the banditry and monster situation. “It's pretty obvious,” she concluded, “that the two-in-one creature I fought on the way home was a fae trick, yes? I mean, now that we know they're involved.”
“Just how powerful has the bitch gotten?” Renard demanded, rising from his own chair to pace the length of the far wall.
“You know,” Igraine mused, “we've been wondering why she's been having the Guild behave more brutally. It hadn't occurred to me, since I didn't know she had plans beyond the Finders, until recently, but…it's everything the local priesthood can do to keep the Guard and the Guild from each other's throats. Open warfare between two institutions with patron gods of the Pact is forbidden, but the public outcry is close to forcing the Guards’ hand. Dealing with the Finders’ Guild is basically all they're doing, other than their increased presence at the walls of the city. What little energy and attention Sicard has remaining is tied up largely in keeping that situation from boiling over.”
“Madame, um, Igraine?” Everyone stared at Faustine, apparently having forgotten she was there, so little had she spoken. “Which Houses are the ones whose priests are claiming to be able to protect people?”
“Um, I'm not sure I know the complete list, but…” The priestess pondered a moment, then rattled off some names, finally wrapping up with, “Why?”
“Which Houses,” the other woman asked softly, “are the ones who have fielded private armsmen to keep the peace while the Guard is so busy?”
Renard halted in mid-pace, lost in thought. “There's…close to zero overlap,” he marveled. “I mean, literally almost none.”
Dead silence, as everyone struggled to absorb the implications.
“There's something else,” the d'Arras scion said grimly.
“Oh, good,” Shins crowed. “This was all starting to seem too simple.”
“A number of the smaller Houses Igraine just named? Have had a change in leadership recently. Several House patrons have passed on in the last few months, leaving their heirs to take over. It would have been bigger news, I think, but with everything else going on, it's rather been pushed aside in favor of more pressing issues.
“The major Houses…they've closed up some of their businesses, the ones that are particularly vulnerable. There's a lot of calling in of old favors happening behind the scenes, as well as the establishment of some new ones. I've been approached a time or two myself. And they're the Houses with soldiers in the streets, ostensibly to help keep the peace, but…I think they're all jockeying for position to ride out the growing political upheaval. Maybe even to strike out at rivals in the process.”
“Sicard did tell me,” Igraine added, “that a lot of the major Houses are starting to take sides over the ‘Should the Guard go to war with the Finders’ Guild, despite the doctrinal prohibition’ issue. And the various house leaders are all attending sermons far more often; he thinks they're just trying to shore up existing alliances with the Church, and to look good to the people around them.”
“I'm actually starting to get a headache in your head from trying to follow all this,” Widdershins complained.
Evrard shifted in his seat. “I'm finding it difficult to believe,” he said, “that one person could manage all this. A lot of it could be her, sure, but all of it? Even with her powers and connections, and even assuming there's some half-sane plan behind it all—which I am not assuming, by the way—I'm having trouble swallowing it.”
“It does seem rather labyrinthine,” Renard added, “compared to the straightforward methods by which she used to operate. But of course, she's been gone a long time, and it's certainly brutal enough for her.”
Shins paused, taking another sip as she gathered her thoughts, and only then stopped to wonder how much of the brandy she'd actually had, and why she wasn't feeling it.
Oh. Of course.
“You,” she whispered, uncertain if she was grateful for his interference, irritated by it, or both.
Olgun smugly beamed at her, leaving no doubt at all as to how he felt about it.
“All right,” she said to the others, “it's going to be a few days yet before I'm anywhere near my best.” That “a few days” was still months sooner than any of them would have been okay was something every last person in the room knew, but nobody bothered to speak aloud. “Why don't we spend that time gathering what information we can? Between the lot of us, we have people in the aristocracy, the Guard, the underworld, the Church…. If we