After the front door shut behind (and practically on some of) Faith’s ruffles, I heaved a huge sigh of relief and tilted my head back to study Sigmund’s expression. “You didn’t believe Faith, did you?”

He motioned me back into the parlor and waited until we were seated on opposite ends of the loveseat before asking in his most inscrutable voice, “Which part?”

I was too eager to reassure him to challenge that annoying I’m-a-laconic-master-spy attitude. “The part about her being madly in love with me! Because I assure you that there is nothing there.”

To my consternation, my declaration was met with a long, assessing silence. At last, Sigmund broke it with a terse, “You’re certain.” Somehow, he managed to transform a categorical statement into a skeptical question.

“Between me and Faith? Yes!” I retorted before realizing that the specificity hinted strongly at what lay between me and Bazso.

But although I steeled myself for an interrogation, and I could practically see Sigmund debating with himself, he opted to focus on my crewmate for now. “What’s her deal?” he asked instead.

“Faith?”

“Yes.”

“I honestly have a hard time figuring her out,” I replied with complete honesty. “I know she’s quite a bit older than she looks.” (Four decades older, if she’d incited the Charhallow Conflagration.) “She used to be a member of the Church.”

“And you trust her?”

“She was once an acolyte, but she left for some reason,” I explained. (Said reason must have involved a messy falling-out with her mentor, Preceptor Dunvil, if a shadow still lay over the entire Mayvin line forty years later, forcing Lauretta to work so hard to prove herself.)

“But you trust her?” Sigmund persisted, his spymaster persona slipping for a moment to reveal the anxious brother.

I didn’t even need to think about my answer. “I trust her as a colleague, yes, and I trust how much she hates the Church.”

At that assessment, which must have dovetailed with his own observations, Sigmund relaxed. Lounging back and draping an arm over the seatback, he remarked ruefully, “She seems to enjoy poking people’s buttons.”

Did she ever! I rolled my eyes. “Oh, very much so.”

After a moment, Sigmund admitted, “No, I don’t actually think she’s in love with you.” Another long, expectant pause. When I showed no signs of comprehension, he sighed heavily and slid towards me. Wrapping his arm around my shoulders, he pulled me against his chest and mumbled into my hair, “But I think she might be exploitably fond of you, and I’m hoping you’ll use that to get the battle plans.”

That startled me into jerking back. “You think she’s fond of me?”

He met my gaze steadily, reminding me that an Anixis used all the weapons in his or her arsenal and that, no matter how he felt, he would have seduced Ronia Helker if he’d thought it would win him the battle plans. How lucky for both of us that I’d killed her before he had to try.

“Well, Faith sticks around, doesn’t she?” he pointed out, as if that were all the proof anyone needed.

Automatically, while re-analyzing my interactions with Faith, I objected, “She sticks around because we’re her best chance of getting revenge on the Church.”

“Mmmm.”

More confidently, I said, “I’m fairly certain that everything she does is to get revenge on the Church.”

Cast in that light, Faith transformed into a tragic figure, doomed to a demonic immortality she didn’t want – at least, not anymore – and fated to live on and on while the dwindling handful of people she cared about grew old and died.

Since he’d just met her, Sigmund wasn’t the slightest bit sentimental about her and her woes. Quite practically, he noted, “That’s also useful. And also, I suppose, lends a comforting predictability to someone who otherwise appears to be a force of chaos all the time.”

I had to laugh. That did, indeed, sum up Faith: a giant, frilly force of chaos that strewed pinkness everywhere she went.

While I thought, Sigmund was urging, “Do let me know what you need. And – ” his hesitation recaptured my attention – “if you think of anyone else – it doesn’t have to be Skovlan. I’d rather it weren’t,” he confessed. “But if I have to pick, I’m picking Iruvia.”

As was I, if I ever had to choose. “I know.” I laid a comforting hand over his. “I know. It’s just…. If we blame the Dagger Isles – Djera Maha was from there. Can’t we say that people there want revenge…or something…?”

Obviously, Sigmund didn’t think that was plausible (and, to be honest, neither did I), but he humored me nonetheless. “Maybe.”

Somewhat hopelessly, I pressed on. “We’ve already spread rumors that her second-in-command, Marne Booker, killed her for acting against the Church’s and the Emperor’s interests. Maybe…maybe that’s somehow connected to the Dagger Isles?”

