“Yes,” I said out loud. It made sense. The only catch I could see was that for the plan to work, you’d need to be able to predict what Levistus would do. But given that all the signs indicated that they had successfully predicted that, that could just mean they had access to information I didn’t know about.

If I was right, then I knew who was behind all this. It was the same person who’d hired Chamois. And the reason they were doing it was . . .

My excitement died as I realised the implications. Yes, I knew who was behind this. But they were on the opposite side to White Rose. I could stop their plan—maybe—but that would mean helping White Rose continue to do what they did.

Levistus had been right after all: if I hurt one side, I’d be helping the other. Whatever I did, someone I hated was going to profit from this. Was there a third option, some way I could make both of them lose? I couldn’t think of one. It was too binary—if one side was weakened, the other would profit.

I stared down at the notebook, thinking. I didn’t come up with any solutions, and at last I shook my head. Worrying about which side I wanted to win was a long-term concern—right now what I should be worrying about was staying alive. If I was right, then I didn’t have much time. The indictment with White Rose was going to come to a head soon, and when it did, at least one of the factions involved in this was going to try to neutralise me somehow, probably by killing me.

The problem was, I couldn’t do anything to preempt them. If I attacked them directly then I’d find myself up against the Keepers. I was going to have to figure out their plan and come up with a counter on the fly.

Still, that didn’t mean I had to improvise everything. I could make some preparations of my own. And I had my own allies too. I just needed to figure out how to use them.

I got up and headed for my safe room. I was going to have to think very carefully about what to bring with me.

chapter 11

I never sleep well the night before a battle. In this case I hadn’t even known for sure if it was going to be a battle, which actually made things worse, since I’d stayed awake for hours trying to plan for all the possible scenarios. I fell asleep late, got up early, and by midmorning I’d finished my preparations, meaning that I spent the hours around noon with nothing very productive to do. I ended up rechecking things I’d checked already, talking to Luna, and trying not to wear myself down. It was a relief when the call finally came.

“We need you down at the station,” Haken said as soon as I picked up. “Briefing’s in forty-five minutes.”