Carlyle had a good nose blow. “Yes, that’s what it is, just like Madame, a secret empire, but worse, taking advantage of people’s religion directly. Julia pitched it as defensive, that we’re fighting back against corruption, building an empire to oppose an empire.”

“To fight Madame?”

“Madame? No. No, we didn’t know about Madame. Julia still doesn’t. At least, I think they don’t.”

“Who are you fighting, then?”

“Danaë Mitsubishi.”

“Danaë Mitsubishi?”

Carlyle sniffled. “Mm-hmm. Danaë and Andō Mitsubishi, you know they’ve adopted all these ba’kids? Ten of them.”

“I heard something like that.”

“What you didn’t hear is that they’re all set-sets.”

“Set-sets?”

“Yeah. Some weird new kind, and now they’re systematically infiltrating everywhere, even inside the CFB. I’m sure they’re part of whatever Perry and your President are so worried about.”

Thisbe stroked her lips. “Set-sets… Are you a Nurturist after all, then?”

“No. Well, maybe a little, uncomfortable with set-set training, not opposed. But that doesn’t really matter. The Mitsubishi set-sets were an excuse, the excuse Julia used to justify it all, the excuse I used to justify it to myself. I pretended I was doing good. Protecting the world. Just being part of that, it made me feel…”

“Powerful?”

“Less powerless, I guess?” Carlyle wiped her eyes. “The world is full of so many bad things, sometimes it seems like good can’t even make a dent unless we do something a little underhanded. Julia’s network was supposed to let us keep the peace, fight back against Danaë and the set-set corruption, but it was all a lie, wasn’t it? Dominic was right, from the beginning, not just every word Julia’s said to me but every word I said to Julia, both ways it was all a lie.”

Thisbe cocked an eyebrow. “Dominic?”

“I talked to Dominic today. Dominic’s a perverted sadist living in a psycho whorehouse, but at least there we could talk about the truth. With Julia it was all lies, even this!” Carlyle tore the long scarf from her shoulders and hurled it away, the worn knit flopping in the grass. “Julia told me it used to belong to Fisher G. Gurai. Maybe I did believe it at first, but I’ve studied Gurai, all sensayers have. I’ve seen the photos, that scarf wasn’t in them. It just made me feel important pretending it was true.”

Thisbe stretched her shoulders. “So you’ve been luring in important people for Julia’s network, but for how long? Years?”

Carlyle nodded, wiping tears from the salty tracks still fresh on her cheeks. “Years and years. I’ve been Julia’s pimp.” Carlyle’s tense hands took her rage out on the grass. “Julia told me once about this special order of monks in the Middle Ages. They took in priests that had fallen, broken their vows, and been expelled from other orders. They helped them reform, retrained them, then sent them out on dangerous missions, not just dangerous to life and limb but full of temptations, to brothel centers, corrupt courts, bandit camps, places likely to make anybody fall. Because these priests had fallen once before, they knew how painful it was afterwards, so they would be less likely to do it again, that was the logic. And even if they did fall again, at least… at least they kept somebody pure from falling.” She swallowed hard. “That story kept me going. After my fall, if I could do that, I thought, if I could be like that, stronger than the pure are, going to spiritually dangerous places to help people where no one else can, it would be worth it. But it was all a lie. There was no order of fallen monks. Julia made it up. I knew. Whenever I asked about dates or documents they changed the subject. I knew it was a lie, I just wanted to believe.” Her breaths grew short. “Maybe Dominic’s right, maybe that’s all I ever did before Bridger, just want to believe in things, in doing good, in God, but I never believed deep down, and now that I have proof I can’t handle it.”