Turning his hand over and lacing his fingers through mine, he squeezed my hand in warning. “You might be able to make that work for one of the Ascendent. I don’t know if it will work for all three,” he cautioned.

I sighed. He was probably right. “You think Skovlan could work for all three?”

His own sigh stirred my hair. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “You said Admiral Strangford, right? There are certainly plenty of people in Skovlan who would happily see him dead.”

While Strangford’s Unity War record hadn’t been quite as, shall we say, extreme as Ronia Helker’s, which was why he hadn’t been forced into retirement post-victory, he hadn’t exactly won himself an admiring public in Skovlan either.

“But what about Elder Rowan?” I couldn’t remember if the Commander of the Spirit Wardens had ever set foot in Skovlan, pre- or post-pacification. “And Preceptor Dunvil?” I didn’t recall Mother saying anything about the Church when she told us Lockport stories – which, now that I thought about it, was telling in itself.

“I suppose maybe that is more of a stretch,” Sigmund allowed. “We haven’t had a lot of time to think about this. I’ll see if I can come up with other options. Maybe the Patriarch will have some ideas.”

Oh, he most certainly would – and I most certainly wouldn’t like any of them. But my brother was trying his best, and I wanted to be supportive. “I’ll keep you updated if we come up with anything.”

“And I will try to keep you updated as well,” he said, in a less-than-resounding promise. “And…the resources that you need – I’ll make sure you get them.”

As he spoke, he hugged me hard, and I leaned against him, drawing comfort from his familiarity. How many times had we sat like this back home, dreaming of the day we reconciled all the branches of our family, and planning all the deeds that a unified House could achieve? Wistfully, I thought that our sitting room in U’Duasha, with a warm fire in the hearth and a soft carpet at our feet, and Starlight sprawled out nearby, snoring and letting out little dream barks from time to time, all seemed so far away now, more like the memory of a memory than the memory itself.

Unaware of my thoughts, my brother was musing, “On the one hand, this is all much huger than we thought it was.”

“Mmmm,” I agreed, still thinking about those two hopelessly naïve children who believed they could bend the world to their will simply because they were right.

Sigmund injected a note of hope into his voice. “On the other hand, now we know what they’re doing, which makes it easier to figure out how to counter it.”

Rousing myself, I encouraged both of us at the same time, “It’s always better to know what’s going on.”

“Agreed.”

We sat like that for a brief moment of peace, until whatever pressing duty I’d interrupted could no longer be denied.

With a sigh, Sigmund withdrew his arm and sat back. “Thanks for telling me.”

I nodded, shaking off my melancholy mood. “I’ll try to get the battle plans out of Faith.”

“You should just give her a more fun toy to play with,” he advised, showing a very good grasp of how Faith operated.

If only I knew what could possibly entertain her more than tormenting me. “Do you have any ideas?”

“Something involving the Church, I imagine.” Somewhat at random, he tossed out a couple suggestions: “Someone to kill. An acolyte to corrupt.”

The Reconciled had already supplied us with the former, and as for the latter – “I’ll think about it.”

“Good luck with that one. Obviously I just met her, but she seems like a handful.”

Yes.

Yes she was, indeed.

The conversation I returned to didn’t do anything to counter that impression either.

Through the railcar window, I could hear Ash asking, “Why don’t the Iruvians – or we – bind their Demon Princes the way the Church does, so they can control them and wield their power better? It seems like a mistake.”

That idea had literally never occurred to me or any other Iruvian, ever.

Faith’s serene voice replied, “There is a fundamental flaw there, which is that there are four Demon Princes – and only three of us.”

“Yes, we could start with just one,” he agreed. “Like the one we have on hand?”

The surge of revulsion that I felt shocked me – all the more so because it was entirely my own. Hovering at the fringes of my mind, Grandfather seemed merely amused.

Faith’s voice pouted, “Oh, but it’s only a baby Demon Prince. Like, a Demon Prince shard? It’s probably not even a tasty one.” A bit of gravel crunched under my shoe, and her tone lifted in sudden excitement: “Although, now that you mention it, that’s an excellent idea! Let’s ask Isha when she gets back. I’ll distract her while you steal the sword!”

Ash evidently hadn’t realized yet that I was back, because he reminded her with all seriousness, “Remember what I said earlier about crewmates, and working together? It’s worth studying, but…. I’m just curious why the Iruvians don’t do it already. If the Church can do it, surely they’re capable of developing their own version of such a ritual.”

