“It’s an old saying among confidence tricksters. To inspire confidence in a mark—a victim—you need two things: the mark must be greedy and must think he has an edge over you.” He sipped his wine, then continued. “Your two brothers were conned, Amirantha. Whoever they worked for gulled them into thinking they were getting something more than they were giving up in service, that somehow they had the advantage.”

Amirantha nodded. “Anything that appealed to Sidi’s need to gather power to himself, or to Belasco’s vanity, yes, that would work.”

Pug said, “However this agency recruits its servants, it has many, and they come at us when they think they are strong enough to win.”

“So you think they’ll come again?” asked Sandreena.

“Almost certainly,” said Pug. Then he smiled. “We will be ready. We have resources, as you have seen. Those in high places who are in the Conclave, or who are allied.”

“Creegan?” asked Sandreena.

“He is in the Conclave. I recruited him when he was a young Knight-Adamant. Now he’s Grand Master of the Order. We have closer ties with your temple than any other, though we have a good relationship with some others.”

Sandreena said, “I assumed as much.” She took a drink from a mug of tea, then said, “I’m not entirely sure about this Mother-Bishop role, though.”

“Oh, that,” said Pug. He smiled as he said, “It was temporary. I think Creegan failed to mention that to you.”

Sandreena was caught between outrage and relief. “Yes, he did. Who and why?”

“Who is Brother Willoby, who is a loyal member of the Conclave, and an adept administrator. You are too good at what you do to coop you up in an office all day. As to why, Creegan had no idea how much you might require from the temple before we were done. Knight-Sergeant would get you a bit, but Mother-Bishop would get you anything you could ask for.”

Sandreena considered for a moment, then laughed. “Sneaky bastards, all of you.”

“We need to be,” said Pug. Returning to Jim’s question, he said, “Exactly what it was we witnessed, I don’t know. He looked from Gulamendis to Amirantha and said, “Have you given it consideration?”

Gulamendis said, “We have. This was so unlike what we know about demons, we have to stop all our assumptions and build a theory based on what we saw.”

Amirantha said, “We know there’s a civil war in the Fifth Circle. This Demon War has raged there for centuries, as far as we can judge; it spilled over into our world for the first time, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen again.”

Gulamendis said, “I doubt that’s the last we’ve seen of the demons, but perhaps we won’t have to confront them as we did on the Taredhel worlds.