By the time I caught sight of Faith leaving the railcar in a shockingly non-shocking outfit (most of which unshockingly looked like it came from my closet), I’d recovered from my arcane aversion – to the extent that I ever would, anyway. Defying Ash’s injunction against spying on friends, I tailed her to Charterhall, where she rendezvoused with the acolyte, Arilyn Strangford.

In a different tearoom from last time, and over marginally better scones but markedly inferior tea, Faith fixed the young woman with a serious stare. She whispered, “Did you find out what happened to that priest?”

Swallowing hard and leaning across the white tablecloth, Arilyn whispered back, “No one’s seen him. They say he’s on sabbatical, but I volunteered to help his substitute prepare for last sixth day’s reading groups and…the new priest kept complaining about how Father Kessarin hared off without leaving any kind of lesson plan, and how he even had to borrow a copy of the syllabus from one of the communicants. That sort of behavior doesn’t reflect well on the Church.” Arilyn shook her head in censure, then suddenly recalled just why she’d been helping the new priest in the first place. In an even softer voice, she added, “I asked a couple other priests and acolytes, and no one’s seen him since that evening.”

Faith made such a stern expression that I couldn’t fathom how she managed to keep a straight face afterwards. “Well,” she intoned, “that confirms some of my greatest fears.” She waited a beat, pretending to mull over matters of great import, before she said, “I think we’re both in sufficiently deep that continuing to lie to you will only endanger you. I’m going to tell you something of dire importance, but it requires the utmost discretion. Can you be discreet?”

The acolyte, who skipped Mass to skulk around the catacombs and private reading rooms, nodded vigorously. “Yes, of course.”

“In my official capacity as a Spirit Warden, I have been infiltrating the Church in order to investigate its involvement in demonic activity.”

(Faith – a Spirit Warden? Who would buy that?)

Arilyn’s eyes went wide, but she had the self-control to keep her voice down. “I thought you were an acolyte. So you’re – ” Breaking off, she stared around the tearoom conspicuously but failed to recognize the young noblewoman who’d asked her about joining the Church. Reassured that there were no eavesdroppers, she breathed, “So you’re a Spirit Warden too?”

(Oh. Apparently anyone not in our crew would buy that.)

I barely had time to wonder whether a real Spirit Warden would play acolyte before Faith replied, “Just a Spirit Warden. My investigations thus far have taught me enough to pose as an acolyte, but those same investigations have shown me that the Church’s intentions are other than holy.” Arilyn opened her mouth to object, but Faith kept talking. “I need a contact within the Church who is good at keeping secrets. Such as the secret of ourinvolvement in what happened to Djera Maha.”

Clever as she was, Arilyn caught the threat at once. “But – but – of course. I’m willing to assist – ” she cast another furtive glance around the tearoom and failed again at detecting eavesdroppers – “the Wardens with anything they need. And – I did do – I was looking around a little after our last tea and – you’re definitely right. There’s definitely something very wrong going on in the Church. I – I will – do what I can, but I’m just an acolyte.”

“Yes,” Faith agreed. I rather thought that if she hadn’t been playing Spirit Warden, she would have purred in satisfaction at an acolyte well corrupted. “And as an acolyte, you have access to so much. To higher members of the Church, you are beneath notice.” A hint of her usual self slipped out: “You can just scamper around, doing what you want: ‘Why, I was just cleaning this library of secret documents. Everything’s perfectly all right. This is my punishment, which is why I’m doing it with a toothbrush!’” Then she saw Arilyn’s stunned look and assured her, “Or something more like what you’d say.”

Arilyn absorbed this. After a moment, she asked, “Is there anything I should focus on?”

Faith smiled and, again, somehow refrained from purring. “It is important to ingratiate yourself with the up-and-coming members of the Church hierarchy. As it happens, I am very familiar with what that takes.” (Yes, I was sure that our crew’s own personal Ascendent did.) “Let me teach you how to answer questions the correct way, to show that you are not just a loyal disciple but that you will fight for the Church, and that your interests align exactly with theirs. I can tell you what you should be curious about, and what questions you should ask to appeal to Lauretta Mayvin….”

Since I didn’t need to appeal to Faith’s distant-whatever cousin so I could rise in the Church and metamorphose into one of her implements of revenge, I finished my last cup of tea, unhurriedly exited the tearoom – and dashed back to the railcar to search her compartment.

“You can’t imagine the mess her papers are in!” I fumed later to Sigmund. We were sequestered in his study, with me perched on the edge of his desk and kicking my legs angrily, and him seated in his favorite chair, carefully out of range. “They’re scattered everywhere – shoved behind her desk, balled up on her bed, wadded up to hold up her dresser because one of the legs is too short because it got cut off – ”

Faith’s furniture’s battle scars failed to interest my brother. “Yes, but did you find anything?” he asked intensely.

“Well, I found that the battle plans aren’t in the railcar,” I retorted. “I’ll search the orphanage next.”

In a remarkably mild tone, he commented, “Well, that’s progress.”

