“And you, Commissioner General?” Lesley asked. “Will you release Ojiro to me if you find them?”

“What?” Papa twitched. “Me? No way. If my people find Sniper, I’m arresting them. They broke the law. They broke it a lot. I’m a cop. I answer to the law. And the Senate. Sniper’s going on trial, unless the Senate orders otherwise, or the Court decides to uphold the Senate’s order to kill them on sight. I’m also arresting Tully Mardi, and Eureka Weeksbooth, and…”—a pause as pleading lightness joined his voice—“… in the name of sheer human courtesy, would you please, please, tell me which of the Typer twins I have in custody and which ran off with you? I don’t even care anymore about the legal awkwardness of charging an unidentified person with a crime, we’ve worked around that, I just really want to know. Do I have Kat or Robin?”

No smug eight-year-old ever surpassed the scorn in Lesley’s voice. “How in the world should I know?”

Papa’s laughter rocked me like a ship. “Fair enough. Oh, and I’m also arresting you, of course. In fact, I’ll get it over with now. Lesley Juniper Sniper Saneer, I arrest you for murder, and conspiracy to commit murder, and violations of the First Law, and I know you’ll have the goons outside keep me from actually taking you anywhere, but now I’ve done my job, and I can put you down for resisting arrest, and I figure it’s easier if none of us bothers to actually stand up for this. Do you agree?”

Lesley’s voice turned cold. “You answer to the Senate, fine.” Her jacket’s slick sleeves whizzed as she turned. “You’re a Senator.”

“That I am,” Aesop Quarriman confirmed. “And the Senate meets in a few hours.”

“To confirm Jehovah’s truce?” Achilles pressed.

“No,” Lesley and Quarriman snapped as one.

The Senator finished the thought: “Not Epicuro’s truce. If we call it Epicuro’s truce on the Senate floor, we set precedent for them dictating to the Senate, and that reeks of dictatorship. I’ve had some calls, though, and some of the Senate’s legalese-speakers are assembling something they think will… condone the truce without recognizing… something… I don’t know the details, some way of doing this that means that Epicuro isn’t taking over the world. Yet.”