Nobody else seems to care. Yeijiro knew exactly how that felt, seeing something was wrong and unable to get anyone else to listen.

Which made it easy for him to say, “I’m listening. Tell me what you’ve found.”

It was an unfair request, and he knew it, since he was asking Corinne to tell him everything while he still couldn’t tell her anything. He was asking for her trust. But after only a brief pause to consider, Corinne scooted forward to lean in over the counter and reached for more wine. “Okay. Let’s talk.”

But where she started wasn’t at all what he expected. “Have you heard of Lady Snow?”

Yeijiro kept working, arranging dinner. “Who is she? Is she part of the court?”

“That’s the thing. No one knows. She hosts these parties.” Corinne’s gaze flicked down and away, then back. Something she wasn’t telling. “No question she’s an etheric—a strong one. She always wears a mask, but the way she looks—let’s just say the mask doesn’t do anything to actually disguise her. If she were walking around in public looking like that, everyone would remember her. Which makes me think maybe she’s a Serpent. She seems to have a lot of money and connections, but no one has any idea who she really is.”

“In costume, not in mask,” Yeijiro murmured. At Corinne’s questioning look, he clarified. “A spy. Changing her body, not just hiding behind a mask. My suspicion is that she is a Serpent, but one living in the court under cover as someone else. So no one would know her as a Serpent.”

The fact of Serpent spies able to do that—the fact that Serpent spies did do that—was one of the reasons Yeijiro’s clan was so mistrusted.

This seemed to be new information to Corinne. She was staring at him thoughtfully. “How many spies like that are there?”

“Only Lord Oshiro could tell you.”

“Okay then.” She shook her head. “So she could be anyone. But the point is, she and I have made a connection, I think.” Once again, she looked away.

Something she was talking around. Something she was ashamed of? “Whatever it is, Corinne, you can tell me.”

“The parties, they…”

Yeijiro waited, giving her time to find whatever words she was looking for.

“They’re people having sex. Every kind of sex you can imagine.” She still hadn’t met his eyes.

Was she expecting him to be shocked? “I know what happens at court. I know how people entertain themselves.”

“I didn’t. Apparently.” She sighed. “It’s still—I still don’t know what to think about it. About the fact that…I like it.”

“Believe me, I understand things can be complicated.”

She looked up, saw something in his face that made her brows draw together as she studied him. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “you never told me what happened that last night at the Golden Moon.”

Yeijiro felt the heat rush to his cheeks. To cover, he turned to a cabinet and started unstacking the pots that were covering up his hot plate.

Corinne rolled her eyes and walked over to the stove where a pot of water boiled. Without gloves or any other heat protection, she picked up the searing pot and set it on the counter. The water within remained at a gentle boil, with a bright red glow at the bottom that implied it would continue to do so—but when Yeijiro put his hand near the outside of the pot, it was completely cool to the touch.

Magic.

Yeijiro poured the vegetables into the simmering water and set out the bowls he’d already prepared of noodles and thinly sliced, seasoned meat. He handed Corinne a pair of chopsticks.

“All right, fess up,” she said, once they were settled again.

Yeijiro shook his head. “It isn’t—”

“Come on. I just told you about sex parties. We’re all friends here. Who was it sent you that token?”

As long as they were trading secrets, and it wasn’t as though Corinne was going to tell Roderich. “It was Lord Miyōshi.”

Her eyes went wide. “And did you…?”

“Not then.”

“Not then,” Corinne repeated. “Which means…later?”

“Weren’t we supposed to be talking about rifts and demons?”

Not the smoothest deflection, but Corinne let it go. “Yes, I was getting there. So the parties.”

“Lady Snow’s parties.”

“Right. I went to a couple on Pax. Then the attack happened, and I started investigating.”

She got up, went back into his office, and came back with the map. She spread it out on the counter and pointed to the spot where he’d made quite a few notes, based on information he wasn’t technically supposed to have access to. “You know what happened here?”

He did, because he’d discovered that the highest security marshal files were protected—like so many things the Swan designed—by the nima. Yeijiro had found Roderich’s own notes from that day, had seen the entirety of what had really happened.

Since Corinne already knew, there was nothing wrong with telling her, “That was where the rift opened and the demon came through.”

She nodded, and tapped the spot with the dry end of her chopsticks. “I went back there. The whole area is wrong. The nima have been made wrong, in a way I’d never even heard of. At the center, where they won’t even go, I found a hidden cave. Someone tried to destroy all the evidence, but I was able to dig out some notes. And with them, an invitation.”

Corinne’s circuitous story snapped together. “An invitation to a party.”

She didn’t even bother to confirm, just swirled up some noodles and took a bite. While Yeijiro thought.

“Could Lady Snow be involved with this?” was his first question.

“No,” Corinne answered, fast and certain. “I can’t imagine it.”

He raised his eyebrows, questioning.

She shook her head. “I know what you’re thinking. Yes, I like her. A lot. But this isn’t just me being biased.

“The nima, they love her. You should see how they crowd around her. She’s an akashic too, I’m sure. But around the rift—the nima in that place—I can’t believe anyone who caused something like that could still have the nima's loyalty.”

Corinne was the subject expert here, so for now Yeijiro mentally set aside Lady Snow as a suspect.

But now he had other questions. How old was that invitation? When had the evidence in that cave been destroyed? Had Kosuri Vivek been an attendee at Lady Snow’s parties?

He took a deep breath, clearing his mind, ready to listen with the open-minded focus that would let him take everything in and absorb it. “Okay. Start over from the beginning. Tell me everything.”

Corinne nodded. And began.