Burr’s eyelids narrow and fire flashes beneath them. “I want what my ancestors relinquished. I want what I have been denied. It is the most tragic misfortune imaginable to be born in the wrong age, My Lady, as I was. I am meant for a time when the greatness and destiny of lineage was not only recognized, it was revered. I am meant to rule. Yet here I dwell, as a bureaucrat in drab robes navigating a paltry political arena, subject to having my every decision and action voted upon and submitted to half a dozen committees before being sent back amended and annotated and vomited over with every tiny civil servant’s opinions and demands. In my ancestor’s age, their will alone was law. So it will be again, for me. I cannot go back to a time that has past, but I can change the times in which I find myself.”

“I meant, what do you want from me?” Lexi clarifies, speaking slowly.

“What you know, what you are, and what you and your husband have uncovered, they are all weapons. They are leverage that can be used against the Planning Cadre and the Protectorate Ministry, not to topple them, but to gain an advantage. Where you would have used that knowledge as a bludgeon to blindly hammer at Crache, we will use it as a blade, with precision and delicacy, to rouse the right people at the right time in the right way.”

Lexi looks up at Daian, who stares back at her serenely. He almost appears friendly, and it’s the inappropriateness of that demeanor in this situation that makes it so disturbing. She wonders if any piece of the man she came to know actually exists within him.

“And what of you, Daian?” she asks. “Why are you helping her? Do you share some secret bloodline with ancient nobility?”

He shakes his head. “I’m nothing but a country boy, Lexi.”

“Then what’s in this for you?”

“Daian is as dissatisfied as we both are with the current state of Crache,” Burr answers for him. “That is what unifies us, what should unify us all in this room. Crache lied to you your entire life, and took your husband away when he asked too many questions. When you tried to save him, Crache attempted to murder you. This nation is a disease that either infects your mind and alters your thinking, or destroys you.”