“Twenty-nine years!” It was a woman’s scream, shrill through the closed and paneled doors.

A man’s voice followed. “Bryar! It’s not as if I conspired against you personally.”

“Twenty-nine years you’ve been controlling the CFB and you never said a word to me! Not one!”

“Her Excellency Cousin Chairwoman Bryar Kosala,” the crier announced, finishing just as she burst in, a tidal wave of satin and accusations.

“You knew!” she shrieked. “And now you’re too coward to show your face!”

“My Lord,” the crier called behind her, “the Compte Déguisé.”

This title heralded, not a man, but two servants wheeling a chaise. A manikin lounged in it, sporting a coat of green velvet, a burgundy-violet waistcoat, a strip of black mask, and, through loudspeakers, the voice of the Anonymous. “Bryar, be sensible!” he pleaded, desperation clear despite the computer’s modulation. “You know I’m not hiding from you, I’m hiding from the Outsider. You expect me to reveal myself now, of all times?”

Faust laughed even as Perry scowled.

“It’s not as if I actively conspired to take control of the CFB,” the Anonymous continued. “It’s Danaë and Julia Doria-Pamphili you should be angry at, they’re the ones who actually tried to take it away from me and use it for their own ends. I didn’t take it to abuse it, and really I didn’t even take it, I… inherited it.”

“Inherited?”

“Exactly. This isn’t about us, Bryar. The Anonymous has directed the CFB for over a century, and I’ve been the Anonymous a lot longer than we’ve been together.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” Her voice cracked. “Not only has the person I loved been secretly dictating my political actions for thirty years, but other people I didn’t even know were doing it before them!”

The manikin’s bearers fled before Bryar’s wrath like hounds from a whip, leaving the chaise and toy Anonymous to plead alone. “What was I supposed to do? It’s not a system either of us could fix.”

“How about, ‘By the way, darling, your life is a lie’?” Faust cut in, smiling.

The bouquets of lace and satin which dripped from the half-sleeves of Kosala’s gown were not cut to accommodate the brandishing of fists. “Felix, I swear, if the words ‘I knew the whole time’ come out of your mouth, I’ll show you something your numbers say I shouldn’t be capable of! Probably involving my foot and bits of you that don’t want to meet it!”

Faust swished his dregs. “I can see why Madame wanted Mycroft here as chaperone tonight. Mycroft, pour the Chairwoman a glass of sherry, would you? There’s a good monster. Perry, care for seconds?”

“Perry?” Bryar realized only now that the quiet figure half screened by tiers of canapés was neither Spain nor MASON. “Why didn’t you tell us Perry was already here?”

The Outsider tiptoed forward. “Sorry this is coming on an awkward night.”

I had never seen Bryar’s eyes so cold.

Perry managed not to wince. “Good to see you, Chair Kosala. I know you know this already, but you look wonderful in a dress.” He paused, hoping for a smile. None came. “And that’s the Anonymous over the intercom?”