Once we’d given ourselves a few days to recover from fighting Elder Rowan’s hulls, Ash brought up something that I was already planning to investigate: “We need to find out what happened to that Spirit Warden,” he announced. Although I assumed that he just wanted to preserve a useful asset, he surprised me by adding, “He did help us a lot. If he got killed…. Well, let’s prevent him from getting murdered or whatever the Church is going to do to him.”

Hollowed, most likely, but from my perspective, the two were the same. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to look into that too,” I confessed.

Dressed like beggars, the two of us headed to Crow’s Foot around when Grine usually left work and hunkered down in the alley across from his townhouse. However, evening came and went, and he didn’t return. Had he been put on administrative leave? We could have knocked on his door, but Ash and I opted not to approach him until we knew more, so we surveyed his door all night. But morning came and went too, and there was still no sign of him. At this point, I decided it was time to interrogate his neighbors, who only shrugged at the mention of “that nice gentleman who lives in that townhouse over there.”

“He keeps to himself, miss,” one replied. “Don’t know much about him.”

“He don’t talk to anyone,” another said.

“Haven’t seen him for the past few days. Stay away from him. He’s a shady one,” warned a third, more observant than the rest.

Feeling increasingly anxious, Ash and I staked out the Crow’s Foot Spirit Warden precinct and delicately questioned the peddlers who frequented the area. “Nope, haven’t seen him,” they all answered in what had become a standard refrain.

In desperation, we followed up on the last lead we had and tailed Grine’s partner and his family around the city. Although the Spirit Warden himself did nothing out of the ordinary, a number of “coincidental” meetings in various guises with his wife proved much more fruitful. From her, we learned enough to infer that Grine had never left the Crematorium that night. Given the blatancy with which he directed his colleagues away from Rowan’s lab while she was being murdered, his involvement had been all too obvious. However, when arrested, he’d claimed so loudly and repeatedly that the murdered “woman” was actually a demon that had replaced their real Commander, that his colleagues had performed an arcane autopsy. Whatever effects Ascendancy had on a corpse, they must have been very subtle, because some of the Spirit Wardens believed him while others insisted that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the body. As the target of an ongoing investigation, Grine was being detained at the Crematorium but wasn’t in any (current) mortal danger.

“Is there any way we can get him out?” I asked Ash, frowning as I considered how we could manipulate the chaos among the Spirit Wardens.

“Probably not,” he replied at once. “Although we can help him by causing another distraction by murdering Dunvil.”

“Oh!” At that, I had a stroke of genius. “If we murder Dunvil in a way that reveals his demonic nature, then Grine’s claims will seem more plausible!”

Ash, however, was less convinced that simply being right was enough to exonerate people in Doskvol. “Maybe.”

That was where we left it for now, although Ash soon called a crew meeting in the railcar to discuss our long-term plans, i.e. what we would do after assassinating Dunvil. (I briefly wondered if Sigmund had put him up to it, then decided that it was just Ash being Ash.) He began with the announcement, “There is very little we can do to prevent people from learning that it was we who did it. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” he hastened to reassure us. “But what happens next? There’s certainly the coward’s path of dismantling the crew and running away or going into deep cover – but that doesn’t work very well with the orphans.”

“Why do you think our identities will come out?” I challenged. After all, we’d managed to stay hidden thus far, and I saw no particular reason that we’d fail this time.

“Why do I think they will come out?” From his tone, I couldn’t tell whether Ash meant it as a rhetorical question or not – and I guessed that he hadn’t decided himself either. “Because…I don’t think that the trick we pulled with the Inspectors is going to last. By the time we kill Dunvil, the Immortal Emperor himself will have heard what’s happening in Doskvol.” The image made him chuckle without any real mirth. “I don’t know precisely how the Immortal Emperor operates, but there’s a significant chance that he will appoint someone very high ranking and very powerful and order, ‘You will get to the bottom of this and kill them all’ – and I can’t imagine that they will fail.”

Ash made a good point – but not one over which we needed to disband the crew. “Can’t we make Dunvil’s demonic nature known, so public opinion views him as a monster that needed to be killed?” I argued. “The Akorosi don’t generally like demons, do they?”

I turned to the one Akorosi in the room for confirmation, but she had leaned her forehead against one of the windows and was staring out across the Old Rail Yard. One slender fingertip traced spirals and whorls in the dust on the sill.

After glancing at her too, Ash said dubiously, “I don’t know. It would help, but the Emperor can’t afford to look weak.”

“We could reach out to someone who’s higher up in the Imperial bureaucracy,” I suggested, thinking that Sigmund could give us names. “We could cooperate with them to make it appear that the Immortal Emperor wanted to purify the Church of demonic influence but couldn’t be seen moving against it.”

