Hikari had no idea how to approach Ciel Lord, nor did she have the perspective to humor his question. She knew his aim; he came to reveal the obvious: Xia had been trying to shepherd her for these st two days. However, his revetion for the obvious wasn't needed.

  But Ciel's next sentence dispelled her misconception.

  "You believe you and Xia are pying a mutual game of information, Miss Hikari. But if that is the case, why do I know your real name?"

  The spy froze. Her eyes widened as the truth dawned on her like the illumination of a lightning bolt in a rainstorm: her pseudonym of "Mythic" had been seen through. The question was how.

  The husky voice of the Grand Marshall breathed forth the truth.

  "The dish you cook, apple and meat pies, they were a Western Continent dish. Xia also happily added that it is Mercenary Port Eleanor custom to serve it with egg-milk pudding. Now that we have approximated your nationality, the next step is to find out who this 'Amy' you had been talking about."

  She bit a curse, knowing she had slipped a critical clue.

  "Combining geography and incentive—assuming the clothing you used, all cutting edge, are supplied by your handler—we can narrow down 'Amy' to one person: Caislean 'Amy' Aristelle, Eleanor's Searcher Association Guest Board Member. And, as luck would have it, there are records of her adopting two girls a decade ago. One of them goes by Mythic and another is a girl named Hikari Seyfert."

  Thereby, Ciel concluded his hypothesis.

  "The Searcher Association functions as both a military and mercenary force; for such lines of work, you must do market research. But I still think sending a spy to investigate my appointment at the first opportunity is strange," he mused. "Or perhaps not, considering the timing of my appointment and travel, you must be here for another reason. There is one other person you wanted information on: Xia."

  Hikari stared, stunned at the seemingly all-knowing man sitting on her windowsill. She felt naked, exposed. Her mind tried to dig an escape route from this burrow, but all she could manage was a weak plea: "What are you pnning to do to me now?"

  "Nothing," came his reply. "You are free to go."

  The girl went as white as her hair. Her face unraveled into an expression so dumbfounded it belonged in a comedy sketch.

  "Again?"

  "You are free to go."

  "Why?"

  Ciel hadn't expected this response. He debated whether to tell Hikari the truth: he and Xia had made a bet. If his "wife" could make this girl sing like a bird in three days, Ciel would have to make Hikari a Celestial Bride. If not, he could demand anything from her.

  But there was a trap in the bet. Xia never expected herself to win. Her true goal was to use familiarity to persuade Hikari to stay, buying time to convince Ciel to accept the idea. Moreover, if she lost, the most Ciel could demand from her was her maidenhood—everything else of value remained safely in Curtis. Their deal was a lose-lose situation for the Grand Marshall, unless one thing happened: Hikari leaving and voiding the entire gamble.

  Nevertheless, the Lord of Union had to admit his partner had grown disturbingly clever. He'd agreed to her terms without much thought, only realizing the full scope of her potential strategy much ter. He shuddered to think what Xia might come up with next.

  However, the Void watching from above had other ideas.

  "Grand Marshall!" The voice of a running official, breathless from his forced sprint, rang through the night air. His next words shattered the atmosphere: "The Emperor has summoned you. The officials sent to Gongsan Port have sent a letter back, requesting evacuation!"

  Hikari's already pale face turned ghostly white. "Gongsan Port?" she repeated, her voice strangled. "What the hell are you doing there?"

  Ciel answered almost dismissively, most of his attention caught by the commotion outside. "Nothing major, just investigating some supply inactivity."

  Hikari's eyes, in response, nearly bulged from their sockets. "Nothing major?" she shrieked. "Gongsan Port is where every foreign intelligence operative targeting the Yulong Empire gathers!"

  The Grand Marshall stared at his newfound informant for a solid minute. He knew they'd kicked a hornet's nest, but he still had to voice the holy word: "What?"

  ---

  The disaster had begun rolling like a snowball days ago, when the officials deployed their forward force into Gongsan Port's territory.

  Things had started smoothly enough. The envoys reached the dock with its shanty huts and quiet streets, bearing their decree for compliance and investigation. Whereupon a hunched elder came to greet them; and that's when everything went sideways. Many soldiers, drunk on visions of loot, promotion, and vilge girls, ignored the ancient man's warnings and kicked down the first door they saw.

