When the porter handed Gavriel a snowdrop along with his greatcoat, the adrenaline rush from winning money vanished in a moment. A snowdrop. The flower the Libertines used to signal an emergency meeting at Winther House. The same flower that decorated Lavrras’s tree grave, planted by Malou and him. The sight of it always put a bad taste in his mouth. He was glad she wasn’t here to see it and even more glad she wasn’t expecting him despite the circumstances.

Back in the corridor of Thein Library’s basement, Gavriel shook out his greatcoat before he slipped it on. He heard something fall out, and after he dug into his pockets for the glass orb of his rodona light, he found a black mask at his feet. Not their usual animal mask. First Malou’s senator grandfather and now this. Something was wrong.

There was only one way to find out.

He could head up the stairs, back into the library, but wearing a black mask out in the open on campus would get caught on the security cameras. The black mask was probably an indication to keep to the shadows, to the underground. So Gavriel put on the mask and headed away from the stairs, deeper into Tousieux’s maze of secret passageways, with his rodona light dimmed.

As teenagers, Zeynel and Malou’s father had discovered the underground tunnels under campus and between the walls. All her father had to do was show them the way in once, and Gavriel and Malou had hunted around until they had it all mapped out. Of course, Lavrras had probably shown him so he’d use the passages to run his errands, but that didn’t matter much. The information has been extremely useful.

It only took him ten minutes to get to Winther House even while covering his tracks. The Libertines met every tenth and twenty-fifth morning of the month beneath Adesina Law Library at precisely two o’clock, but not always. Sometimes a smaller group of them met in the basement of Winther House, a guest house for visitors to Tousieux University.

While the sun-bleached brick building boasted nearly 300 rooms for short- and long-term stays, over 15 meeting spaces and conference rooms, and a common room that overlooks a quiet, private courtyard, the Libertines bunched into a barely lit bunker. Everyone inside wore the same black mask, and they sat around dark wood tables with hunched backs. The tension in the air made Gavriel grimace.

He spotted his long-time friend Viggo Fleiss by his long locs at the other side of the room and took the empty wooden chair beside him. Among the Libertines, he went by Ender. Gavriel was there when he got the nickname because they’d joined at the same time back in their hometown, the grimy and dirty Meininsing.

“Finally, you’re here,” Viggo whispered, his Bieledener accent making his words seem harsher than he meant. He hadn’t come to Tousieux University until recently, and so his accent was still strong. It reminded Gavriel of his siblings. Especially his older brother Cassian, who was also a Libertine and the reason he’d joined. “Did you win anything at that fancy party?”

“Not much,” he said.

"Liar. You’re always stealing from the rich when you can.”

“You know me so well. So when’s this getting started? How long have you two been here?”

Viggo scoffed, sat back, and folded his arms over his chest. “Fuck if I know, but I hope soon. Smells like ass in here quick. They’ve been on a video conference this whole time. I’m figuring with you-know-who.”

That meant Leonore. Malou had no idea that her mother was not only in charge of the Libertines here on campus but also one of the organization’s leaders. Lavrras had been a leader as well.

Of course, Leonore couldn’t be here in person because of her father’s death, but it was unlikely anyone else knew that. Though, perhaps Ace and Syn did. The two were seated in the front, facing everyone else. By the look of their postures, neither of them seemed to want to continue listening to the conversation.

Ace was Leonore’s assistant and had been for years. She acted like it, too, as if she were better than everyone else. Gavriel wasn’t sure what Syn’s official position was if he even had one, but he seemed related to the family after whom this guest house was named. He treated the Libertines like some kind of entertainment. Like a fun game to play when he was bored.

“It’s not good news this time,” Viggo said. "But I couldn't get it out of Syn earlier. He just said everything’s about to change, and he couldn’t be happier. Maybe it’s good news? This wait is giving me way too much anxiety. I’m going to die young because of this.”

Gavriel scoffed. Almost chuckled, too. “If that asshole’s happy, that must mean something’s wrong.” His mind worked to figure out what it could be. If it was related to Leonore’s father—Malou’s grandfather—dying, then perhaps it was political.

“Well, shit.” Viggo let out a big sigh.

“…Yeah,” Gavriel followed, “that’s what I was thinking.”

Maybe Leonore’s father had been an integral part of the careful plans she, Lavrras, and the other leaders had set for over a decade. Or perhaps his death signaled the first domino falling. That bad taste was back in his mouth.

