”
“What?” demanded the man who was bound to one of said Demon Princes.
“– and bind them to high-ranking members of the Church.”
“In a horrible ritual that they have performed many times with lesser demons,” Ash put in, eager to show off.
I didn’t spare him a glance. “And Grandfather informs me that this is not something he desires. In this particular case, I actually believe him.”
Sigmund sat down, hard.
Striving for nonchalance, Ash observed, “I can’t imagine that a demon enjoys being bound in a horrible rite.”
“I’m not sure it’s actually a binding,” Faith clarified, clearly relishing the sound of her own voice. “It’s more of a murder and an extraction of essence.”
“Well, if you want to elaborate,” Ash said drily, not appreciating Faith’s, well, Faith-ness, in front of Sigmund any more than I did, “I’m happy to take notes.”
She needed no further encouragement. Primly, she stated, “It’s like a purification.”
“Of a demon?” Ash asked.
On the loveseat across from us, Sigmund was scrutinizing our body language and our interaction style.
Feeling a little self-conscious, I translated, “Of the demonic essence, is what she means, I think.”
Faith nodded vigorously. “Yes. That is correct. Except for all the important bits.”
“You can reproduce your diagram,” I suggested.
Obviously, the prospect didn’t appeal to her – most likely because she’d already done it once – and she talked right over me. “It would be like if we took you, Isha, and we slowly flayed away your flesh, and then extracted your eyes with little pinprick thingies, and then carved out your ribs – ”
With just the slightest shudder, Sigmund broke in, “I don’t think we need the particulars.”
I reminded him, “I told you there’s nothing between us.”
“That’s – ” he began, but Faith cut in, “Offensive.” Just to emphasize the point, she made offended puppy-dog eyes at me.
Without a word, I rose and moved to an armchair that was as far away from Faith and as close to Sigmund as possible.
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, Ash announced, “This is all wildly out of hand.” (My brother looked as if he very much agreed with that assessment.) “Yes, obviously, it was reckless of us to come here. You can blame all of that on – ” Ash glared at me but deliberately swallowed the rest of that sentence. “Regardless, we are here, and there are more details that we should discuss.”
In a calm voice, I said, “I’m thinking that in this case, we all need to work together.”
Sigmund nodded slowly.
Ash went on, “I believe that the reason we’re here is that we would like to find someone to blame for the fact that we are going to have to continue to decimate the ranks of the upper echelons of the Church, and that is going to attract quite a lot of attention.”
Because I was more used to Ash’s conversational style, I finished parsing that sentence a fraction of second before Sigmund did. In fact, that wasn’t the reason I’d brought the crew here, but it certainly sounded a lot better than “Uh, actually, I just sort of panicked and dragged you all here because I thought my brother would have the answers.”
Ash was saying, “It would be good if that attention fell on someone else.”
At that, I remembered the unresolved argument that Sigmund and I had had over scapegoats, i.e. whether they should be Skovlander in nature. I said (ostensibly to Ash, but really to my brother), “I’m pretty sure that Grandfather and Finnley here have been working on that one.”
Perfectly aware of what I meant, Sigmund sighed. “What would you have us do, Isha?” he asked, sounding frustrated and utterly exhausted. “We have to have someone.”
Naturally, Ash agreed with him. “I hate to point this out, Isha, but very few hands are flawless when it comes to – ” My quizzical blink must have alerted him that his metaphor didn’t quite scan. “No matter where you point blame, people will still look to those who benefit most.” (Who – the Skovlanders?) “We can’t assume that we will succeed at hiding anything, but we might as well try.” (Oh, he meant us.) “Also, the timing for what we have to coordinate will be quite tricky. We don’t even know if the Church means to wait any amount of time before this Ascension ritual.”
“It’s not like they have the Demon Princes already,” Sigmund interjected. “Those are still in Iruvia.”
“Except for the ones who live in a railcar in Doskvol,” Faith chimed in.
