The Spirit War

CHAPTER 15

It was full dark when Gin pushed through the last crowd of soldiers and under the gate that separated the Spirit Court’s district from the rest of Zarin. Miranda clung to his back, staring bleakly at the wide, suddenly empty streets. The colored lamps were lit and swinging gently in the night air, but no one was around to enjoy the light. From the moment they entered the Spirit Court’s district until Miranda slid off Gin at the foot of the Tower, they didn’t see a single soul.

Stomach sinking, Miranda started up the stairs. She’d always known that the Rector Spiritualis controlled the Tower, but it was an academic, abstract sort of knowledge. She’d seen it in action only once, at her trial. Even so, she never would have imagined something like this.

The Tower was completely sealed. Its enormous red doors lay abandoned on the ground, shed like outgrown scales. In their place, a wall of white stone rose smooth as river rock from the ground. It was as though the entire Tower had become a solid stone pillar, and though she walked all the way around the base, Miranda could find no way in.

“Try knocking?” Gin suggested.

Feeling more than a little foolish, Miranda reached out and rapped her knuckles on the stone. Nothing happened. She pulled her hand back, frowning, and then she reached out again, with her left hand this time, knocking with the heavy gold band on her ring finger, the one set with the Spirit Court’s perfect circle. The gold made a lovely ringing sound when it touched the Tower, and the stone began to twist. The Tower wall rumbled softly, opening like a flower to reveal a tunnel just large enough for Gin to squeeze through.

With one final glance at the empty street, Miranda stepped inside. Gin followed on her heels. The moment his tail was clear, the Tower closed behind them.

They came out in the Spirit Court’s grand entry hall, which looked exactly as it always had except that the grand doors were now grown over with stone and the center of the room was full of huddled people. Spiritualists sat in circles on furniture pilfered from other parts of the Tower. Several had their fire spirits out, and the warm, flickering light filled the void left by the missing windows, giving the room a primal, cave-like feel.

She was scarcely inside when someone shouted, “Miranda!”

She looked up to see a young man break away from the main group and run toward her, waving.

“Jason!” she cried, recognizing him at once.

He stopped in front of her, grinning wide in the light of the will-o’-the-wisp that floated in his wake. Miranda smiled back. She and Jason had been in the academy together and taken their oaths on the same day. He’d gone on to apprentice for some distant Tower Keeper after that, and they saw each other only rarely. Still, they’d always been friends.

“I’m happy to see you,” she said.

“Not as happy as we are to see you,” he said. “Hello, Gin.”

Gin blinked slowly, which was as nice a greeting as one could expect from a ghosthound.

“The Rector said you’d entered the city this morning,” Jason said. “I have to admit, when you didn’t show up at once, some people worried you’d gone over to the Council. I knew better, though. That bunch of traitors are as bad as Hern.”

“No one’s as bad as Hern,” Miranda said. “Where’s Master Banage?”

“Upstairs,” Jason said, nodding toward the grand staircase. “Powers, I’m glad you’re here. The Rector has been looking grimmer than usual.” Jason lowered his voice. “I don’t think he expected quite so many of the old guard to turn on him.”

Miranda frowned. “How many are here?”

“A little over a hundred,” Jason said. “We’re mostly Journeymen Spiritualists down here. The Tower Keepers are upstairs in the private rooms for the most part, or the library.” His hands moved as he talked, and the will-o’-the-wisp followed his fingers like an eerie, blue-green firefly. “We’ve got close to eight hundred Spiritualists still unaccounted for, though I don’t know what’s taking so long. It’s been three days since the Rector called us in. That’s enough time for a determined Spiritualist to get to Zarin from anywhere on the continent.” Jason bit his lip. “You don’t think they’ve all gone over to the Council?”

“No,” Miranda said, shaking her head. “I just came from there. Blint’s in charge, and he had only three hundred a few hours ago. Hern’s old cronies, mostly, but that’s no surprise. They always did prefer politics to spirits.”

“Three hundred,” Jason said with a dismayed sigh. “Still, where’s everyone else?”

Miranda shrugged. “Probably waiting to see how things play out before they cast their lot.”

“Cowards,” Jason said, sneering.

“Maybe,” Miranda said. “But they’re still Spiritualists.” She turned and started toward the stairs. “Speaking of which, I’m going to see Master Banage.”