Ace cleared her throat, drawing his attention back to the front of the room. Flyaways from her short blonde hair danced in the dim light. She was standing now, though Syn was still sitting. He looked like an even less willing participant than before, his shoulder-length messy dark curls looking like he'd raked his fingers through them a few too many times. When the room had quieted, Ace finally got the emergency meeting started.

“Thank you all for coming on such short notice,” Ace said, though there was nothing grateful about her tone. Since she wasn’t a student at Tousieux, she wore the standard Libertine affair—a long black greatcoat, a high-collared black shirt, black breeches, a rapier at her waist, and black riding boots. Inconspicuous as possible except for the black mask. “I have some unfortunate news to deliver. First, our esteemed leader is resigning her position on campus, and so you will all now report directly to me.”

Gavriel could’ve groaned. Great. Not like he was partial to dealing with Leonore, but Ace hadn’t even been a Libertine half as long as he had and she’d spent all that time trying to impress Leonore rather than be part of the team. At least Syn was out risking his neck like the rest of them. The tension in the air grew heavier.

“The reason,” Ace continued, her voice growing louder and her pace growing slower, “for her departure brings me to the second piece of unfortunate news. We have received word that our activity at Tousieux may have been discovered by the Crown, which means the gendarmerie will come looking for us.”

The bunker filled with nervous mutterings. The Revernais Crowned Gendarmerie was the branch of the empire’s armed forces in charge of public safety and policing the civilian population—or so they were supposed to be. Back home, they were mostly just paid off by families like his own to look the other way to anything their job description told them to pay attention to. Worthless, the lot of them.

“The Crown has no jurisdiction here,” someone pointed out from a few tables away. “Tousieux University is a recognized as an independent sovereign city. We’re not all citizens here.”

“Why would that fucking stop them?” Syn asked, chuckling as he kicked back his chair and put his boots on top of the table. “They’ve followed us across an ocean. They’re definitely going to come, and we’re going to be prepared. More than prepared.”

Another person raised their hand. “So we’ll fight?”

“Yes,” Ace said before Syn could. “Should they come, we’ve been permitted to retaliate. We're securing the additional materials we’ll need to protect ourselves. Half of you will do safety training with me in the mornings starting tomorrow, and the other half will train in the evenings with Syn. Pass the word that no one is getting armed without our approval.”

The meeting turned toward what the training would entail if they’d have enough to arm everyone, when the shipment would arrive, and whether they’d receive any advanced notice. Of course, there’d be little to no warning, and the rest didn’t concern Gavriel much since he had his own weapons and didn’t need to be trained by either of them.

What did concern him was that the gendarmerie would be on campus, and the Libertines probably weren’t the only thing they were interested in finding. It was an open secret that the Teir was at Tousieux, and given what it could do, the Crown could use it to stop the Libertines once and for all. Surely there was something that could be done to prevent them from basically invading.

The Teir was here because of the university’s sovereign status. It was supposed to be safe here. As long as it was safe here, then Malou was safe here. As long as Malou was safe, then Gavriel was keeping the promise he made to Lavrras for taking him in as a boy, paying for his education even now, and teaching him how to take care of himself. With the gendarmerie coming to campus, then that meant the Teir wasn’t safe, that Malou wasn’t safe.

Gavriel should tell her about the impending danger, but not for the first time, his hands were tied by secrets. Like that he was a member of the Libertines, had been since before he met her. Or that her father had been a leader and that her mother currently was still one. The list kept growing, and today it seemed he was adding another.

When the meeting finally ended, all he wanted to do was get back to his dorm room and sleep before his irritation at this whole situation turned into a headache. Unfortunately, he had to meet with one more person. And he was guaranteed to leave it with a pounding head.

He crossed campus underground, making his way to Casals Hall. His least favorite building. Even the basement here felt different, felt colder. Maybe it was the granite brickwork of the walls and the floors and even the stairs that led to the roof. Gavriel didn’t climb all the way up, stopping at the third-floor landing.

Although it looked like a dead-end, a door concealed within that granite brickwork gave way under his touch, opened quietly to the back of a bookcase. He gave a five-lettered password under his breath, teeth gritted. Then with the gentle push of his fingertips, the bookcase swept forward on hidden hinges into a dark office.

False flames danced in the nearby fireplace, washed a gilded glow over twin walnut-framed sofas upholstered in white brocade and a white-and-ivory traditional Samouvean rug. Gavriel’s family had a similar rug, though red, in the living space above their smithy. Both probably bought with dirty money.

