Silence, but for the mechanism of the tall clock and the voice of the wind. Baru had bumped her wineglass with her right hand, and only noticed the spill now. She began to sop it up and squeeze it, one-handed, onto her plate.

Finally she could bear the silence no more. “And you?” she asked Farrier. “Why do you want us to find the Cancrioth?”

“You should know,” Xate Yawa said. “You’ve already done the trick for him once.”

Then Baru did know. She knew exactly. The Great Game, and the cult of slavers that had turned her Mbo to civil war—

“You want us to bring home proof the Cancrioth exists. Proof we can use to turn the Oriati against themselves. And when they’re exhausted, we can step in as their saviors.”

Farrier nodded soberly. “We cannot compromise the Mbo. So we simply need to make them digest themselves.”

“Fuck,” Apparitor said, with disgusted admiration. “That might just work.”

Baru was thinking of Farrier’s play in the Great Game, and of Hu. “Excuse me.” She squeezed another rush of wine from her napkin. “What’s in it for us?”

Everyone stared at her.

“Yawa, Apparitor, and I. We understand you’d both benefit from the Cancrioth’s discovery. What about us?”

“Well,” Hesychast said, uncomfortably, “if you don’t carry out this mission, I should be forced to … harm the hostages we hold over you.”

“Very sad for my colleagues,” Baru said, sweetly. “What about me?”

Farrier grinned at her. He was in that moment so absolutely proud that Baru felt a stir of true gratitude. Thank you, Farrier, for letting me fight in this arena. Thank you for letting me rise up to destroy you. I love it so.

“It is my belief,” he said, “that the Cancrioth wants Oriati Mbo to go to war with Falcrest. A war that will annihilate Oriati civilization, spread the black-blooded Kettling of darkest myth, give the Cancrioth a chance to regain their ancient power—and possibly, just possibly, collapse the totality of human society.

“So, Baru, if you do not find the Cancrioth? If no arrangement can be made? If they are left to conspire against us, and draw the whole Mbo into their net? Then the world goes to war. At best millions die. At worst…” He shrugged with his hands. “The end for Incrasticism, and so much else.”

“You want the Cancrioth for their cancer secrets,” Baru said to Hesychast. And then to Farrier, “And you want them to start your Oriati civil war.”

“We both know war is inevitable,” Hesychast said, with all the naïve fatherly concern of a Duke watching his favorite bastard take up the dueling sword. “I do not think that war will ultimately solve the crisis. We must gain the Cancrioth breeding techniques. The introduction of our hygienes directly into Oriati bodies will bring them into us.”