“Of course,” Jason said. “Good to have you back!”

She waved as he jogged back to the main group to share the good news. Miranda started up the shadowy staircase, Gin slinking behind her.

The climb to Banage’s office was surprisingly short. It was the Tower’s doing, Miranda was sure. Things had always been a little strange inside the stone pillar the Spiritualists called home, but what else could one expect from a tower raised in a day by Shapers? After her unwilling stint in the Shaper Mountain, Miranda was surprised the Tower didn’t move more. Even so, despite the shorter-than-expected climb, she was still out of breath when she reached the landing outside of Banage’s office where Spiritualist Krigel, Assistant to the Rector Spiritualis, was waiting.

“Took you long enough,” he said.

“Sorry,” Miranda panted. “I didn’t even know there was a war until this morning. Where’s Master Banage?”

Krigel jerked his head toward the closed door.

Gin sat down without being asked, stretching out down the long staircase. Krigel gave the dog a nasty look, and Miranda took the opportunity to slip past the old Spiritualist, pushing open the door to Banage’s office as quietly as she could.

The office of the Rector Spiritualis had changed dramatically. The first thing she noticed were the windows. The large panes of clear glass were still there, but they looked out into a wall of solid white stone. Still, the office was not dark. White light radiated from a small, unflickering flame burning at the bottom of a large, metal bowl on the floor. Miranda recognized the fire immediately. It was Krinok, a rare type of chemical fire spirit Master Banage had rescued from a rogue Tower Keeper turned Enslaver back when she was still his apprentice. Krinok’s harsh, white light threw everything into sharp, monochrome relief, but even that couldn’t drown out the light coming from Banage himself.

The Rector Spiritualis was sitting on his desk, which was uncharacteristically empty. For the first time Miranda could remember in many years, he was dressed not in the formal red robes of the Rector’s office, but in a plain, somber suit. Over that, around his neck, the regalia of the Rector Spiritualis shone like a collar of light. The heavy necklace with its golden chain of jewels glowed in a rainbow of colors, humming with power. Even standing at the door twenty feet away, Miranda could feel the enormous pressure of the Rector’s connection to the Tower and, woven into and through that, the power of Banage himself. She took a deep breath, her own spirits waking to the familiar weight of Banage’s soul, and for the first time in a long time, she felt like she was home.

“Miranda,” Banage said, opening his eyes. “It is good to see you. I wish the circumstances were better.”

“Whatever the circumstances,” Miranda said, walking across the room to stand before him, “it is good to be back.”

Banage smiled, a slight turn of his thin mouth. “Sit,” he said softly, “and tell me what you have seen.”

With a deep breath, Miranda sat cross-legged on the stone floor and told him.

She started from the moment she left Zarin, chasing Sara’s tip about Eli north with Tesset and Sparrow. She told him about entering Izo’s camp and the Council’s deal with the Bandit King. She told him about catching Eli and losing him again. She told him about Slorn and the wondrous things the bear-headed Shaper could do. After that, things got harder. She told him about Sted, about the demon and the League. She told him what she had seen in the arena after Josef beat Sted and about working with Alric to defeat the creature Sted became. Then, after a couple of deep breaths, she told him as best she could about the thing she’d seen in the woods beyond Izo’s camp, the creature made of shadows and hunger, eating the world. Even as she told him, the afterimage of the hideous shape flickered across her vision, forcing her to turn away. When she had control of herself again, she looked her master in the eye and told him how that vision had cemented her decision to go with Slorn to the Shapers. She told him about their arrival at the mountain, her imprisonment, and what she’d seen in the mountain’s memory. She told him about stars, the spirits lifted above all other. She told him all the mountain had told her about the Shepherdess, the sleeping spirits, everything. The world the mountain had shown her was still clear in her mind, the great valley changing between life and death and the endless night sky filled with strange, sparkling lights, but describing it was harder than she imagined. Still, in fits and halts, she told him the whole naked, disjointed truth Slorn had asked her to spread.

She finished in a great rush, panting as the weight of the secrets lifted from her chest. She paused, waiting for the questions that were sure to come, but Banage just sat back and motioned for her to continue.

