“She has a number of compelling reasons. Leverage on the Duke, to start with. If one of his judges makes a shady ruling regarding the service agreement between the city and the Society, the director gets another arrow in her quiver. Then there’s Lucian Lamprey. I bet he was willing to cough up some reforms he couldn’t care less about in return for the director going along with it.”

“But getting rid of corruption is her whole agenda,” Vincent said. “I don’t understand her turning around and using it herself.”

“I warned you this had the stink of politics,” Jason said. “She doesn’t actually care about eliminating corruption. Cleaning up this branch is just her ticket into the upper ranks of the Adventure Society.”

“You were right,” Vincent said. “We just ended up pieces in someone else’s game. You only got involved because I asked you.”

“You were coming from a decent place, unlike Elspeth Arella. We need to look forward; there’s no point fretting over what’s done.”

“I’m still unclear on what’s happening,” Belinda said. “Jory just said we had to go and brought me here.”

“You didn’t explain it to me, either,” Jory said.

They spotted the tower. It would have been faster to cut straight across the grass, but Jason steered them onto the more meandering walkway.

“Stick to the paths,” Jason said. “We don’t want to draw Arella’s attention.”

“She can tell if people are walking on the grass?” Belinda asked.

“No, but rushing across the grass to the prison tower is something people might pay attention to. The longer before Arella finds out what we’re up to, the better.”

“What are we up to?” Jory asked. “You said we had to hurry a lot, but never actually said.”

“Sophie’s sentence-dispensation hearing is today,” Vincent said. “She’s already been sentenced to indenture, and today is when that indenture gets assigned.”

“I thought it was being assigned to you,” Belinda said to Jason.

“The rules are very clear on that,” Jason said. “Unfortunately, rules only matter so long as they matter to the powerful.”

“I could have told you that,” Belinda said.

“Lucian Lamprey has a legal advocate who will move that because the contract was an open one, the clause in the service agreement with the city doesn’t apply,” Vincent explained.

“Is that how it works?” Jory asked.

“Not even a little,” Jason said. “The argument is worthless.”

“Then what’s the issue?” Jory asked.