“Yes.” Miriam took a deep breath. “Listen. I know you’ve got my mother.” Dead silence on the phone. She continued: “I don’t know why you’re holding her, but I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt—for now. But I need that meeting, and she needs to be there. If she isn’t, you’re going to be in deep shit. I’m going to be there, too, and it has to be now, in a couple of days’ time, not in two months, because we’ve got a prisoner and if you’ve not found your leak yet the prisoner will probably be dead before Beltaigne.”

“A prisoner—” he hissed.

“You told me about a child of the founder who went west,” Miriam said, very deliberately. “I’ve found his descendants. They’re the ones who tried to kill Patricia and who’ve been after Olga and me. And I figure they may be messed up with the mole in your security staff. You want to call this emergency meeting, Angbard, you really want to do this.”

“I believe you,” he said after a momentary pause, in a tone that said he wished he didn’t. “How extraordinary.”

“When is it going to be ready?”

“Hmm.” A pause. “Count on it in four days’ time, at the Palace Hjorth. Any sooner is out of the question. I’ll have to clear down all nonessential mail to get the announcement out in time—this will cost us a lot of goodwill and money. Can you guarantee you’ll be there? If not, then I can’t speak for what resolutions will be put forward and voted through by the assembled partners. You have enemies.”

“I will be there.” She hesitated for a moment. “If I don’t make it, it means I’m dead or incapacitated.”

“But you’re not, now.”

“Thank Brilliana and Olga,” she said. “They were good choices.”

“My Valkyries.” He sounded amused.

“I’ll see you in four days’ time,” Miriam said tersely. “If you need to know more, ask Olga, she knows what I’m doing.” Then she hung up on him.

Two days later, Miriam looked up from her office ledger and a stack of official forms in response to a knock on the office window. “Carry on,” she told Declan, who looked up inquiringly from his drafting board. “Who is it?” she demanded.

“Police, ma’am.”

Miriam stood up to open the door. “You’d better come in.” She paused.

“Ah, Inspector Smith of the Homeland Defense Bureau. Come to tell me my burglars are a matter of national security?” She smiled brightly at him.

“Ah, well.” Smith squeezed into the room and stood with his back to the cupboard beside the door where she kept the spare stationery. The constable behind him waited in the hall outside. “It was a most peculiar burglary, wasn’t it?”

“Did you catch any of the thieves?” she asked sharply.