“Oh, did you like my little surprise?” Vihaela smiled. “Short notice, but I did my best.”

“Hilarious,” Haken said sourly. “You couldn’t have just showed up?”

Vihaela raised an eyebrow. “You really thought I was going to surrender to your little task force? I would have thought you and Levistus would be grateful. You wanted a way to wrap this up quietly.”

“Having your constructs come in shooting was not ‘quietly.’”

Vihaela waved a hand. “Relatively quietly. I think you need more realistic standards.”

Haken took a breath, obviously controlling his temper. “I don’t have much time here. Can we get down to business?”

“Oh, business?” Vihaela clasped her hands and smiled. “That sounds good. So what does the great Levistus have to say?”

“I think you know. By now half the Light mages in Britain have heard that those data focuses can be read. More importantly, they know that you lost one. Every mage who’s used your ‘services’ is scrambling around trying to put a lid on things.”

“Sounds very inconvenient for you.”

“Look,” Haken said. “I’m a Keeper. I don’t know what you guys have got going on here. What I do know is that because of that focus getting out, a lot of Light mages have got a problem. And because Levistus depends on those mages for support, that means he’s got a problem. And since he’s got a problem, he makes it my problem, which means it becomes your problem. So I would appreciate it very fucking much if you could stop doing things like trying to assassinate a Keeper auxiliary in the middle of an operation.”

“Hmm. You’re right.” Vihaela tapped a finger to her lips, studying Haken thoughtfully. “You really don’t know much about what’s going on here.”

I heard Haken grit his teeth.

“Getting rid of Verus wasn’t my idea, by the way,” Vihaela said. “That came down from Marannis. He thought that with Verus gone, we could pick up his apprentice and find out what he did with that data focus. Or maybe it was his idea of mending fences with Levistus.” She shrugged. “Oh well, who cares?”

“Killing a mage on Keeper business isn’t going to mend fences with anyone. You’re smart, you’ll call off the hunt on Verus now.”

Vihaela sighed. “No, that was what Marannis wanted. Try to keep up.”

“I’m not here to—”

“No. You were here to deliver Verus. One simple thing.” Vihaela paused. “Do you have any idea how much work it’s been to get you Keepers moving? I’d thought you’d at least make your raid here. Instead you send your whole assault force after the smallest house we have. I suppose I should have expected it, really. Losing a mage seems to be the only thing that motivates you.”

All of a sudden I knew what Vihaela was going to do. Shit. Who’s she really working for? I very briefly thought about doing something, then abandoned the idea and started looking for ways out.

Haken hadn’t caught up yet. “Look, the way Levistus sees it, we can still keep a lid on this. The others think you’re dead. Okay, we can work with that. That’ll stall the investigation long enough to let us work out something—”