The heart of that promise, of course, involved creating copious amounts of internal turmoil to distract the Imperium from invading Iruvia. Since Odrienne Keel had that well in hand (or, rather, in pen), I turned my attention to beating my brother to the battle plans. And when I picked up our mail at the Orchid Salon and discovered a letter from Polonia that requested Miss Karstas’s presence at the Kinclaith mansion, I actually thought I had a chance. After meticulously resealing the envelope, I slid it under Faith’s compartment door, retreated to the common room, and waited.

I didn’t have to wait long.

A patter of slipper-clad feet heralded Faith’s arrival. Her blonde, beribboned head poked through the doorway. One hand flapped the envelope in my direction.

“Bye, Isha!” she sing-songed. “I’m going to meet with Polonia and Irimina about the battle plans!”

Her head popped back out of the doorway.

“Wait!”

Leaping to my feet, I bounded after her. I needed to be at that meeting to ensure that Polonia made the right decision concerning her mother’s legacy – i.e. entrusted the battle plans to someone who would entrust them to people who would then stymy them.

At the far end of the hallway, Faith froze with one hand on the door handle, her posture betraying annoyance that I wanted to pressure the Helker kids. Then she twirled to face me, skirts flying, pink-lipsticked mouth in an O of pure elation.

“Why, Isha, I thought you said you didn’t want to get involved! Did you change your mind? Irimina and I would be delighted to have you! Come on, come on!” As she deliberately scanned me up and down, her ecstasy collapsed. “You’ll probably want to wear something else though.” She pouted at my trousers, hinting that proper attire constituted the better part of seduction. (My tutors would actually have agreed with her. Come to think of it, some of them might have appreciated her.) Then her face lit up again. “I have a good dress! Let’s see if it fits you!”

I was having second thoughts already anyway. Polonia had specifically addressed her invitation to her adoptive mother’s trusted friend. If I showed up unannounced, would the teenager resent that? Would she interpret it as totally unwarranted adult pressure to follow a certain course of action – and perversely swerve the other way?

“Actually, that’s all right,” I told Faith, who emitted some perfunctory noises of disappointment. “Maybe another time.”

I’d get a full report later from my housemaid anyway.

In a gesture of affection, Irimina vacated the parlor so Polonia could receive her guest in full grown-up-lady style. When Rutherford showed Faith into the room, the sixteen-year-old was perched on the edge of Irimina’s divan, her back ramrod straight.

She jumped to her feet and attempted a gracious, hostess-ly nod. “Miss Karstas. Thank you for coming.”

Andrel, on the other hand, was slouched in an armchair in the corner, buried in a book. At the sound of voices, he looked up, blinked in confusion, and went back to reading.

With no trace of mockery, Faith returned Polonia’s greeting and sat.

Skipping, or perhaps simply forgetting, the requisite pleasantries, Polonia announced as if she had rehearsed the line, “Andrel and I have debated this a great deal over the last few days. We feel…I, um….” She trailed off and cast a glance over at her brother, whose token presence offered no help or moral support whatsoever. In a tentative voice, she asked, “Aunt Irimina says you can arrange things such that people are aware that…we no longer have the plans?”

In answer, Faith gave her a firm nod. “Yes, of course.”

The girl wavered for just one moment longer. “In that case….”

She picked up a bundle of papers from the end table, walked around the coffee table, and proffered them to Faith, who accepted them respectfully.

“Please make sure these don’t fall into the wrong hands. Although….” Reluctant to criticize her mother’s work, Polonia frowned and admitted in a dragging sort of way, “Although it might not really matter….” After another pause, she burst out, “I don’t think these were ever meant to be used. They’re not really a plan, if you know what I mean, but if everyone thinks that’s what they are, it might be better if they’re not here.”

With shockingly genuine sincerity, Faith assured her, “I understand.”

The girl’s shoulders sagged in relief. “Thank you, Miss Karstas, for taking care of this problem for us.”

“Thank you, as well.”

Much more relaxed now that she’d divested herself of this threat to her family, Polonia almost-but-not-quite plopped down onto the divan. Taking the hint, Faith gracefully showed herself out, leaving behind a box of chocolates for Irimina (who would almost certainly share them with the children).

I got all of those details from my housemaid later, of course. If I ever took over the Anixis spy ring here, my first action would be to appoint her my lieutenant.

After that successful interview with Polonia, Faith reappeared in the railcar with a sheath of papers tucked under her arm. As if drained beyond belief, she drooped where she stood and moaned at Ash and me, “Through great expenditure of my own labors, I have discovered a set of papers detailing a terrible, terrible invasion of U’Duasha.”

Well, of course – that was the entire point of this exercise. “She gave them to you, then,” I commented, feigning indifference.

Unfortunately, no amount of acting now could erase my past eagerness.

Keeping the papers angled so I couldn’t read them, Faith half-sobbed, “Oh, the crimes against humanity, the suppression of the Iruvian people, the tragic ensuing death and decay, the famine, demons, bloodshed. It is a terrible, terrible thing that I have discovered this day.”

Considering Ronia Helker’s military record in Skovlan, that was a given. “Yes,” I agreed patiently, “but how will they accomplish this?”

