But it will grow worse, Eclipse thought. It’s unavoidable. Unless Mirei finds me some way out of this. He prayed for that, but with each passing day his hope grew frailer.
Jaguar was looking at him as if he could hear the tenor of Eclipse’s thoughts. Shoving his dread down for the thousandth time, Eclipse said, “Tell me.”
“Make plans,” the Grandmaster said. “Gather information. It’s legitimate that you would have to plan this assassination carefully; she’s as highly trained as you are in combat, and has magic to defend herself with. Moreover, she’s very well-guarded. Caution is warranted, and caution takes time. They advise you to be as methodical as you can.” The Grandmaster smiled briefly. “And they inform you that under no circumstances will they tell you the first thing about Starfall’s defenses.”
“I’m shocked,” Eclipse said ironically. The only way they could be more helpful would be to feed him misinformation that he’d have to spend time sorting through. But even without that, he could spin it out.
That tiny flash of humor evaporated in no time, though. He didn’t want to do this. Mirage had been his dearest friend in the world, and he’d grown fond of Miryo in their travels. He didn’t want to spend his days planning how to kill the woman they’d become.
Was it his imagination, or did he feel a twinge in his wrist?
“This may take time away from your other work,” Jaguar said, dragging his mind away from his fear.
Other work. “Who needs sleep, sir?” Eclipse asked, taking refuge in irony once more. “You’d be amazed how much I can get done. Speaking of which, is there anything new?”
The Grandmaster gave him an unreadable look. Was it the flickering light of the candles, or did he see sympathy and concern? Probably just Eclipse’s tiredness talking. Jaguar took care of his own, but nobody would ever accuse him of being soft-hearted. “In the morning,” Jaguar said. “You can’t afford to make mistakes out of weariness.”
True enough, given the game he was playing. But Eclipse doubted he would get any sleep. “Very well, sir.”
SATOMI TOOK A SEAT before the mirror in her private quarters, arranged her skirt, and waited.
She was in place early, because not every bell tower kept precisely the same time, and she did not want to be late. It was worth enduring the tension of waiting to be sure she didn’t miss this opportunity.
Not long after the Starfall bells chimed Dark, her mirror began to hum quietly.
She sang the answering phrase, her voice clear and steady, and an image of Kekkai formed across the glass.
Satomi had not been at all sure the dissident Fire Key would hold up her end of the arrangement. And to tell the truth, Kekkai’s pointed jaw was set in a manner that did not bode well for the conversation—but at least she was there. And she spoke. “Satomi.”
No honorific; also not the best of signs. But Satomi did not expect this to begin warmly. Or to end that way. “Kekkai. Thank you for agreeing to speak with me.”
“I hope it won’t turn out to be a mistake.” The room the Key sat in was dim; one light, a lamp or a candle, sat past the edge of the image, but it illuminated little more than her face. Clearly she did not want anyone to know she was awake, nor what she was doing. Much like Satomi herself.
Kekkai hesitated briefly, then added, “Even with the differences among us, I think we should be communicating more. We will not solve anything with silence.”
Was it Arinei who had slapped her down for making a suggestion along those lines, or Shimi? Clearly someone had bitten Kekkai’s hand off for saying it. Probably Arinei; Hyoka had rewritten the suspension ritual to work with three Primes, and Satomi doubted the woman had taken her loss of authority well. Satomi put a smile on her face, not too warm, lest it be seen as insincere. “I agree, we should be communicating. That’s why I contacted you.”
“Before you ask, no, I will not tell you where we are.”
Satomi hadn’t even planned on asking. She’d sent women to infiltrate the dissidents in the hopes of finding out where in Kalistyi they had set themselves up; she hadn’t heard back from a single one. With security like that, Kekkai was hardly likely to betray anything. “No, I wanted to speak to you personally.”
“Why me? Why not one of the others?”
“Because I have information for you.”
Kekkai’s face closed off like a stone wall. “For me. Personally.”
“It affects you more personally than others. I thought it best to tell you first, and then to consider, step by step, who else ought to know.”