Since I hadn’t exploded into the railcar, brandishing Grandfather and threatening to slay anyone who tried to enslave Ixis, Faith’s boredom returned full force. “Well, I imagine it’s not very efficient. For some reason, humans just aren’t as good at wielding demonic powers as demons are.”

“Oh.” Ash sounded as if that consideration had never occurred to him. “That’s too bad.”

“Also,” she observed, “you lose all the accumulated wisdom, and knowledge, and grace, and charity, and wonder of the demon soul that you destroy in the process. And we all know what a great influence Ixis has been on the world.”

She actually surprised a chortle out of Ash. “Yes. Yes.”

That seemed like as good a time as any to tromp up the steps and enter the common room. Pretending I hadn’t heard a word, I stamped the mud off my shoes, shook the rain off my cloak, and turned around conspicuously to hang it up.

To my back, Ash called, “Isn’t this exciting, Isha? We’re getting paid ungodly sums of money to decimate the upper echelons of the Church! What could be better?” Without waiting for my answer, he veered back onto his current obsession: “One potential ally that Nyryx and Salia didn’t mention is the demons. I guess demons don’t really get along – ” that was sort of true, although the four Demon Princes had achieved some sort of tolerant coexistence over the centuries – “or work together, but presumably they’re not very happy about being bound by the Church.”

That, according to Grandfather, was definitely true.

“Are you proposing to loose a horde of demons on the Sanctorium?” Faith demanded, staring at Ash with wide, starry eyes. “That’s a plan after my own heart!” To demonstrate, she clasped her hands in front of her heart.

Her theatrics provoked a chuckle from Ash. “The more important question is whether we could accomplish that. I don’t know much about finding a horde of demons.”

Nor did I, unless four counted as a “horde.”

Faith, of course, had a terrible idea at the ready. “We could take down the lightning barrier. That would help.”

“Is that doable?” Ash asked, frowning in concentration and sounding as if he were actually considering dismantling the only protection that lay between us and the horrors in the deathlands.

Since the answer to that question was almost certainly “No,” Faith threw out a second option: “We could hire a smugglers crew.”

Ash hadn’t caught up yet, though. “If the lightning barrier comes down, I suppose a lot of people would die,” he mused. “So, it would be exciting – and dangerous.”

Since I was puttering around behind the bar, ostensibly making myself a hot drink while listening in on their conversation, Faith caught my eyes and patted the chair next to her. “Well,” she announced, “Isha and I were planning to take the kids on a field trip outside the lightning barrier. We can bring back some souvenirs for you.”

I nearly tripped over one of the clumps of loose carpeting that I’d strewn around the common room. “Wait – we were planning to do what?” I yelped.

In a tone of utmost reason, she repeated, “Take the kids outside the lightning barrier as a field trip. You don’t remember this, Isha?”

I cocked my head at Ash, waiting for him and his overprotective instincts to veto it.

He, however, hadn’t forgiven me yet for embarrassing him in front of his idol, so he needled me instead. “It should be noted that Strangford does have an unhealthy obsession with demons. Acquiring them is fine, but let’s wait until we need them.”

Taking her cue from my strangled grunt, Faith beamed at him approvingly.

“In any case,” Ash said, “one Ascendent down, three more to go. It seems like a good thing to start counting.”

With a bit of dark humor, I joked, “Maybe one-and-a-half down, since we got rid of Karth Orris.”

“Ooooh, maybe we can round up to two?” Faith jumped in with a fine display of the mathematical skills she was transmitting to the orphans.

Unimpressed by the quality of her account-keeping, Ash declared, “Well, it’s getting late and I’m very tired, given everything we did today. We should rest.” Before Faith could object that she was waaaaay past the age for strict bedtime enforcement, he amended himself, “Well, okay, I’m resting. You all can do what you like.”

And he disappeared into his compartment.

Obscenely early the next morning, the whole crew was woken by a frantic banging on his and my compartment doors. When we groggily stuck our heads into the corridor, Moth shrieked, “Come quick! They took him!”

She waved a crumpled note from Mrs. Lomond (which must have been written by Spider or another of the older orphans, because the Strathmill House matron was illiterate. As a result, the handwriting was a little shaky and the spelling was distinctly dubious).

“What? Who took whom?” demanded Ash, snatching the note and skimming it.

She hopped from one foot to the other and wailed, “The Bluecoats! The Bluecoats came and took Azael this morning!”

Ash was out the door, with Moth on his heels, before Faith could even finish clucking over the penmanship.