Miranda nodded and moved on to her cell. She told him about her solo imprisonment, Sparrow’s offer and their escape from the Shapers, the journey home, and learning about the war. Finally, she told him about the meeting with Sara, Blint, and Whitefall. She handed him Whitefall’s written promise as she told him the details of the Merchant Prince’s compromise. Banage took the paper with a strangely closed look on his face, reading it over as Miranda’s long story finally came to an end.

When it was done, she leaned back, exhausted. Though in all her years with the Court, all the missions she’d done in its name, none had taken so long or so much to tell. With the windows blocked, it was impossible to tell how long she’d been speaking. It felt like hours. However long it was, Banage had not moved at all. He was still sitting on his desk, his stern face warped into a mask of itself by the strange light of the mantel and the bright white fire on the floor.

“I’m not surprised Slorn stayed,” he said at last. “How very like him to pit his stubbornness against a mountain.”

Miranda looked up. “You know him?”

“Some,” Banage said. “He’s hard to avoid when you involve yourself in the politics of spirits to any depth. He’s a good wizard, though, and a good man. You made the right choice to go with him.”

Miranda let out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “Thank you, Master Banage.”

Banage nodded. “So,” he said. “The mysterious Shepherdess who commands all spirits. I’d heard snippets, hints, but you can never get a spirit to talk plainly about such things. To hear it from the Shaper Mountain is something indeed, though I suppose demons large enough to make Alric panic can get even Great Spirits talking about things they’d rather not.” He started chuckling, like this was some kind of joke, and looked over at Miranda. “You never bring good news, do you?”

“You never send me anywhere easy,” Miranda protested.

Banage smiled. “You would be wasted on easy things.”

“It seems nothing is easy anymore,” Miranda said with a deep sigh. “It feels like the world is falling apart. Enormous demons, the League in panic, spirits growing sleepier, the Shaper Mountain talking about the Shepherdess with her stars and favorites and how this world isn’t as it was. Two weeks ago, I didn’t even know for sure if the Shepherdess existed. Now I’m terrified that she’s not doing whatever it is she’s supposed to do. How can we do our job and protect the spirit world when we know so little?”

Banage shook his head. “As my spirits love to remind me, humans are creatures of blindness and ignorance. We must always remember that although we tend to see this world as ours, we are only tiny pieces of the larger whole and there is only so much we can change. The demons, for instance, we must leave to the League. We certainly cannot fight them, not without risking our spirits. Even if we were willing to face them, we would only be defeated. As for the rest, we can only do what we have always done. The Court will stand by its oaths and do what it can to protect the spirit world from whatever threatens it—wizard, star, or Shepherdess.”

“Master Banage,” Miranda said, her throat going dry. “With all these threats, I have to wonder, perhaps we should take the Merchant Prince’s compromise.”

The Rector’s head snapped to look at her.

“He promised it would only be defense,” Miranda said quickly, before she lost her courage. “Look around, we are alone. The Spirit Court is splitting in two. How can we stand firm when we are so divided?”

“We are not divided.” Banage’s voice cut the heavy air like a bitter, burning knife. “The true Court is here. Those who choose political ambition over their oaths are not Spiritualists.”

“But this is the Immortal Empress!” Miranda cried, her voice pleading. “If this were just a war between countries, I would not question your decision, but the Empress is different. Her first attack was terrifying enough to make the warring kingdoms forget their bickering and unite as a Council to face a common foe. But even united, it took everything we had to turn the Empress away. Now she’s coming to finish the kill, and everything we have might no longer be enough. I don’t like Blint, but I understand where he and every Spiritualist who went to the Council stands. They are fighting to defend their lives as they know them.”

“And there they betray their oaths,” Banage said. “Spiritualists do not fight for their own comfort, but for what is good and right for the spirit world.”

“How do we know the two aren’t the same?” Miranda countered. “Every child in the Council learns about the Empress’s invasion, and the terror trotted out more than any other are the stories of the Empress’s wizards. There are tales of them working together to control enormous spirits of fire and iron, monsters built only for war that fight until they’re torn apart. Those spirits died fighting for the Empress, and though I don’t know for sure what the empire wizards did to whip those poor spirits into such a frenzy, I’d wager Eli’s bounty that it wasn’t nice. Enslavement, or close to it. That is the enemy we face, and you’re saying we should just sit back and let her come? That it is politics to side with the Council and fight her? If anything of that sort went on here, we would mobilize the Court to stop it at once. Is it any different when it comes from across the sea?”