The dim burn flickered against the decorative details of the moldings carved with only the utmost precision into the white walls and vaulted ceiling. Vice-Premier Zeynel Casals sat behind his oversized desk, his back to a window overlooking the university’s south skyline of towers and cupolas and spires and domes shimmering with auburn light.

Gavriel stepped into the room’s vague warmth and pulled the black mask from his face to rest at the top of his head. He didn’t bother announcing himself. Likewise, the man didn’t bother shifting his gaze from the work projected onto the curved glass screen mounted at the end of his desk. At least not immediately.

The man always made Gavriel wait for his attention. Sometimes five minutes. Sometimes ten minutes. Sometimes an hour. Gavriel played the vice-premier’s game all the same: with a smile and hate biting at the back of his tongue because he despised being here nearly as much as he despised that the man’s password reminded him exactly why he had to be here in the first place.

Today, he wasn’t going to wait. “We had an emergency meeting,” he said as flat as he could, watching one of the man’s large hands skimming against the glass dividing their gazes. Gavriel pretended to admire the gold-lettered spines lining the walls and began cracking his knuckles one at a time. “Leonore’s pretty damn certain they’ve found us out—that the government knows we’re here, knows you’re hiding Libertines on campus.”

The vice-premier moved a document to the middle of the cluttered screen, dashed a fingernail along its surface to scroll through the text. Perhaps he didn’t care if the government knew he was harboring a few members of the most wanted criminal organization in the world. Maybe he’d just deny he knew anything about it, forget he knew Leonore was pulling its strings on his campus.

“Thought you’d like to know,” Gavriel said, adding the snowdrop the porter gave him earlier to the vase above the fireplace, “but do correct me if this isn’t quite the information you were looking for from your personal Libertine spy.” Without a semblance of elegance, he fell into one of the armchairs facing the vice-premier’s desk. Probably some of the least comfortable places to sit on campus.

The vice-premier continued his quick skim. “Is there something you want me to do about that, boy?”

Gavriel stopped himself from attempting to mock the vice-premier for continuing to call him boy even though he was an adult now. The answer was obvious, after all, but perhaps even the invulnerable Vice-Premier of Tousieux University couldn’t keep the Revernais government from finding the Libertines.

“Not what I want,” Gavriel corrected. “What you don’t want. They’ll come to investigate, won’t they? Give Tousieux a proper look. Maybe even find the Teir. I imagine you don’t want them to find that. Or, fuck, maybe you do want them to find it. They will find us, though, because if they come, we’ll be giving them a fitting welcome.”

“Of course, you will,” the vice-premier said, his voice gritty with irritation. The vice-premier pulled up another document, and he proceeded to read its contents as well.

Infuriating. This man was so infuriating. Vice-Premier Zeynel Casals was a most detestable man. Cold, calculating, and uncaring.

“Malou will be in danger, won’t she?”

At that, the vice-premier gave a cold laugh. “Even though she has you, her little knight who promised her father he’d protect her?” Finally, his ocean eyes met Gavriel’s gaze. He rested an elbow on his desk, put his cheek on his fist, and watched Gavriel as if amused. But there was a warning there, menacing and malicious, that Gavriel didn’t miss. “You want to tell her. About all of this. All your secrets. That you’re a Libertine. That you’re my spy. About her mother. About her father. How endearing. I imagine it must hurt—lying to her. But that’s not my problem, boy. It’s not your place to tell her.”

Not Gavriel’s place? Fuck that. If anyone was going to be honest with her, it should be him. He began cracking the knuckles on his right hand, imagining what it’d feel like to punch them into the vice-premier’s face for once.

“If you were going to,” the vice-premier continued, drawing his attention back to his work, “you should’ve done it a long time ago.”

Gavriel’s thumb cracked a little too hard, and the shock of it vibrated up the bones of his arm. He remembered the way Malou hurt herself in the smallest of ways—digging her fingernails into her palms, biting the insides of her cheek—to distract herself from the other ways she hurt sometimes. Which he hated. He didn’t want her to hurt at all. His jaw clenched, but he plastered a smile on his face to hide it.

“Yes, you’re right. You’re always right.” Gavriel stood and snapped his mask back in place over his face. He gave a sham of a bow. “That’s it. Pleasure as always.” Then he turned away, exposing his back against all instinct to a glare he felt knife right between his shoulder blades and left the exact way he came.

He didn’t know whether to admire or be afraid of the way this man managed not to care about a single thing. Maybe he had a plan. Gavriel wouldn’t put it past him. Or perhaps he had no plan at all. Didn’t matter much. Gavriel hadn’t made that promise for nothing.