She slowly swung her head from side to side, consumed by sorrow that, after that summary, anyone would still dream of asking. “The plans were quite extensive. There were hundreds of pages and sub-pages that I couldn’t be bothered to read. So much text. And not nearly enough of it was pink.”

Laying down his pen so he could take a gulp of coffee, Ash rubbed his temples (a frequent action among those exposed to Faith). “And you got these from the daughter?”

At the attention from a different audience member, Faith’s attitude shifted towards excitement. “But there was an excellent, excellent chapter that I thought you would be interested in. Where General Helker proposes starting the invasion by having Imperial infiltrators in Vaasu’at shatter the cages that bind the Demon Princes!”

“What?” I exclaimed. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

In more ways than one. For one thing, the Demon Princes’ spires were scattered all over the city, not concentrated in the western district of Vaasu’at (and since when did Faith know U’Duashan geography anyway?). For another, House Anixis wouldn’t let Imperial infiltrators get anywhere near those spires.

Accuracy, however, had never been Faith’s modus operandi. With a malicious twinkle in her green eyes, she inquired sweetly, “Something about causing unrest and chaos within the city – so there will be nothing left to invade? Because if there is nothing left to invade, then the invasion is already done.”

After months of trial and error, I knew better than to lose my temper. Folding my arms across my chest, I cocked my head and observed in an indulgent, there-there-isn’t-it-adorable-when-she-tries-to-think? tone, “That doesn’t actually make any sense, Faith.”

Seeing through the ploy, she grinned back broadly, showing all her teeth.

It was our resident financier who objected, “Why wouldn’t they want to destroy the economy? It’s the easiest way to take down U’Duasha.”

Perhaps, but that didn’t seem relevant to Helker’s vision of warfare. “Faith was talking about destroying the spires,” I pointed out, “not the economy.”

“They just want to contain the spires, surely. It does seem a little reckless to – ”

“No, no, no!” Faith broke in, fed up with our blockheadedness. “Shatter them. I said shatter them. Because presumably it’s a bad thing if the Demon Princes are no longer imprisoned, right?” She dimpled at me, radiating naïve confusion.

Drily, I replied, “I’m pretty sure most U’Duashans would agree that keeping them inside their spires is better for the general health of the city.”

In fact, House Anserekh kept pointing out that the Ixis Spire was cracked and should really be fixed sooner rather than later and that, as engineering and construction experts, they’d be happy to repair it. So far we’d had staved off their clumsy attempts to turn the other Houses against us.

Craning my neck conspicuously, I peered at the papers Faith was holding. “So where are the battle plans? You mentioned hundreds of pages. Those do not look like hundreds of pages.”

Face full of reproach, she shoved them behind her back. “They’re my notes.” She batted her eyelashes like an airheaded socialite. “On the way home from Irimina’s estate, I accidentally tripped in the river, and the plans just sort of washed away, never to be seen again!”

“That’s the least believable thing you’ve said so far,” remarked Ash, in the tones of a Doskvolian observing that the sky was black at midday.

“So what’s in those notes?” I persisted.

“They have all the important parts. Like how Irimina is going to focus on supporting the demonic cults and feeding them weapons from across the border.”

Even though eye-rolling wasn’t exactly in Ash’s repertoire of facial expressions, for a moment I thought he might add it. “Irimina is going to – yes, of course she will.”

Sarcasm didn’t get us any further than seriousness. “Faith, where are the battle plans?”

“They were tragically misplaced.”

I looked at Ash for confirmation, but he’d apparently decided that disinterest might work. With a bored shrug, he picked up his pen again and spun it through his fingers. “I don’t care about the battle plans anymore. They’re not useful for what I thought they were, originally.”

“Selling them to the highest bidder?” I clarified.

“Sure.” Bending over his notebook, he scribbled out a mathematical expression, some sort of complex model for the evolution of commodities prices in the event of civil war.

Ignored, Faith rushed to reclaim the spotlight. “O!” she declaimed. “So tragically, tragically misplaced! Although, Isha – I did promise that you would tell whoever was looking for them that we have them. So please do so.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone anything until you tell me where they are,” I informed her.

“I told you already! Bottom of the river.”

“Then why would I tell anyone that we have them when we obviously don’t?”

“Please!” she cried, aghast. “Have you decided to start telling the truth?”

How could one supposedly-adult individual infuriate me more than the sum total of an entire orphanage of uneducated, uncultured, semi-feral street urchins? “You do realize that anyone like Ash can just listen to me and figure out that we don’t actually have them!”

“Except that at this point, I’m quite certain that you believe we have them. So you could in fact tell them so truthfully!”

Ash’s pen had stopped scratching while he parsed Faith’s words, and now he intervened. “Isha. What I think she’s trying to tell you is that she at least has them.”

“Okay,” I said more quietly, mollified.

Faith’s expression oscillated between delight that finally someone understood her – and annoyance that that someone had spelled it out and spoiled her fun. In a tone of imminent reason, she explained, “I need to study the plans in more detail to figure out what the effects are before I share them with anyone.” That sounded…almost responsible. Adopting her best schoolmistress attitude, she prompted, “So, Isha – what is the worst thing that could be found in the plans?”

