“I hate to sound cynical, but it’s probably more than one,” I said. “You know how many factions there are on the Council—they’ve all got their agents and their areas of influence. Leo was connected to the Rayfield case, and Haken already told me that half a dozen factions are interested. One of those factions must have not wanted Leo brought in.”

“Do you think they wanted to kill him first?” Luna said.

“More likely they kidnapped him.”

“Who was it?” Variam said.

“That I don’t know.”

“You said there was an ice mage and a force mage,” Luna said. “You could try that . . .”

“Doubt it’ll help,” I said. “Whoever’s behind this probably isn’t the kind to do their own dirty work. No, what we really need to figure out is what Leo knew that was enough of a threat for them to move like this.”

“He was a witness,” Variam said. “If he’d made it, first thing they’d have done would have been pull him in for an interview . . .”

“. . . and find out what he saw,” I finished. “But we do know what he saw, because of Caldera. He saw the guy the rest of the Order of the Star’s been looking for. Rayfield.”

Luna’s eyebrows had been gradually climbing higher and higher, and at this point she put up her hands. “Ugh, God. This is so confusing. I have no idea what’s going on anymore.”

“Maybe if you actually went to your politics classes,” Variam said, “instead of bunking off to go duelling.”

“Oh, like you’re some sort of—”

“Luna, Vari! Not now!”

Luna and Variam shut up. I pulled over the notepad that Chalice had used earlier in the evening, flipped to a new page, and began sketching. “It’s not as complicated as you think. Here.” I turned the pad around; I’d drawn an equilateral triangle with the three corners marked and labelled. “There are three factions that we need to worry about. First is White Rose.” I tapped my pencil to the first of the three corners. “Whoever they are, they’re the ones who sent Leo to that meeting with Rayfield two nights ago. As far as we know, they haven’t done anything else, but if Caldera’s that careful around them then they’re not anyone we want to mess with.”

Variam looked down at the diagram and then up at me. “You’re explaining this by drawing it in a triangle.”

“And . . . ?”

Variam shook his head. “You are such a geek sometimes.”

I moved my pencil to the second corner. “Next faction is our mysterious group who were behind the attack tonight. We know they’ve got ties to the Council and some way of getting supposedly secure data from the Keepers. They also wanted Leo silenced, so I think it’s a safe bet they’ve got some kind of investment in the Rayfield case. Either they don’t want the truth getting out, or they want to learn it first.”