«Starting with your brother, I assume.»

«That’s the implication.» She had kept many of their conversations in Porashtu over the last week, half out of caution and half out of embarrassment. None of the staff could speak it, so it gave her some scant privacy in dealing with Cyril’s disgrace, and her own.

Jinadh watched her over his coffee, brows drawn together. «How flexible do you think her definition of ‘collaboration’ will be?»

«Do you mean, will it include me?» She put a little milk in her porridge. «There is no way to know without more … hmm.» A switch, to find the word. “Context.”

«Ah, so it’s wait and see. Your favorite thing, I know.» His smile coaxed an answering one from her, though it wavered badly.

«I think I will be safe,» she said. «I think most people will be. This is a stunt. She will follow through to make good on the campaign promise, but after—» She couldn’t make herself say after what, «—After, she may not push very much.»

«She might lose control of it, if people latch onto the idea. Have you read the opinion pieces yet? Or any letters to the editor?»

She raised an eyebrow over the top of her paper. «How did you get to them before me?»

«Only the ones in the Observer,» he said; the paper where he edited arts and culture. It currently sat somewhere in the middle of Lillian’s stack. «I snuck a proof copy. And speaking of … » A glance at the clock, and he dropped his napkin onto his plate. «I’ll see you this evening, moon-eyes.»

He kissed the top of her head on his way out of the dining room, to polish the pages Lillian usually set aside. It was tempting to turn to them now, to read about marriages and parties and theatre and art, but that would be avoidance, which would not serve her in the end.

An essay in the Clarion proposed several people who, in the author’s opinion, deserved the judgment of a tribunal as much as Cyril did, if not more. There was something perversely comforting in that. He wasn’t as hated as Karol Kramer, for instance, warden of the largest Cultham internment camp, or Acherby’s erstwhile adviser Victor Hale.

Kramer’s name came up again in an interview with Saeger, who wanted to know what had inspired Frye’s sudden pivot into compassion for victims of the Ospies, when she had let that aspect of recent history lie largely silent in her campaign.

Kramer killed good friends of mine, said Saeger. Or at least stood by and watched them die of dysentery and exposure. More Chuli died on his watch than their people could really afford. There’s hardly a whole family left in the Culthams now. If we’re going to start stringing up Ospies, he would be my first choice over DePaul any day.