Sigmund tipped his head to a side inquiringly.
“Part of one?” she suggested.
“Grandfather?” he asked with a slight frown.
Faith gasped, as if appalled by our carelessness. “Are you losing pieces of Demon Princes?” she demanded. “You guys have, like, one job!”
Very, very precisely, Sigmund informed her, “I assure you, I have more than one job.”
Oh dear.
“In any case – ” Ash began.
“Who exactly are you planning to kill?” Sigmund enunciated each word carefully and slowly, leaving no doubt whatsoever that he wanted answers, and he wanted them now – not after another spiral of crew bickering.
In the interest of self-preservation, I gave him a straight answer: “We are going to kill three of the Ascendent. Admiral Strangford – ”
Whatever he’d expected, that was not it. “Ah, stars.”
“ – Followed by Elder Rowan. Followed by Preceptor Dunvil.”
Just to enhance his dismay, Faith added, “There might be intermediary ones too, depending on how many extra they create in the meantime.”
“Also, we should kill off Djera Maha’s nephews,” I finished, hoping to sneak my private vendetta past my crewmates.
It didn’t work.
“You mean, just for good measure?” inquired Faith, arching one eyebrow all the way up.
“In case they want revenge.”
Ash wasn’t fooled any more than Faith. He warned, “You do realize that we’ve already brought so much heat on ourselves that we could find our railcar, all of the Lampblacks and Red Sashes, everyone and everything we care about, all burned to cinders right now. The Church is not going to tolerate the murder of its upper echelons.”
“And yet,” I reminded him, “we are going to kill the top three Ascendent.”
“Yes. Yes, we are. And I’m trying to make sure that we succeed – instead of all die.”
“Isha.” Sigmund’s quiet voice cut through our argument. “Do you think that it will work?”
Feeling a surge of pride that it was my analysis he trusted, I answered honestly and cautiously, “I believe that it will be a great setback, because those are the instigators – ”
“And very satisfying,” Faith interrupted. When we turned, puzzled, she specified, “It will be a great setback and very satisfying.”
“Satisfying,” Sigmund repeated flatly.
She gave an emphatic nod. “Satisfying. Do you not appreciate a good murder? One where the neck is hacked in two, and the soul is sawed off with a cleaver – ” She broke off, frustrated that she just wasn’t getting across to him, and exclaimed, “Iruvian assassins have no taste!” And then, her crowning condemnation: “They don’t even wear pink!”
Ash was actually shocked into a chuckle.
Sigmund just looked at me. “She reminds me of Cousin Anya.”
In the past few years in Doskvol, I’d happily forgotten Cousin Anya. “Uggh,” I groaned. “Has anyone killed her yet?”
“Anya? She’s immortal.”
“What?” Ash demanded, eager and alert. “How? Some demon binding?”
“What?” Sigmund gave him a very odd stare.
“Ash is kind of obsessed with cult-y things,” I explained in the biggest understatement since the Cataclysm.
Sigmund shook his head. “No, Anya is just very good at evading assassins.”
“Oh. That kind of immortal.” My poor crewmate sagged, crestfallen that he hadn’t stumbled across yet another dark, disturbing ritual. Shaking off his disappointment, he homed in on practicalities. “She sounds very useful.”
“She’s extremely irritating, is what she is,” I informed him before he could try to ally with her. “I think people try to assassinate her just to get her to stop talking.”
I couldn’t resist casting a pointed glance at Faith, who, of course, couldn’t resist uttering a breathless, “She sounds like a role model!”
“No, she’s not,” stated my long-suffering brother.
All starry-eyed, Faith entreated, “Do I need a visa to travel to Iruvia to meet her?”
“No! We’re all part of the same Imperium!” I snapped. That was what constituted the root of the problem here.