Speaking of progress, I did have something more productive – and presumably more enjoyable – to do than un-wadding and then re-wadding lecture notes in exactly the right way. From my pocket, I fished out a stack of calling cards and handed them to my brother. “Come on. You need to go play scholar for Ian Templeton.”

“Ah, yes.” Having done his own research, he didn’t bother to ask whether the playwright would receive us outside of proper calling hours.

With helpful input from me, Sigmund changed into a plain cotton kaftan and leggings that a scholar could afford, topped by a long woolen cloak that a cold-intolerant Iruvian might wear. Applying make-up to darken his skin and de-emphasize the blue of his eyes, he asked, “Would a turban be too much?”

I thought about what Iruvians wore to Silkshore when they weren’t headed for the exotic spas and brothels, and weighed it against what Ian Templeton might hope to see in a professor of Iruvian literature and history. “Probably,” I concluded.

Gratifyingly, my master spy didn’t question my judgment. “Okay.”

As before, Templeton opened his front door with some trepidation, which was entirely reasonable given that his next play promised to offend not only the Imperial bureaucracy and military but also the Church of Ecstasy, even if he didn’t know it himself yet.

“Ah, Miss Hakar!” he greeted me, relieved that it wasn’t the Bluecoats again. He looked briefly confused by my companion, then exclaimed, “Oh, you must be Miss Hakar’s friend, the scholar. Please, come in, come in. She’s said such good things about you.”

As the playwright ushered us into his parlor-study, Sigmund slanted a sidelong smirk at me. Really? he hand-signed behind Templeton’s back.

Unfortunately, yes.

Don’t get cocky, I signed back.

If the study had looked merely messy last time, this time it resembled Ash’s railcar compartment after Faith got through with it. Papers lay scattered everywhere. Scribbled partial drafts, more angry cross-outs and hatch marks than words, drifted up against the book stacks like sand dunes. At some point, Templeton must have lost his temper, because tightly crumpled balls spilled out of his overturned wastebasket.

With an apologetic air, the playwright started shoving pages off horizontal surfaces to clear some sitting space. “Sorry. I – I’ve been working. You understand.”

“Oh, yes,” I reassured him. “That’s fine.”

I hurried over, ostensibly to help, but really to scan his writing. As far as I could tell, he was mostly still in the outlining phase, although he’d set aside a few sheets on which he was drafting a poetic prelude. The language held all the lyricism of A Requiem for Aldric and promised to be achingly beautifulonce he finished polishing it. In the middle of his desk, under his fountain pen, was a notebook with character ideas.

Meanwhile, Templeton was explaining to Sigmund, “Miss Hakar convinced me to set my next play in Iruvia, but my understanding of your culture is just so shallow.”

Sigmund, meanwhile, was surveying his sitting options. To my amusement, he selected the exact same armchair I’d chosen last time, sank into it, crossed his legs, and switched into erudite-academician mode. “I have studied Iruvian literature a great deal,” he declared. “Which aspect of it would be most relevant to your work?”

You’re supposed to be charming, I hand-signed at him, not conceited.

Templeton never noticed the personality mismatch. He took an eager half-step forward, as if he itched to upend my brother and shake all the knowledge out of him. “I need folklore!” he exclaimed. “Anything you can give me! Any folklore would be great, because I feel like everything I’m coming up with is so inauthentic and it – aaargh – it’s driving me crazy! It just sounds like Doskvol with different paint!”

Sigmund flashed a winsome smile at him. “Let’s see what I can do for you,” he said, and started regaling us with the great folk tales of Iruvia, alternating between skillful storytelling and scholarly commentary on the stories. Recognizing many of Father’s favorite folk tales, blended with Mother’s penchant for using them as teaching exercises, I perched on his armrest, mostly smiled and listened, and occasionally intervened to keep the conversation on track. By the time the moon rose high in the sky and Templeton apologized for keeping us so late, I was sure that he had more than enough cultural trivia to finish his play.

Still reminiscing about the bedtime stories our parents and wet nurses used to tell us, and comparing our favorites, Sigmund and I took our leave.

A few blocks from his townhouse, childish voices, raised in bickering, interrupted our stroll.

Sigmund cocked his head, listening. “That sounds like…the Helker children?”

I frowned. “It does.”

Folk tales and classic novels completely forgotten, he asked briskly, “Should I go, or should you?”

Neither Irimina nor Faith nor even Ash would forgive me if some tragedy befell those two teenagers when I’d been in a position to stop it. With a sigh, I relinquished my fantasies of a cozy night in, chatting with my brother until we fell asleep. “I’ll go.”

His only reply was a business-like nod.

I waited until we moved out of a pool of lamplight, then detached from him and ran lightly towards the children’s voices. As I approached, Andrel was saying hotly, “The note said that if I wanted to learn more about Professor Boden, I should go there!” Peeking around a garden wall, I saw him stalking along with a copy of his textbook tucked firmly under one arm.

