It was the middle of the night and Yeijiro was still wide awake. Too many thoughts were spinning through his head. As he tossed and turned, he kept going over the evening with Tōru, examining every moment, obsessing about every word that had been said, everything they’d done.

Including the fragmentary conversation between Tōru and Lord García. What had that been about?

Giving up on sleep for now, Yeijiro got out of bed, wrapped himself in a robe, and turned on the light in his office. Folders full of tax records were spread across his desk, and a mess of notes covered the board on the wall. All of it was what he was supposed to be working on. Well, most of it. Some of the notes—details he’d seen, ideas he’d had—Roderich wouldn’t have approved if he’d seen them. They were more thoughts on the investigation that was supposed to be closed.

Roderich might have moved on, but the fact Tōru was still asking questions, was still talking about Pax, it told Yeijiro his instincts were correct, that there were still answers to be found.

Serpent agents in Tapti. No, outside of Tapti. Something that required an akashic. Tōru's talk of timing and coincidence—this had to be connected to the attack on the Emperor.

Yeijiro cleared his desk and pulled out the map he’d printed of Tapti, the Dragon Fortress, and the surrounding territory. He’d already covered it in notes—the locations of fighting, the placements of compromised officers, the location of the rift that had been opened for attackers to come from darkspace.

Around the borders of the map, questions. What were the next two steps? After the Emperor was dead, what then? In everything Yeijiro had found, there was no talk of any resources for fortification, or even for another strike. The conspirators had spent everything for one blow. But to what end?

What was still out there for Serpent agents to find? Something Yeijiro had missed? He dug out his file from the investigation, the folder he’d built after he’d come to Terris. With more time to dig through the information he’d assembled, he had a whole notebook full of thoughts and theories and connections he’d found even beyond what he’d handed to the Emperor.

All of it implicated the same people, though. All of it pointed to the one attack. So Yeijiro had kept it to himself.

Akashics. Magic. Outside of Tapti. Yeijiro stared at the circle that marked the opening to darkspace. How had that happened? Every child in the Empire learned that the inhabited planets were safe, that they had protections that kept darkspace—and the demons who lived there—away. Since Yeijiro had grown up, he’d come to understand that a lot of things were more complicated than what he’d first learned in school, but this had seemed an absolute.

How did those protections work? Who made them? Who was capable of circumventing them?

Yeijiro had flown through the space in which the rift had opened. It had been in the same direction as he’d come from.

The outpost in the mountains where the conspirators had been gathering their strength—Yeijiro had researched that too. A small fort that had been built early when the planet was still being settled, abandoned as the Dragon Fortress and Tapti had grown. Since then, it had become a haven for criminals, cleared out periodically by Dragon authorities, but always reclaimed by bad elements.

Yeijiro drew a line with his finger from the outpost to the fortress, stopping to tap on the rift.

How had that been opened? Had it required a person in proximity? Had whatever they’d done left some evidence behind? Evidence that an akashic could recognize?

How would Yeijiro find out? He couldn’t take this to Elena. She wasn’t going to listen to anything he had to say, especially when most of this was still secret. Roderich had been very clear that he wasn’t open to any more talk of this investigation. Like he’d been angry with Yeijiro for even suggesting it.

There was still a piece Yeijiro was missing. Maybe more than one. This puzzle still didn’t fit together. That Tōru had needed to ask him so many questions—why didn’t Tōru know everything? That was the entire purpose of the Serpent clan. What had happened? What had really happened?

He couldn’t go to Roderich. Elena wouldn’t listen to him. So what did that leave?

Yeijiro pulled out a fresh notebook, cleared a space on his desk, and started making plans.