“Oooh!” Just the thought of intrigue got Ash excited. “We could fake a whole conspiracy! We could talk to an Imperial bureaucrat, but we could also frame it as such a covert operation that practically no one was told about it beforehand. And then everyone will assume that someone else knew what was going to happen! What do you think, Faith?”

Tearing her gaze away from the fog that shrouded the old railcars at last, Faith yawned loudly. “Mmmmm, this seems largely irrelevant. I don’t know why you guys think I’d want to stay around after this.” The pang that I felt at those matter-of-fact words shocked me – and then Faith drove it home with, “You’re starting to get boring!”

As stunned as I, Ash protested, “But what about the kids?”

It was a valid point: Faith had invested so much time and effort into educating the orphans that she wouldn’t just abandon them, would she? Wouldn’t she want to watch them grow up? See what they accomplished thanks to her teaching?

But Faith only shrugged, genuinely uninterested. “They’ll grow up and learn some things. They’d probably be safer if we divested ourselves of them.”

At that, Ash’s eyes widened. Apparently he’d never even considered that the children might be better off without us (and our enemies) around. “That is a compelling point.”

Of course, as soon as he agreed with her, Faith changed her mind. “Although – it would be much less fuuuuuun,” she pouted.

“Don’t you have a couple special pets?” I reminded her, not quite believing that I was trying to convince her to stay.

She immediately made me regret it. With a gasp, she clapped both hands over her mouth. “Are you referring to children as pets, Isha?” she cried, the very picture of a scandalized social reformer. “Is this how you treat children in U’Duasha? We don’t do such things here in Doskvol!”

“That’s the way you look at them!” I snapped back. “I’m trying to speak a language that you understand!”

“These are hard, harsh, hostile, inhospitable accusations!”

“Are you planning to stay, then?” I retorted.

Her glittering green eyes scrutinized my expression for a long moment, and then she gave me an almost-direct answer for the first time. I found that I didn’t like it nearly as much as I thought I would. “I may stay around as a teacher. After all, there are still students who need learning, and look at how direly uneducated they were! Direly…undirected,” she added, testing the words.

Playing his usual role for what might be one of the last times ever, Ash hauled us back on track. “All right. So are we planning to implement this elaborate ruse to make the world believe that the Emperor ordered us to assassinate Dunvil – or are we planning to disband?”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “Wait, Faith, are you really leaving us after this?”

“I’m leaving you guys,” she replied bluntly. “I’m still employed as a teacher at Strathmill House. It is a legitimate business interest.”

“Wait, so are you moving out of the railcar?” Given what she’d just said, the answer was obvious, but I couldn’t imagine our common room without her pink rug and her pink bows and her pink teacups – and just her pink, snarky presence in general.

Still in that unnervingly straightforward manner, she told me, “This chapter of my life will soon be over. As fun as you are, Isha, not even a demon-tainted Iruvian aristocratic assassin is enough to compel my heart.” In demonstration, she pressed a hand to her chest and heaved a dramatic sigh.

I was still struggling to wrap my mind around the idea of life without her. “Are you going to marry Irimina then?” I probed.

Her eyes flew wide. “Are you jealous?” she cried. At my recoil, she shrieked, “You’re jealous! Maybe what I told, ah, what’s-his-name – the cute guy – was right after all! I didn’t know you had it in you!”

Watching our antics from the side, Ash burst out laughing.

With an audience to egg her on, Faith feigned a severe expression. “Or you’re just trying to seduce me in order to make me stay. I will not fall for your wiles, Isha! I will resist! To my last breath!”

I glared at her. “I was just trying to figure out when we could get rid of all of this pink.”

At the blatant lie, Ash smirked.

“Of course,” Faith soothed, not believing me for an instant either.

I turned to my other crewmate and appealed, “What are you planning to do after this, Ash?”

To my dismay, he shook his head. “I don’t know yet. That’s why I needed to figure out what’s happening to us afterwards. I certainly considered fleeing to Tycheros.” I felt another pang at the thought of Ash leaving Doskvol entirely. Since I had no intention of ever visiting an isle populated entirely by part-demons, we’d never see each other again. “Although,” he continued, “if there is rebellion to be fomented, Skovlan seems as good as place as any other.” (Better, in fact. And not just because it didn’t have demons.) “But still, I could stay here. There’s still a lot to be done. What about you?”

My answer was automatic: “I’m certainly staying in Doskvol for the time being.” Then I realized that given how vocal I’d been for so long about how much I hated this city, I needed to justify it. “Um. I mean, I do teach at the Sword Academy.”

Although both of my crewmates knew that no teaching contract could hold me here, neither of them pressed me. Instead, Ash returned to work matters. “Well, if this isgoing to be our last score as a crew, then I would like to do it right. And part of doing it right is concocting and planting evidence for this grand Imperial conspiracy. But it has to be airtight and we don’t have much time.”