Kekkai was Key of the Fire Heart; she was no stranger to politically volatile secrets. Satomi could have wished for her to look more receptive, though. Finally Kekkai said, “What’s to stop me from telling other people, once you’ve told me?”
“Nothing,” Satomi said honestly. “Except your own conscience. Your own evaluation of whether our people would be best served by truth or by silence.”
“Our people.”
“Yes.” Satomi met her gaze without blinking, hands folded quietly in her lap so she would not betray her nerves. “Contrary to the rumors that have been spread about me, I do still have a care for witches other than Mirei, witches without their doppelganger halves. I even have a care for those who disagree with me about this new way. They are still my people, as those who agree with me are yours. We cannot allow this to divide us.”
Kekkai weighed this in silence, still clearly suspicious. Between the two of them, Arinei and Shimi had mounted quite a campaign to paint Satomi in a poor light, one she was fighting to counteract. But Kekkai had agreed to this conversation; she hadn’t ignored Satomi’s clandestine message, nor insisted on discussing the matter through intermediaries. She was here, in the darkest hours of the night, when virtually everyone was asleep—including the witches she had allied herself with. Surely that must count for something.
Satomi let her think the matter over, then spoke again. “My information for you is a confession. If you will hear it.”
That got the Key’s attention. She nodded, sharply, eyes slitted with curiosity and wariness.
“I will not preface this with explanations of our reasoning,” Satomi said. “I can give you those later, if you would like them; they don’t excuse what we did.”
“We?”
“The Primes. All five of us, before this split.”
Kekkai nodded again, even warier.
Satomi took a deep breath and said, “The death of Tari, your predecessor, was not an accident. She was assassinated, by a Wolfstar named Wraith. We hired him to do it.”
Kekkai was not as much of an actress as Arinei; she was visibly startled, and appalled, and disbelieving. “How do I know that’s true?”
Satomi smiled wryly. “You could try asking Arinei. Or Shimi. Arinei might deny it, for political reasons; Shimi would admit to it proudly. It’s probably the last thing she and I agreed on. Though I have since changed my mind.”
“You murdered her.”
“Yes.”
“And now, what, you claim to regret it?”
“With all my heart.” Satomi was not above a little manipulation of her own; she deliberately allowed herself to show some of the pain she lived with, accumulated from all the wrong decisions she had made, beginning with Orezha’s death.
A small muscle was jumping in Kekkai’s jaw, just visible in the dim light. “Astound me,” the Key said through her teeth. “Explain why in the Void you did this—and why she didn’t get a trial.”
“She didn’t get a trial for the same reason that some cities will lock plague victims up to die, without allowing healers to visit them,” Satomi said, choosing the brutal image deliberately. “To minimize the risk that infection will spread.”
“What infection?”
“Tari is the reason we have so many young doppelgangers alive today,” Satomi told her. “It goes back at least thirteen years. She saw Miryo’s doppelganger alive, realized what she was, and did not report it. After that
she began deliberately arranging for more doppelgangers to survive. Isolated incidents have happened before, apparently by chance, but never before on this scale. We concluded that Tari would not be persuaded to renounce her scheme; the scope of her work made that clear. If she had received a trial, she would have been able to speak in her own defense and might have swayed others to her cause. As it turned out, she had already done so—but we didn’t know that at the time.”
“You murdered her,” Kekkai said in a harsh voice, “for supporting the very cause you now champion.”
“Yes.” There was no way she could even attempt to deny it. “As I said, I’ve since repented of the decision.”
She’d presented the information; now she had to let Kekkai decide what to do with it. Satomi had known from the start that this was a gamble, as likely to alienate the woman further as to do any good.
In the quiet, where the only sound was the wind rustling outside her window, her fingernails dug into the palms of her hands.
“So,” Kekkai said at last, flat and bitter. “You tell me this because you’re hoping to sway me back over to your side. But you were as much a part of this as Arinei and Shimi. You made that decision, too.”
“I don’t deny it,” Satomi said. “And I have no expectation that weeping tears of regret would make you feel more kindly toward me. But I ask you to consider this.
