“Suspiciously candid,” Papa called it when he too took a turn on the couch between Martin’s desk and mine, seeking our advice on Dominic’s psychology. Papa was calm by then, but had not been when he first arrived, and hurled a list of curses that only a centenarian could accumulate against Martin and everyone: How could they have let Mycroft—the Mycroft, Papa’s Mycroft—slip, however briefly, into mortal danger? But so skeletal a chest can only rant so long. After securing Martin’s promise that he and Papa would work together to discover who stabbed me the second time, Papa was again a smiling font of sport-swift speculation. His smile was false, though. There is a twitch one picks up from abusing anti-sleeping-meds too much. I have had it for years, but had not seen it in Papadelias since the rich days of my capture. Papa didn’t—couldn’t—mention details, but World Riot is someone’s job. Local city governments relied on Romanova as a backup, but the not-quite-untiring Commissioner General couldn’t back up every city on Earth at once.

“What I don’t get,” Papa continued, “is why the Mitsubishi don’t just sell off some land? No one’s saying they have to give up Asian land. They could sell in Detroit, Dubai, Manchester, Naples, Halifax, their half of Athens. They could sell farmland, marshland, or those hunks of rainforest that just sit there being ecologically important and full of frogs.”

“They think all power comes from land.” Martin aided our speculation game. “Location doesn’t matter, they won’t sell their patrimony.”