Miranda stopped, terrified she’d said too much. Master Banage’s expression was unreadable in the harsh light, but he didn’t look angry. When he spoke, his voice sounded tired.

“Your reasoning is sound as always, Miranda,” he said. “But no matter what, I can never allow this Court to go to war again beside the Council of Thrones.”

“Why not?” Miranda demanded, frustration rising.

Banage looked up, his dark eyes catching hers with a look that killed her anger in one shot.

“May I tell you a story?”

Caught off guard, Miranda nodded.

Banage got up from his desk and walked over to the window, looking out at the lid of solid stone that covered it.

“I fought in the first war against the Empress,” he said. “I’ve told you about it before.”

Miranda nodded again, though, since Banage had his back to her, it scarcely mattered.

“I fought with the fledgling Council,” Banage said, his voice soft. “With Sara.” He looked over his shoulder. “We were younger than you are now, a year out of our apprenticeships, and newly married.”

“Married?” Miranda could scarcely form the word. She could scarcely believe what she was hearing. “You were married? To Sara?”

“Are married,” Banage corrected her, turning back to the window. “We never formalized our separation. I think we each believe we’ll eventually bring the other around to our way of thinking.”

“But… Sara?” Miranda shook her head. “How? Why?”

“I was young,” Banage said. “Sara is a genius and very charismatic in her own way. I’d like to say she’s changed over the years, but she’s always been high-handed, single-minded, and cruel. However, she was also ambitious in a way I’d never seen. She wanted to do things with magic I’d never even imagined. When the Empress attacked, the lands we now call the Council were in chaos. No one had ever seen anything like the fleet that was pounding Osera’s shore. In her desperation, the young Oseran queen threw away centuries of isolationism and begged for help. Zarin was the first to respond, and Sara went with them.”

He took a deep breath. “I’d known for some time that Sara was drifting away from the Spirit Court, doing her own work with money from the Whitefall family. When she said she was following Whitefall to war without even asking permission from the Rector, the Tower Keepers, who did not yet understand the threat of the Empress and had no interest in risking themselves for Oseran pirates, threatened to strip her of her rings and kick her out of the Court. And they would have, but I volunteered to go with her as the Court’s eyes on the front. That was how I ended up at her side when the Empress’s forces made their second, largest attack on Osera.”

“The project she was working on for Whitefall,” Miranda said, wide-eyed. “Was that the Relay?”

“It was,” Banage said, his voice strangely strained. “The Relay was the only way we kept ahead of the Empress’s forces. By this time, rumors of the Empress’s army were beginning to catch up with its actual size. More and more countries, seeing that this could well spread to their lands if left unchecked, began sending their armies to the coast. But they were a rabble, a hodgepodge of men who’d spent centuries fighting each other. Only the Relay could coordinate them into a force capable of meeting the Empress’s fleet, and Alber Whitefall knew it.

“But that came later,” Banage said, waving his hand. “Before the other countries joined in, Queen Theresa’s ships with their ever-burning fire were all that held the Empire at bay. The event I want to tell you about happened late at night the second day of the attack. I’d left Sara with Whitefall and gone to help the Oserans repel a charge. The Oseran clingfire were simple spirits, easy to direct. I had made a cliff out over the bay and was using my fire spirit to guide the clingfire throwers and sink the incoming ships. But then my stone spirit was hit by one of the Empress’s war spirits, and I fell.”

“You fought a war spirit?” Miranda said, breathless.

“Not at first.” Banage’s voice grew raw. “I fell nearly fifty feet into the sea. My stone spirit shattered beyond repair trying to break my fall. I would have died there, if not for him. As it was, my fire spirit went out when I hit the water. I managed to swim to shore, but I was disoriented. I’d never lost a spirit before, and now I’d just lost two. I did not know what to do with the enormous emptiness that is left when the connection vanishes.”

He stopped for a moment and sat very still. Miranda held her breath, afraid to make a sound. At last, Banage continued.

“When I made it to the beach, the Oseran guard was fighting the siege spirit, or trying to. Swords did nothing. The spirit killed a dozen men as I watched, and then it turned to me.”