  Therein they found themselves staring at a network of spies frantically evacuating their decade-old operation through basement tunnel systems. What followed was a brief, brutal lesson in why young hotheads shouldn't ignore old men's warnings.

  But things didn’t end there. Hearing the screams, the commanding officer made the inspired decision to burn the entire port to the ground. He had no idea he'd just decred war on every intelligence agency in the Western and Northern Continents.

  These toppling disasters all happened within twenty-four hours. By then many panicked officials, certain the Grand Marshall would use this disaster to bury them, tried to cover up the growing guerril war in the Empire's backyard. They attempted to handle it themselves, calling in favors and resources to save their hide.

  It went exactly as well as anyone might expect.

  The first arriving official, who'd finally gathered enough courage to creep out from the capital's safety, stood before his hastily assembled coalition. Facing the smoldering Gongsan Port, he raised a voice-amplifying artifact: "On the command of the God-Emperor, we demand you submit and surren—"

  His next words remained forever unknown as the well-groomed official with his perfectly maintained goatee caught a sniper's bullet between the eyes. Thereafter his coalition either scattered to the winds or threw themselves into savage combat. And because the universe has a sense of humor, the Bckwing chose this exact moment to join the carnage for reasons unknown.

  All remaining competing bureaucrats—watching their mission descend into a turf war which roasted their st shreds of self-confidence—finally got the message. In a single night, they silently gathered their ill-gotten wealth and absconded from Da Ming with their families, boarding any vessel willing to carry their souls North or West.

  Credit where credit was due: these opportunistic escapees had impeccable timing. They fled, leaving the Dragon Pace more deserted than a graveyard, hours away from news finally breaking of the multi-front guerril war they caused between the Western powers of Eleanor, Curtis, and the Papal State of Montgomery; Northern agents from the Searcher Association Headquarter of Luminary Academy; and Bckwing coalition.

  The highest authorities of the nd were, needless to say, not amused by such revetion.

  ---

  That night, in Mandrake's personal chamber where golden silk draped the walls like captured sunlight, the Grand Marshall shared his thoughts on what history would dub the Great Spy War.

  "I cannot believe every intelligence agency on this pnet somehow managed to congregate in a single area." Ciel muttered, his body sinking into the chair's plush cushions as if trying to escape reality itself. His face darkened with an expression that could ignite gunpowder. "Aren't they supposed to know things? I wasn't even trying to catch them; how did they get caught with their pants down like this?"

  Unlike his Marshall, the God-Emperor of Yulong felt positively jolly, treating the entire situation like a welcome celebration.

  "On the bright side, we don't have to worry about the parasites anymore," the Lord of Torrential Skies cheered, bearing the expression of a wage sve on the eve of his well-compensated retirement.

  "Instead they freaking ran away!"

  "Can't win everything," Mandrake shrugged. "But at least I no longer have to see them groveling and trying to marry me to those scary women. Great job, buddy."

  Animated by his co-conspirator's ck of stress, Ciel twisted toward Mandrake with profound grievance. "And how on Acceltra did every spymaster on this pnet decide to park their ass in Gongsan Port without you knowing about it?"

  Mandrake didn't even pretend to be guilty. "Buddy, take a look at my Empire. It's too goddamn rge. Do you think I know everything that's going on here?"

  "Goddammit." The Lord of Union quickly rolled through his list of solutions. "After this, we need to arrange democratically elected representative governors. We can't keep doing top-down shit like this." He jotted down a brief draft. "Divide the Empire into several districts, each with an elected governor who'll appoint their own personnel, and gather all the trade guilds to elect representatives in the Da Ming senate." He breathed. "At least the ste wiped itself clean."

  "Should we arrange this tomorrow? Or do you need more drafting time?"

  "Neither. Tomorrow I'm putting out fires," Ciel decred. "Prepare the army and carriages; we need to haul a lot of incriminating evidence from Gongsan Port."

  Mandrake decided to point out the obvious: "Mate, by the time you get there, those assholes will have hauled everything off this continent. Thanks to those idiot cover-ups, we're negative on time."

  "Oh, don't worry," Ciel muttered. "I have a way to get there tomorrow. I can take two more people with me. Give me someone suitable for the job."