“Arinei and Shimi do not regret what they did. That is a moral matter, but it is also a political and legal one. Arinei accuses me of disregarding our ways and laws, but she argued the most strenuously of us all that we should deal with Tari quietly, without a trial. We had no rightful grounds for doing that—merely our conviction that it was best for Starfall. Which is to say, the same position she now attacks me for taking. I don’t deny that I’m making changes; of course I am. But at least I am doing so in the open, where others may see, and where they may question me if they feel they must. Arinei and Shimi operate in secrecy, and show no inclination to change their habits.”
There was, of course, a degree of hypocrisy in her words. Satomi wasn’t playing with all her cards on the table; she had her share of secrets yet. But for the moment, what mattered was persuading Kekkai.
“Openness and honesty,” Kekkai said in a biting tone, clearly not persuaded. “Which is why, of course, you’re telling me about this in the tiny hours of the morning, when everyone else is asleep, instead of making an open proclamation to all of our people.”
It was a good point. Satomi didn’t have much of a defense against it. “I’d like to avoid further division. It could split us in so many ways: my followers against me, Arinei’s against her, unranked witches of all stripes against the entirety of their leadership. Witches against Hunters—and both your group and mine have among them girls who represent, to their minds, the Hunters. When people become upset, it’s not difficult for them to see the nearest targets as representatives of the ones they want revenge on. In this case, the man who murdered Tari.”
Kekkai’s mouth twisted unpleasantly at that, illustrating Satomi’s point whether she meant to or not. “Where is he?”
“Dead. Mirei—no—Mirage killed him.”
“And again I must take your word for it.”
Satomi shrugged. “Gather information on him; you’ll find out easily enough. Mirage and her partner Eclipse took on a blood-oath to Hunt Wraith, and carried it out this summer. Tari’s friends hired them.”
Kekkai’s expression grew distant. “Wraith. Wait—I have heard that name. The ab—Mirei mentioned it, when she appeared in the ruling hall.”
An incident Satomi kept meaning to thank Mirei for. The woman had nearly told the truth about Tari that night, but had sidestepped it in favor of addressing the real issue. Satomi did not want to consider what chaos might have resulted had everyone learned about the assassination at that moment.
The slip in Kekkai’s speech just then hadn’t escaped her. She’d started to say “the abomination,” but had changed it to Mirei’s name. Satomi took it as a faintly hopeful sign. The more Kekkai let go of the dissidents’ rhetoric, the better.
But all Satomi said in response was, “Yes.”
More silence; Kekkai’s arched, plucked eyebrows had dived inward as she considered the revelations. Watching her, Satomi gauged this as good a time as any to end the conversation. The hooks were in place, she could hope for no more.
“I will not keep you any longer,” she said, breaking Kekkai’s reverie. “You have the information I promised you. You must decide what to do with it.”
The Key’s response was caustic. “Like telling the world.”
Satomi’s hands clenched again, but she answered with a fair semblance of calm. “If you truly think that’s the best course of action. I can do nothing but ask you not to. I can’t prevent you.”
Technically, she might be able to. There were ways to harm someone with magic. They required the witch to see her target, but the mirror image might suffice. Satomi had learned long ago, though, not to let her more pragmatic thoughts show on her face.
“I’ll think about it,” Kekkai said at last. Her attitude seemed more uncertain than hostile; it was the best Satomi could hope for.
“May the Goddess guide your thoughts,” Satomi said.
Kekkai didn’t bother saying farewell. She sang again, and the mirror went blank.
“THERE IS NEWS FROM SILVERFIRE,” Hyoka told her the next morning.
Satomi’s schedule had become, more than ever, a rotating sequence of meetings. Rana and Koika every day, Hyoka every few days, Mirei every few days, a steady stream of the Keys of various Paths, both those confirmed in their office and the interim Keys who had been appointed to take over the duties, if not the spell-granted authority, of their sisters who had left Starfall in protest. She had always known that her fellow Primes did large amounts of work, but never until she had to take on half their duties herself had she appreciated how much.