Arching her eyebrows, Faith purred, “You wouldn’t prefer for us to go down in legend as the heroes who took down the Church and then vanished into the void, never to be heard from again?”

“Legends tend to have many perspectives and conclusions, all of them sort of true,” he replied. “An unambiguously happy ending is always unsatisfying.”

I disagreed, even though I no longer knew what an unambiguously happy ending for me would look like.

Faith, too, objected. “It fits our mystique. We come out of the shadows; we slay people in the most poetic way possible based on their vices; and then we disappear again.” Growing more and more animated, she waved her arms around to punctuate each clause. “And we’ve slowly risen through the ranks, assassinating more and more targets! Once we’ve reached Dunvil, what’s left for us? Merely the Immortal Emperor himself!” Before I could ask whether she were suggesting that we infiltrate Imperial City, penetrate all the layers of security surrounding the head of state, and murder an undying sorcerer, she answered the question herself. “If we vanish after we kill Dunvil, our legend will live on forever! Some will say that we’re simply preparing to strike at the heart of the Imperium itself. Others will say that we disappeared into thin air. Only time will tell! It is an appropriate end for a band of misfits such as ourselves.”

“That’s fair, I suppose,” agreed Ash, sounding a little weary. “Well. We won’t have much time after we assassinate Dunvil, so I, at least, will be making preparations – ”

“For what? We haven’t actually decided what we’re doing, have we?” I pointed out.

“No, but we won’t have long to act afterwards either way. What are you thinking, Isha?”

“Well, I mean, I’m staying in Doskvol.”

“Right.” There was a long pause, during which Ash looked at me as if he expected more of a long-term plan than just which city I’d be in. Receiving none, he said, “I’m staying too, for a time at least.”

The disapproval in his tone echoed Sigmund’s, so I scrambled for a better answer. “Well, Bazso suggested that I become a journalist or something. Join the Inkrakes, I suppose? I can’t really see that, though.”

“You, a journalist?”

“Yeah, that was my reaction too.”

Oddly enough, it was Ash and not Faith who exclaimed, “I thought you’d be a rebellious princess!”

I was shocked into laughter. “What, do you think I should go onstage?”

He laughed too. “Noooo.”

And now that the railcar was no longer home, I alone had nowhere else to go.

My forlorn mood was only underscored by Faith’s flippant suggestion of, “We still have some pyrotechnics left over from the fake demonic ritual! That would prevent anything from leading back to us via the railcar!”

“It might be safest,” agreed Ash, who by that point had already taken everything he cared about and didn’t mind exploding the place behind him.

I, on the other hand, looked around the common room sadly, memorizing the layout and mentally filling in Ash’s clutter on the battered dining table.

Seeing my expression, he tried to console me, “I’ve gotten attached to this place too. But, you know, there will be other homes.”

When I didn’t respond, he considered his counseling duty done and wandered off to indulge his vice.

Which was a good idea and an even better distraction. Changing into my fencing-instructor outfit, I headed to the Red Sash Sword Academy to launch Sigmund’s and my grand plan.

It took a little planning and advice from Mylera (translation: more effort than I’d ever put into any class), but I organized a demonstration of the Iruvian sword arts for my beginners. I gave a brief overview of the two styles, Falling Star (which used the weighted sashes that adorned the academy) and Rising Moon (which used curved daggers and swords), and explained the history and philosophy behind each. After that, Ardashir and the other sword masters fought a series of bouts while my students clapped and cheered wildly. Here, the Elstera Avrathi’s niece poked Phin Strathmill to point out a move I’d mentioned earlier. There, the daughters of an Iruvian diplomat and a Doskvolian merchant clutched each other’s arms in excitement. And, off to the side, a little aloof from his classmates but watching just as intently, stood Wester Haig: Faith’s protégé who, if all went well, would one day wield supreme power over the Church of Ecstasy. It would take years – decades even – but one day, these children’s friendship and understanding of each other’s cultures would help us heal relations between Akoros and Iruvia.

Throughout the class, I could see Mylera watching from the top of the staircase, leaning against the balustrade and smiling. Since she seemed pleased with my new attitude towards teaching, I offered her a bag of Sigmund’s coffee beans and broached the topic of taking on more classes.

“I’d be happy to have you – if you can fit it into your busy schedule,” she replied, a little drily.

“It seems like the crew is going to disband after one last score,” I explained.

The formation and dissolution of crews came as no surprise to an experienced gang leader. “Like I said,” she repeated, “you have a place in the academy. And the Sashes, if you want. Though I can’t imagine Bazso being too happy about that.”

No, no, he really wouldn’t be, but I still appreciated the thought. “It might be a little too awkward, but thank you for the offer,” I replied with heartfelt gratitude.

Mylera smiled and sipped her new coffee.