Banage lowered his head. “I was terrified and enraged. I knew I was about to die. That I would be crushed, and all my remaining spirits crushed with me. So I did the only thing I could think of. I opened my soul and took control of the siege spirit.”

Miranda’s breath caught in her throat. “You Enslaved it?”

“I tried to,” Banage said, his voice very low. “Desperation is no excuse. I tried to take control of the spirit to save my life in violation of all my oaths. Tried, and failed.”

Miranda looked away, scrambling to get her feelings under control. The thought of Master Banage Enslaving anything nearly made her sick. He was the Spirit Court, the embodiment of everything it stood for, and yet.

“Failed?” she said. “How could you fail? You are the strongest wizard I’ve ever met.”

“Strength has nothing to do with it,” Banage said, shaking his head. “The problem was with the spirit itself. No matter how hard I pushed, it would not bend to my will. It did stop, however. I think it was confused. But then it looked at me. Not looked, exactly, for it had no head to speak of, but I knew it was studying me. And then it spoke.”

Miranda swallowed. “What did it say?”

“ ‘Loyalty to the Empress,’ ” Banage quoted, tilting his head back. “ ‘Always and forever, I will be loyal.’ And then it turned and walked into the ocean, back toward the ships where the Empire wizards waited.”

“It left?” Miranda said. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Banage admitted. “I have asked myself the same question over and over. But one thing was certain. That spirit was not Enslaved. There was no fear in it, no panic. It was bound through a loyalty so deep, so intense, so primal that even with my panicked strength I could not break its will to be faithful to its mistress. A mistress who wasn’t even there.”

Banage ran his hand through his graying hair. “After that, I knew no peace. I kept wondering what kind of person this Empress was to command such loyalty. As Whitefall’s forces grew and the war began to turn around, I saw several of the Empress’s war spirits go down. Every one of them fell fighting to the last inch, and every time I saw it happen, I wondered why? But the war was over before I could find out. The Empress’s ships retreated as quickly as they’d come, and Whitefall, ever the opportunist, used fear of her return to found the Council of Thrones with himself at the head and Sara’s Relay holding it all together.”

Banage looked down at his glowing spirits. “It was around that time that Sara quit the Spirit Court of her own volition,” he said. “I was furious, of course, but she was within her rights. She’d freed her spirits and received the Rector’s approval, done everything properly. I was promoted to Tower Keeper after the war, but Sara was still my wife, and I stayed in Zarin to be with her. But as she spent more and more time in the caverns she’d built beneath the Council Citadel, I began to wonder. Sara gave me Relay points several times during the war, and afterward I went down to the Relay tank rooms often to see her. Even so, she would never let me near the heart of the Relay that lay at the bottom of the large tank she still uses as an office, nor would she ever agree to tell me exactly how the Relay worked. Every time I asked we would fight, and eventually I became suspicious.”

Miranda bit her lip. “What did you do?”

“There was nothing I could do,” Banage said. “Sara wasn’t a Spiritualist, and the Spirit Court had no jurisdiction within Whitefall’s rapidly growing Council. I also had no proof she was doing anything wrong, but I knew. Why else would she refuse to show me?”

“There could have been a reason,” Miranda said softly.

“Do you honestly believe that?” Banage said, turning to face her. “You’ve worked with her, you’ve seen how ruthless she can be. If you were in my position then, would you have come to a different conclusion?”

Miranda shook her head. “What did she say when you confronted her?”

“Nothing,” Banage said bitterly. “She said nothing. The Spirit Court would not listen to me and call for an investigation. They were too busy courting the Council. Everyone was then. So I went to her one last time and told her that if she didn’t show me how the Relay worked, I was leaving. Again, she refused, so I went. I took our son and went as far away as I could.”

“Wait,” Miranda said. “Son?”

It might have been her imagination, but Miranda thought she saw Banage wince. “Yes, I have a son.”

“But where is he?” she cried. “Why have I never heard of him?”

Banage turned back to the stone-blocked window. “He left. Many years ago.”

Miranda cringed at the edge in his voice and dutifully dropped the subject.