Clearing his throat, Ash raised his voice to remind all of us, “If we could just redirect the conversation to the fact that we’ve already set off a ticking time bomb by killing one of the Ascendent. We have three more to deal with, and we have very little time before the Church catches on to us – which they may already have done – and burns us to cinders.”
Death by pyrotechnics seemed to be his latest obsession, right after creepy, cultic rituals.
At the prospect of anyone (other than him) executing me, Sigmund sobered right up and asked quietly, “What do you need?”
For an insane moment, I thought he was asking if he should lend us Hadrakin to help kill Ascendent. Which would the demon-hating, Iruvian-purist Hadrakin abhor more: a demon-hybrid, all-Akorosian Church leader, or a demon-tainted, half-Skovlander Anixis? “What do you mean, what do we need?”
Impatiently, he repeated, “What do you need? I will see if I can provide it for you.”
“Coordinating a scapegoat is critical,” said Ash, bringing us back to (one of) our original arguments.
I looked Sigmund straight in the eyes. “I don’t like it. I really don’t like it.”
“If you have a better option, I am willing to entertain it, but I really don’t see – ”
I blurted out the first province that came to mind: “How about the Dagger Isles?”
My brother’s face remained implacable. “If you can come up with some plausible reason they would care.”
That was the challenge, wasn’t it? So long as the shipping got through, no self-respecting Akorosi cared enough about the Dagger Isles to inquire into, much less interfere with, their affairs, and so the Dagger Islanders and their pirate queens sailed blithely on their merry way. Severos, as Odrienne Keel had pointed out, paid deft lip service to the Imperium while maintaining its own institutions and was perfectly happy with the status quo. And as for Tycheros, it was simply too far away to fear any concerted, sustained Imperial intervention. Semi-pacified Skovlan, which had never entirely relinquished its dreams of independence, was not only the obvious candidate – it might be the only plausible candidate.
“You’ve already laid plans for Skovlan, yes?” Ash pressed Sigmund, most unhelpfully.
“It wasn’t hard,” replied my brother, with a twist of his lips.
“But we know so many people from Skovlan,” I protested to Ash, thinking of our Lampblack friends. “And they still have families back in Skovlan.”
Exchanging a grimace with Sigmund, Ash played on my greater loyalty to my homeland than to my mother’s (and Bazso’s). “Isha, you do realize that by planning to steal the Demon Princes, the Imperium has already basically declared war on Iruvia. Deflecting blame onto Skovlan will likely do nothing more than delay an Imperial invasion of Iruvia, instead of drag Skovlan into a full-scale war.” In what was a tremendous concession for him, he admitted, “However clever our machinations, I doubt we can incite a war if the intent doesn’t already exist.” To cover this momentary lapse in hubris, he hurried on, “Regardless, distracting the Imperium will buy us a few extra days or weeks – hopefully – so I’d go with whatever Lord Finnley has already set in motion.”
“Fine!” Throwing up my hands, I surrendered with no grace whatsoever. “I leave that to the two of you.”
And I will hold you personally responsible if there’s another Rape of Lockport, said my tone.
Faith piped up in her sweetest voice, “Oh, by the way, if Isha is still entertaining questions, I have one more: Why did we come here in person, instead of sending Lord Finnley a letter and inviting him over to our place?”
I was not, and had not been, entertaining questions – and I also had no more compelling answer than a ferocious death glare.
Out of nowhere, Ash announced, “Sometimes you just have to indulge the impulses of your crewmates. It’s part of being a crew.” When Faith and I both glanced at him, startled, he held his fingers behind his head and angrily waggled them, mimicking cat ears. Apparently he’d finally figured out who was behind weeks of humiliation.
Faith giggled but didn’t confess to anything.
Poor Sigmund looked completely perplexed so, taking pity on my master spy, I soothed, “I’ll explain later.”
At the “later,” Ash practically leapt to his feet. “Yes, coming here was incredibly reckless,” he declared. “Should we head back?”
Finally, an idea of which Sigmund heartily approved.