After seeing Dwayne off and listening to everyone else’s facile concerns about Mei’s well-being, Dana needed a distraction, and assaulting the last pockets of filth and neglect was just the thing.

  “I will be busy, ma’am,” Dana made Rodion say to the last person left in the house. “I presume you do not require my services?”

  Former ship’s inspector Odette Montes, her attention fully on a report that Lady Pol’s butler had sent from Pol, merely nodded.

  “Excellent.”

  Arming luzself with broom, rag, and lime, Dana went to lay siege to the mold in the third bathroom, hoping that that would be enough to take luz mind off how Mei could be lying bleeding in an alley or tortured by cenobites. As the mold fell back from luz furious scrubbing, Dana told luzself that lu wasn’t actually concerned about Mei: lu was only concerned that Dwayne’s correspondence had fallen into enemy hands. This was about the mission, not the girl.

  Once the third bathroom was conquered, Dana’s campaign took lu to the back pantries, where food had been left to fester for seasons. As lu threw out the dried husks of tubers and roots, Dana tried to convince luzself that Mei’s failure wouldn’t be the end of the world. After all, Sol-Lab would just order a Circle Agent to come collect Dwayne then assign Dana another mission, most likely to monitor merchant activity in Adhua, which was the kind of simple, low-stakes work that was impossible to get attached to. Lu had to remember that all the the effort lu had put into Dwayne and Mei got was all for the mission. Lu would be fine somewhere else, doing something else.

  Lu would be fine.

  With the pantries subdued, Dana’s rampage took lu downstairs to the cellar, where the door to the outside had been fixed, but the room remained a mess. Rolling up luz sleeves, Dana marched in, ready to pile up the broken crates then-

  Cellar air slid across Dana’s skin as if lu was rubbing up against an oiled canvas. Lu flinched but the air continued to feel slick so lu froze, recognizing what was happening.

  A convocado? Now?

  Dana had to hurry. While the Fo Vu calling lu could sense the room, ki couldn’t sense people, so lu had to rush to the cellar doors to bar and lock them before surrendering to the summons.

  First came the reason Dana hated convocado, that moment when sight, sound, smell, even sensation disappeared, leaving behind only those inner senses of thought and proprioception. In that dark senseless nothing, time slowed to the speed of tripping over one’s laces or a boulder right at one. Second came the landing as another room slammed into luz dulled senses: the parlor furnished with bar and stools, the distant murmur of crowds on the street, the smell of polish and hard spirits, the weight of luz body on a hardwood floor. Despite all that disorientation, Dana landed on luz feet, composure unbroken.

  As luz senses returned, more details became apparent: the sky light through which cold, clear sunlight streamed in, the fresh chalk circle under luz feet, the one person to luz right and left on the circle, the two beyond it. On the floor inside the circle sat a golden-skinned woman with dark curly hair, the neck of tser sky blue robe radiating golden sun beams. At the bar outside the circle, Ramos perched on a stool, vir hands full with some amber-colored liquor while a work of art in dusk-blue robes, which barely hid pleasing curves, tended to Ramo’s hair with fingers as light as flower petals, the masterpiece of a Fo-Xa who had to command the richest tithes back in Vanuria. They were all mages of course: the Fo Vu sitting on the floor who’d called Dana here, the Fo-Xa working on Ramos’s scalp, and Ramos virself.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “hFo-Xa.” Ramos raised vir glass. “Wait a moment.”

  Dana nodded and settled into to watch the Fo-Xa finish artfully placing each hair on Ramos’s head. When ki was done, ki walked away from Ramos without a word and stopped inside one of the unoccupied circles.

  “I’m ready,” ki announced.

  “With Phons’s blessing,” said the Fo Vu. A quick muttered spell, a gesture and the Fo-Xa was gone.

  “hFo-Xa.” Ramos put viz drink down on the bar and got to viz feet. “I’ve had you brought here because I have just received an alarming report about last night.” Viz medisus engaged. “Explain.”