Banage continued as though nothing had happened. “I came back to Zarin only when they told me I’d been chosen to be the new Rector Spiritualis, and the first thing I did was try to use the Court’s sway to finally break open whatever Sara was hiding. But by that time the Council was the greatest power on the continent, and I could make no headway. To this day I don’t know what she’s got beneath the Council citadel, Relay or otherwise, but I understand Sara well enough now to know it can’t be good.” Banage shook his head. “As Rector, I have danced to the Council’s tune along with everyone else, waiting for my chance to force Sara to open up and accept the Court’s standards. When Whitefall asked for my help in the war, I thought I’d finally found it, but I was wrong.” He looked up. “Whitefall doesn’t want change. He wants warriors. I’ve been to war, Miranda, and I am poorer for it. I cannot, will not, order my Spiritualists into that suffering, especially not as ally to an organization that may well be worse than the enemy we’re fighting.”

“How can you say that?” Miranda said, horrified. “I’ll grant Sara’s pretty suspicious, and I’m positive she’s up to no good, but worse than the Empress?”

“Yes,” Banage said. “Weren’t you listening? I told you. I met one of the Empress’s war spirits. I saw firsthand the deep loyalty she commands. It’s not so different from the loyalty our spirits give us as Spiritualists. You can’t fake loyalty like that. Think about it, Miranda. On the one hand we the Council of Thrones, an organization of profit and power built by a merchant prince and a ruthless woman on a work of wizardry so suspect Spiritualists aren’t allowed near it. On the other, we have an Empress who commands the abject love and loyalty of the spirits. Put that way, it’s not a hard choice.”

Banage began to pace. “I gave Sara and Whitefall every chance to make good. I flat out told them I would fight if they would only open the Council to Spirit Court inspection, and I was met with nothing but excuses. Sara does not share our respect for the spirits, nor our duty toward them, and I am tired of playing her game. The more I see, the more I’m convinced that the future she and Whitefall are building isn’t one I want to live in. It may well be that the Empress’s coming is the dawn of a new age for the Spirit Court and the spirits.”

Miranda stared at her master, horrified. “What you’re saying is treason.”

“Is it?” Banage said. “I’ve sworn no oaths to Zarin. My only oaths are here, with the Court and the spirits, and I see no reason to take either to war for a government that cares nothing for them.”

Miranda licked her lips. She knew that calm tone in Master Banage’s voice. He’d already made up his mind. Made it up long ago, it seemed. She wasn’t happy at all with the idea of sitting back and letting the Empress conquer her homeland, but she wasn’t about to go against her master, not after everything he’d done for her and the spirits. Still…

“We must do something.”

“We will,” Banage said. “We’ll keep doing what we have done for the last four hundred years—protect the spirits and obey our oaths. Do I make myself clear, Spiritualist Lyonette?”

Miranda swallowed. “Yes, Master Banage.”

“Good,” he said, standing up. “For now, I want you to write up your experience inside the Shaper Mountain. When you’re finished, you have my permission to go through the archives for any information on this Shepherdess and the Great Spirits called stars.”

Miranda perked up considerably. “All the archives?”

“Yes,” Banage said. “The Shaper Mountain did not show you that vision by accident. Far more important than this war is what is happening at the top levels of the spirit world. I want you to find out whatever you can. The Court will not sit idle.”

Miranda couldn’t help grinning. The Spiritualist archives were the repository for the collective knowledge of the Spirit Court. Every Spiritualist report ever written was stored there. Previously she’d had access to only the lowest level of common reports. Now she’d get to read the recollections of the secret missions as well. Bad as everything else seemed, that, at least, was something to look forward to.

“Go on,” Banage said, waving her off. “But get some sleep and food first. You look dreadful.”

Miranda blushed and glanced down at her filthy clothes. “Yes, Master Banage,” she mumbled, dropping a deep bow before retreating. Her mind might still be racing with everything that had happened, but her body was more than glad to put it all off in favor of food, a bath, and a bed. Smiling at the prospect, she closed Banage’s door softly behind her and went to wake up Gin, who was sleeping on the stairs where she’d left him.

Sara leaned back in the tall armchair, heavy smoke trailing from the corner of her mouth. Alber Whitefall sat across from her, his chin resting on his hands. They were both staring at the blue ball on the table between them as the soft, watery light began to fade.

“Well,” Sara said. “I think that should be proof enough.”

Whitefall dropped his head into his hands. “Sara,” he said, grinding his palms into his eyes. “I’m not going to ask how you got a Relay point into Banage’s office. I’m not sure I want to know. The only thing I’m going to ask is why.”