It took a few moments for Hyoka’s words to acquire meaning. Satomi had spent much of the previous day worrying over Eikyo’s latest note, and then had stayed up to meet Kekkai. She’d only gotten a few hours’ sleep, and as a result was feeling extremely slow. “Yes?”
“Eclipse suffered a warning flare from the oath-scar last night. We’ve already passed along to him our best advice, but we thought you should be informed.”
One oathbound Hunter three domains away was the least of Satomi’s concerns at the moment, but still, the news was worrisome. If the scar was bleeding, then his time was running out. And Mirei’s hopes aside, there were only two possible outcomes to that.
“What advice did you give him?” she asked.
“To begin planning how he would go about Hunting Mirei, as if he were actually going to do so. It should keep him occupied for some time; she’s hardly what you might call accessible.”
Hyoka, clearly, thought this was an appropriate answer to the situation. As usual, she was thinking like a theorist. Satomi did not have that luxury. She did not like the idea of this man making any plans that could eventually lead to the death of the only complete witch in the world.
“Is he still at Silverfire?”
The Key nodded. “Until we tell him to leave.”
“Don’t,” Satomi said sharply. “Do not give him any instruction to move without consulting me first.”
Hyoka looked taken aback at her tone, but nodded again.
They moved on to other topics, then, to the various researches Hyoka’s contingent were still carrying out, but Satomi only listened to it with half an ear. When the Key departed with her stack of notes, Satomi sat for a moment in silence, thinking, before she rang her desktop bell for Ruriko.
The secretary was there immediately. If anything, she was the second most overworked person in Starfall at present.
“Close the door,” Satomi said.
Ruriko did, and at her Prime’s nod came forward and took a seat.
Satomi considered her words for a moment, th
en set her jaw. “The situation with Eclipse is deteriorating. Mirei will not be able to save him. She’s been trying for two months; if she hasn’t succeeded by now, she won’t.”
“Does he know he’s running out of time?” Ruriko asked.
“Yes. Which is why I called you in here.” Satomi laced her fingers together and stared at them. “Mirei is confident that he won’t hurt her. She cares for him a great deal, and is certain that he feels the same way—enough that he won’t try to carry out the oath.”
She paused there, and it stretched out long enough that Ruriko finally said, “You want to make sure he doesn’t.”
Satomi closed her eyes. “Yes.”
Ruriko’s pen scratched quietly across the paper. Satomi let her make the note; the woman had an impenetrably arcane method of documenting things, and Satomi had no fear that anyone else would be able to sort out what this one meant.
“We can’t lose her,” Satomi said, her voice hardly more than a murmur. “This oath has made it so that one of them must die. He volunteered for that. But if it seems that he is going to lose his conviction—if he makes even the slightest move in Mirei’s direction—then I want him out.”
Out, her mind repeated mockingly. You won’t even say “dead.”
“I understand,” Ruriko said. Her pen scratched again, and Satomi felt a tiny amount of relief that she could leave the specifics up to the secretary.
You can pretend your hands won’t have more blood on them.
After a diplomatic pause, Ruriko said, “Is there anything else, Aken?”
Satomi opened her eyes and forced herself to sit up. There was another meeting very soon. “No, Ruriko. That will be all.”
IN THE CONFERENCE with Rana and Koika later that day, she told them what she had done with Kekkai.
The Earth Prime stared at her in disbelief. “And you didn’t tell us ahead of time.”
“No.” Satomi sighed and drank a substantial gulp of water. Her head was pounding, and she wanted very much to sleep.
“Mind saying why?”
“Why I told Kekkai, or why I didn’t tell you?” Satomi waved away Koika’s irate response before the woman could make it. “Both, of course. I told her because we need her back. Having three-quarters of the Fire leadership holed up in Kalistyi—having nothing but the Head Key left here—Onomita’s hardly any use. She played support to the other two, and to Arinei. She doesn’t take her own initiative, and we don’t know how to make the best use of her. We’re not getting Arinei back, so it was Kekkai or Mejiki, and of the two, Kekkai has shown the most indication of thinking that we should still at least be talking to one another.”
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