  Keeping luz heart from rising in luz throat, Dana searched Ramos’ face, but found no hint of Mei’s fate in viz expression. “I was attending to a secondary objective: keep HIDDEN CINDER’s attention on his enemy.”

  Ramos crossed viz arms. “What was the desired result?”

  “To have HIDDEN CINDER draw the following conclusion: Granite and Dean Bruce are the same person.”

  Ramos eyed Dana. “And that was worth risking Asset HC-HUNTER?”

  That word choice… Dana would not let hope raise luz heart rate. “Yes.”

  “How was the connection to be made?”

  “HC-WAYWARD’s Correspondence. I infiltrated the location beforehand and planted it.”

  Ramos’s eyebrows raised. “Wasn’t it your recommendation to maintain HIDDEN CINDER in his present circumstances? Wouldn’t giving him said correspondence be counter-productive to that goal?”

  “No, it wouldn’t.”

  “I assume you’ve read it.”

  “I have, which is why my assessment is that HIDDEN CINDER will choose the life he’s built here in Bradford over chasing HC-WAYWARD. HIDDEN CINDER now has friends, an attentive teacher,” a love interest, “and a personal mission to complete. He’s even resumed his Ri studies.”

  That surprised Ramos. “Without Na’cch?”

  “He’s been finding ways.” No reason to tell Ramos that Dwayne had learned to cast magic silently. No need to pique Sol-Lab’s interest. “I will state on the record that the lack of communication from HC-WAYWARD was getting in the way of HIDDEN CINDER’s thaumaturgical development, which is counter to Sol-Lab preference to have HIDDEN CINDER to fully realize his potential before receiving him. Has that been reprioritized?”

  “No, it hasn’t.” Ramos watched Dana for a long uncomfortable moment. “Have you been compromised by foreign agents or personal feelings?”

  “No,” lied Dana.

  Ramos searched luz face then said, “Your assessment is reasonable. As HC-HUNTER has not been captured,” Dana fought to keep luz expression placid, “it has been deemed that the risk was worth the reward. That said, your current orders are as such: observe, report, and do not involve yourself any further. Understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Ramos turned away. “Our business here is finished.”

  The Fo Vu didn’t look at Dana or even raise tser head before tsi muttered under tser breath, and once again, Dana was slicked back to that nothing place then dumped, after far too long, back into Sanford’s cellar. When the summon finished sliding off Dana’s skin, Dana finally let luzself celebrate. Mei had made it, Dwayne would have his letters, the two of them would draw the right conclusions, which meant that all of Dana’s work had not been for naught. The new orders were a bother, but so long as Dana got results then strict adherence wasn’t necessary. Cleaning could wait. Lu had to prepare a large lunch before a starved, sleep-deprived Mei descended on the kitchen.

  There was a knock on the cellar door. “What are you doing in there?”

  Montes. After double-checking that Rodion hadn’t slipped off, sometimes convocado did that, Dana unbarred, unlocked, and opened the door. “Yes, ma’am?”

  Montes peered in. “Did you hear anything?”

  “I was just cleaning.”

  “Were you?” Montes’s eyes met Dana’s. “This whole time?”

  She’d heard the pause. “I took a short rest.” Dana pretended a stifled yawn. “I may have taken on more than I bargained for.”

  “I see.” Montes’s mouth smiled. Her eyes did not. “Well, I do believe I’m obligated to inform you about a windsong I just received from Luisa. She’s found Mei at the Duelists’ College.”

  “She must be hungry then.” Dana stepped past the former ship’s inspector. “I’ll prepare her an early lunch.”

  “And maybe,” Odette said in Vanurian, “you could tell her that you’re a spy while you’re at it.”

  Nice try. Dana let confusion seep into Rodion’s expression. “Excuse me, I’m not familiar with that language.”

  “Oh, I apologize.” Odette patted Dana on the arm. “Sometimes I forget which language I’m speaking. I was asking if you were planning to make a second lunch.”

  “Knowing Mei, she’ll need a third.”

  They both laughed. Neither meant it.