“I thought that would be clear,” Sara said. “You heard it from his own lips, in his own impossibly long-winded style. Etmon Banage is a traitor. He’s sided with the Empress against his own people.”

Whitefall sighed. “We need him.”

“We need the Court,” Sara countered. “Banage is the one standing in our way. It’s loyalty to him that keeps those idiots in the Tower. Break Banage and the Court will come to us. Well,” she said, putting her pipe stem back in her mouth. “Most of them. Some attrition is unavoidable.”

“We’ll never get this to stick,” Whitefall said, moving his hands down to his mouth as he considered his options. “An overheard confession’s not enough on its own, and he’s not going to repeat it.”

“Of course he will,” Sara said. “This is Etmon Banage. The man can’t lie to save his life, or anyone else’s. Pull him out and ask him openly whom he supports, the Council or the Empress, and then sit back while he digs his own grave.”

Whitefall gave her a long-suffering look. “Isn’t this a little much, Sara? The man is still your husband.”

Sara sniffed. “I loved Banage when I was young and stupid enough to get caught up in his idealism. But that world never existed, Alber. There’s no place for men like Banage who refuse to admit that there is no absolute right or wrong, that everything is relative, even morality. Never was. I won’t see my life’s work stomped under just to keep his hands clean.”

She reached out and snatched the Relay point off the table, sliding the blue marble into her pocket as she stood. “We need those wizards if we’re going to survive, Alber. I’ve given you your linchpin. All you have to do is pull it.”

Whitefall turned and stared unhappily into the cold, empty fireplace. “Fine,” he said quietly. “Send word to Myron.”

Sara nodded and marched out of the room. Sparrow fell in silently beside her, giving Whitefall a sickening smile as he closed the door behind his mistress. As their footsteps faded down the long hall, Whitefall stood and walked to the window, opening the glass pane to let the night wind clear out the stinking pipe smoke. As he stared down at his brightly lit city, the streets packed and humming with life, he wondered, not for the first time, who really ran the Council of Thrones.

“That was impressively ruthless,” Sparrow said as they walked through the dark, empty halls of the Citadel. “Even for you. Good to know the enormous risk I took planting that Relay point paid out.”

Sara arched an eyebrow. “Enormous risk?”

“Have you seen the dog she rides?” Sparrow shuddered. “I could have lost a hand. Or more.”

“Your sacrifice wouldn’t have been in vain,” Sara said as they started down the stairs to her underground workshop. “I couldn’t have asked for a better confession. I always knew something changed in him the night he lost his spirits, but I didn’t know he’d gone that far.”

“Well,” Sparrow said, smiling slyly. “He certainly had enough to say about you.”

Sara shrugged. “No worse than he’s said to my face.”

“I never could understand what you saw in him.”

“He was uncompromising,” Sara said. “I felt like a better person when I was around him, like I was one of the good guys. But he had no vision, no reach. He never understood that some of us can’t be happy just maintaining the status quo. It didn’t matter what miracles I showed him, he always found some fault.” She shook her head. “Uncompromising men are easy to admire, but they’re impossible to live with.”

“I can imagine,” Sparrow said as they reached the foot of the stairs. “Still, congratulations. You won!”

“Hardly a glorious victory,” Sara said, walking between the suspended Relay tanks toward the brightly lit platform at the center of the enormous cavern. “I’d always hoped that Etmon would see things my way someday, understand the great work I’m doing.” She heaved an enormous, smoky sigh. “Considering our history, I suppose it’s only fitting that I be the one to deal the breaking blow.”

“How do you mean to do that, by the way?” Sparrow said. “He’s locked himself up quite nicely, and I don’t think he’s going to come out to talk to you.”

“The Spirit Court’s Tower is still only stone,” Sara said with a smile. “And I’ve been needing something to test our new weapon on.”

“It’s done, then?” Sparrow said.

“Done enough,” Sara said, sticking her pipe into her mouth. “Words won’t do it justice, though. You’ll just have to wait for tomorrow.”

Sparrow smiled a wide, toothy smile. “And see the haughty Spiritualists brought low? I can’t wait.”

“I’m sure,” Sara said distractedly. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.”

Sparrow fell in behind her as she marched out onto the platform around the enormous tank that served as her headquarters and began shouting for her assistants.