“It would have been too easy to annul it,” Arachne said. “Besides, it wouldn’t have given you more than a direction.”

Variam still looked sceptical, but he stayed quiet. “I’ve been thinking the same thing as you, about getting some sort of proof,” I said to Luna. “I’ve got the feeling that’s what this thing is—the information inside, I mean. White Rose might get money for what they do, but their real power’s information. I think that’s what’s in here. Blackmail material. Probably meant for Levistus in exchange for some other information paid in kind.” I sighed and held it up to the light. “Problem is, we can’t read it.”

“If you can’t read it, why’d you take it?” Variam said.

“Bargaining chip.”

“Wait a second,” Luna asked. “It was Vihaela who sent this focus, right?”

“Can’t prove it,” I said. “But from what Xiaofan said, it sounds like it.”

“Then if she was sending it to Levistus, why would she send it with someone like Leo?” Luna asked. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to use someone who could fight? Or something that couldn’t be intercepted?”

“That’s the bit I can’t figure out either,” I said with a frown. “Maybe Vihaela was so convinced it couldn’t be read that she didn’t care if it got lost?”

“There’s really no way to read it if you’re not the right person?”

“It’s quite impossible,” Arachne said. “Barring some extremely high-level methods that I seriously doubt anyone in this country could access.”

“So it is possible?” Variam asked.

“Variam, the things I’m referring to are orders of magnitude more powerful than anything we’ve been discussing. If your enemies have access to those, then you have considerably bigger problems.”

“Listen to Arachne,” I told Vari. “If she says it can’t be done, it can’t be done.”

“Isn’t that a little strange though?” Anne said.

I looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you said that the air mage who attacked you wanted that focus,” Anne said. “Now you’re saying that Haken might have wanted it, too. If no one except the person it’s meant for can read it, why would they care if it got lost?”

“Maybe they need to know what’s on it,” Luna said.

“But Alex said it had just been used.”

“No, you’re right,” I said. “Everyone’s been acting as though the information on this thing is something sensitive. They’re not afraid of it being lost—they’re afraid of it being read. But if no one can read it . . .”

“Well, maybe they don’t know that,” Luna said.

“But they’d have to . . .” I stopped.

“I still think there has to be some way,” Variam said. “I mean, you can break codes in computers, right? So if there’s some trick—”

“That’s it,” I said. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

Variam looked at me. “You mean—?”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s possible. It just matters whether they think it is.” I jumped to my feet. “I need to go.”