“The worst thing that could be found in the plans?” I repeated, puzzled as to what point she was trying to make.

“Yes. The most horrific thing, the thing with the most horrible consequences for you and your goals.”

Ash’s contribution was: “To be honest, the mere use of these plans, no matter what they say, will be terrible for Iruvia.”

That was true, but after cycling through a litany of horrors, I settled on: “Destroying the U’Du?”

Without the well, we’d have to extend the lightning barrier all the way around the city, effectively conceding the Immortal Emperor’s point. In addition, our leviathan hunter fleet supplied just enough leviathan blood to satisfy Iruvia’s current energy needs – if we factored a new lightning barrier into the equation, we might actually need to start importing leviathan blood from Akoros.

“Oh, that’s a good one,” praised Faith. “What else?”

I tried to think like Ronia Helker. What might she do that would destroy all of my dreams? “Shelling the city into submission and murdering all the civilians, like she did in Lockport?”

Now Faith’s brows knit in deep confusion, and her eyes darted about, seeking enlightenment in the nooks and crannies of the common room. “That…that would be bad, you’re saying. Right?”

“Yeees. That would be bad, Faith.” I stretched out my words, enunciating each one with great precision.

“Okay, good to know.” She gestured for me to keep guessing.

She’d specified the very worst setback for my goals, hadn’t she? So I needed to think in more personal terms. “I suppose…they could try to break out the Demon Princes? Although…that seems like it would go equally poorly for them. So why would they do that?”

“It seems almost certain that the Iruvian Princes would find some way to take advantage of the situation and escape,” Ash noted.

“The Demon Princes, you mean?” I objected.

“Sorry, I forget that you have princes who aren’t demons too.”

We didn’t, actually, but I opted not to correct him.

Determined to implement the Socratic method all the way to the bitter end, Faith asked, “Why would they escape when they could just rule U’Duasha directly? With, like, swarms of demonkind?”

“I hate to say it,” I admitted, “but she makes a good point.”

Her answer was a smug smirk, before her face settled back into its stern schoolmistress expression.

“I will admit that I have never met these Demon Princes,” said Ash, “so I don’t know.”

I informed him, “They’re encased in black crystal.”

“And wouldn’t it be tragic if something happened to that black crystal?” Faith hinted with heavy patience, as if she wished she could just shove us into the correct conclusion.

Staring meaningfully at me, Ash responded, “If I were a Demon Prince and wanted to escape, my first action would be to start a war that leads to combat in my city, in the hopes that my spire gets cracked.”

At that, I had a horrible thought, so horrible that I automatically reached for Grandfather with my mind.

Before I could make contact though, Faith dropped her teacher act. “Oh wait! Wait! Sorry! I just remembered something else that you should know about! One of the other bits mentioned that Imperial spies in U’Duasha mentioned that the U’Du is a reversible system! There’s, like, a switch! And one side of the switch is like, ‘Suck souls into the well.’ And the other side is like, ‘Send all the souls back out of the well into the city’!”

That appalled me for about fifteen seconds as I fine-combed everything I knew about the U’Du. At the end of those fifteen seconds, I concluded that it was the most ridiculous suggestion I’d ever heard – and that Faith knew all the most effective ways of baiting me.

In confirmation, she raised both her arms (after shifting the papers into her hand) in a dramatic benediction: “An explosion of all-enveloping, all-encompassing electroplasm!”

While I was staring at the papers and calculating whether I could dart forward and snatch them, a tendril of smoky shadow brushed my mind. Yes, child?

Interrogating my House demon took precedence over scuffling with my crewmate for some papers I could steal from her later anyway. Grandfather? There are claims that the Demon Princes are attempting to provoke a war between Iruvia and Akoros so you can use the ensuing confusion to break out of your spires.

A sense of deep amusement and appreciation filled my head, Ixis’ approximation of chuckling. It is an interesting claim. Would you believe me if I said that is not true?

Would you be telling the truth, I countered, if you said it was not true?

For once, he gave me an almost-straight answer. None of us benefit from a war with Akoros at this time.

Would you care to elaborate?

A sense of what in a lesser being might have been frustration. In what way would we benefit from a war, Signy? Any of us?

As Ash suggested, freeing yourselves from the confines of your spires?

At that, the smoky tendrils danced, and, still laughing, Grandfather withdrew from my mind. He did leave a lingering impression that he’d told the truth, such as he knew it, and I tentatively chose to believe him.

If I ever get bound to him, came the stray, mad thought, I can simply manifest him and have Ash question him.

I quickly squashed that idea.

At the first available opportunity, I snuck into Faith’s compartment and located that sheaf of papers, most of which actually turned out to be her lecture notes. However, sandwiched in the middle was – a recursive stick figure cartoon of me, bending over a desk and looking at a sheet of paper that had a picture of me, bending over a desk and looking at a sheet of paper that had a picture of….

And yes, it unmistakably depicted me, because Faith had helpfully included the labels “Isha,” “Faith’s desk,” and “battle plans.”