Polonia snapped back, “How do you know you can trust that note? How do you even know it came from Miss Karstas? Six Towers is dangerous!”

“Yes, that’s the whole point! The note says that I can’t learn just by reading books or talking to boring, stodgy old tutors.” (If Polonia thought that anyone other than Faith could have written that, then she wasn’t as good at reading people as her little brother.) “If I want to be a real Whisper, I have to practice on real ghosts!”

“Mmmm-hmmm,” said Polonia very pointedly.

“Anyway, Aunt Irimina said it was okay!”

“I’m pretty sure Aunt Irimina wouldn’t have said it was okay if you’d shown her that note!”

“But she’s in the Path of Echoes! She deals with the arcane all the time! She knows what it’s like.”

“First of all, she never specifically said that she’s in the Path of Echoes. Second of all, just because she’s in the Path of Echoes doesn’t mean you are. Third of all – ”

And so it went.

Brother and sister fought the entire way through Brightstone and Six Towers until they came to an intersection where a very familiar residential street crossed the main thoroughfare. In the shadows, a flurry of pink moved out quickly from behind the children and sped towards the abandoned mansion that our crew used as our personal theater. I cursed myself for abandoning my original plans: Of course Faith wouldn’t let the Helker kids get eaten by specters, not after she went to all the hassle of finding them a good home.

“Fine!” Polonia threw up her hands, echoing my mood perfectly. “Fine!”

Turning on her heel, she stormed off with no regard whatsoever for the ghosts that were drifting out of broken windows and eyeing her curiously. I wavered, unsure which teenager to follow, but the blue glow that streaked after her decided me. Cricket would protect Polonia, and I wanted to see what Faith had planned for Andrel.

Suddenly left alone on a dark street in a strange neighborhood full of hungry specters, the thirteen-year-old craned his head around, pulled out a slip of paper, and checked it. With renewed determination, he trotted down the potholed street and turned onto the overgrown path that led to our mansion’s front porch. There, he hesitated again before collecting his courage and knocking.

The door creaked open on its own. Not a single light illumined the foyer.

Wide-eyed, Andrel double-checked the address one more time, clutched his spiritbane charm, sucked in a deep breath, and marched through the front door.

I already knew where Faith would stage the next act.

Sneaking around the side of the mansion, I peered into the ballroom through one of its floor-to-ceiling windows. Since none of us had bothered to clean up after our performance for the Unbroken Sun cultists, the fake demonic altar and goat’s blood were all still there. In addition, clouds of ghosts hovered near the ceiling and bunched up in the corners. In the center of the ballroom, Faith stood poised right under the chandelier, with her arms upraised and her face lit by the eerie blue glow. When she heard footsteps, she rotated very slowly.

“Good, you have arrived,” she intoned. “Come here, Andrel.”

He hung back in the doorway. “Miss Karstas?”

In her guise of a wise but terrifying mentor, Faith pronounced, “So, Andrel, I assume you came here because you want to learn the ways of a Whisper.”

Goaded by both her note and all his fine words to his sister about learning from personal experience, he took a couple steps forward. His head bobbed nervously, up and down, up and down. “Y-yes, ma’am.”

A long, theatrical pause, after which Faith heaved an equally long, theatrical sigh. “Now, Andrel, I see that you brought your copy of Boden’s Primer on the Arcane. Hand that over. We won’t be needing it.”

He reluctantly took it out from under his arm and extended it. She seized it and tossed it carelessly into a corner, scattering a cluster of ghosts. Poor Andrel winced at the way the book thumped down crookedly, its pages crushed under the cover.

Faith, of course, pretended not to notice. Instead, she instructed, “You’re going to start by talking to various ghosts. I want you to get a sense of what they’re like and how they feel.”

By then, Cricket had returned from escorting Polonia back into Brightstone, so Faith had Andrel start with the little ghost. After he exchanged some stammering pleasantries with her, Faith summoned a second ghost down from the ceiling. To my untrained eye, this one acted just a bit more feral. From there, to Andrel’s increasing horror and awe, they proceeded through the rest of the swarm, finishing at last with the most savage and insane specters. While he was busy, Faith sauntered into the corner, picked up his book, and scribbled in the margins, presumably annotating the text with snarky comments about scholars who were mentioned, especially the ones she’d known.

I did, however, note that she kept her lightning hook close by, ready to save him if one of the ghosts tried to eat him.

By the time he reached the last specter, Andrel was sweaty and shaky, but Faith wasn’t done yet. “That was Lesson One in becoming a passable Whisper,” she informed him. “Now for Lesson Two. You will learn how to use one of these – ” she indicated her lightning hook – “so you can walk back and forth between here and Brightstone without difficulty.”

Despite his obvious exhaustion, the boy nodded eagerly.

As for me, I slipped away to Brightstone, hoping Sigmund was still awake and reflecting that Faith had gotten infected by Ash’s philosophy that it was cheaper to instill loyalty in followers when they were still young.

On the whole, my family, I thought, would approve.