Hazel was uneasy as the meeting with Salem in the Grimmlands commenced. For a start, after months away he had forgotten how disconcerting the perpetual darkness was. In addition, it was hard to think of the Grimm who wandered the palace as being any less sentient than the hypnotised human and Faunus servants who cooked the food, made the beds, cleaned the rooms, and otherwise looked after Salem and any guests she might have.

He also disliked the tone of the meetings. In part it was his fault for recruiting Cinder Fall and Arthur Watts. They were undoubtedly able, but their sniping and self-aggrandisement were irritating, and they despised each other. It did not help that his tendency to accept responsibility for things she did not consider his fault seemed if anything to irritate her more than their antagonism.

In a calmer moment she had told him that over the millennia she had grown to understand and make allowances for boasting, backstabbing and bottom licking amongst her senior advisers, but humility puzzled her and made her uneasy.

He had a particular reason for not looking forward to this meeting. Although ostensibly he would be delivering good news, he was going to have to raise concerns which the others would undoubtedly mock and which Salem may be reluctant to hear.

There were other odd factors. Salem had decided to hold it over three days on the basis that she believed they should have time to reflect on what was being discussed and the knock-on implications. The first day was focused on Vale and in particular the current operation. Unnervingly she had brought a note pad to the meeting which looked like it had plenty of questions, bullet points and a to do list on it. Normally she was happy to give the impression of simply winging it during the meetings, but she had clearly prepared for this one and wanted to make it clear that she had done so. She also had a printed list under the pad which she was checking,

Cinder started by describing the situation in Vale and the attack timed to happen just before the Vytal Festival. The arrangements for moving the dust from Vale to Mountain Glenn were working well and it was anticipated that the entire dust required for clearing the lines and for use in the operation itself would be stored at Mountain Glenn a month ahead of scheduled. The railway lines from Mountain Glenn had been in better condition than expected and the White Fang engineers were making good progress. The trains were already fully functional In addition, tensions between humans and Faunus were on the rise in Vale and the Respect Party (a humans first front) was expected to be part of the governing coalition after the next elections.

Cinder still looked like she had swallowed a lemon. The problem was that it was hard for her not to attribute a lot of the success in Vale to Watts's propaganda which was fanning distrust of the Faunus and of the multi-kingdom amongst the humans. In addition, it had been Hazel's successful negotiations with Raven Branwen which had meant that there was no longer any need to steal dust in Vale in order to implement stage one of the plan.

Cinder was also expecting an inquest on the actions of her subordinates and chosen allies. Salem had made it very clear that she wanted to understand why the incident at the night club had happened and what lessons needed to be learnt from it.

Unfortunately for Cinder one of Watts's research assistants had been in Vale at the time of the incident and had been involved in the clean up afterwards. In addition, Watts had been with Adam Taurus at the time and so had heard the explanations the day afterwards. Hazel had reminded Cinder of this two hours ago. Watts was going to be humiliating her quite enough at this meeting without her being caught in a direct lie.

Curiously Tyrian and Watts had always been at worse neutral towards each other. Their skill sets were so different that they could regard each other as necessary evils who could do things the other could not do and they bonded on their distaste for Cinder. Watts actually made some effort to tone down his snideness towards Tyrian. While it was not entirely successful, he did better than Cinder who could not hide the fact that Tyrian creeped her out.

This was even before Watts had designed and built a replacement stinger for Tyrian in ten days. Tyrian was clearly prepared to forgive a lot of condescension for someone who had made him whole again and Watts's academic enthusiasm and delight at a successful project combined with his response to Tyrian's delight and gratitude had made him almost human. Hazel suspected that it was a close-run thing as to whether Tyrian had killed more Grimm during the rehabilitation period than Ruby Rose had killed at Kulsa, but if Salem did not mind, Hazel was not going to raise the issue.

Salem after listening to the summary said, "Dear Cinder, why I am of course delighted at this news, could you explain what happened at the night club? Your sub-contractors seemed to go off on a frolic of their own which negated some of Arthur's good work."

Cinder said, "Half of them recognised someone they considered to be a traitor to the White Fang and decided to administer what they considered to be justice. Our joint view is that it was probably a Lynx Faunus who is now attending Beacon. While it is possible that they were after the Belladonna girl as she arrived at the club just before they attacked, they had decided on the course of action at least thirty minutes before then."

Watts showing some tactical naivety, said, "This was remarkably unprofessional of them. Still, they were your choice of operatives."

Salem motioned Watts to desist, "I understand that they accounted for the less proficient half of the attackers. What on Remnant could the traitor have done to cause them to improvise an attack which they must have known would jeopardise their main task?"

Cinder said, "At the time we were more focused on ensuring that Adam Taurus remained working on the project. It did not seem appropriate to ask him why his followers wanted to kill the Faunus."

Hazel coughed, "My belief is that they thought that the Faunus in question may have been responsible for the setback to their operations in Mantle and Atlas earlier that year."

"While aggravating, I suppose I can understand their anger if they thought they saw a traitor."

Hazel coughed, "This next comment should be regarded with some caution. Adam Taurus was angered by the presence of Blake Belladonna and simply noted that the Lynx Faunus had been there. His lieutenant had the opposite reaction."

Cinder said, "The girl was his ex-lover. It was a more personal betrayal by her."

Salem nodded. "I can see that would account for the intensity of the reaction. Still, Hazel, thank you for bringing this to my attention. For the time being I think that this an internal White Fang matter rather than anything which immediately concerns us."

She looked around to see if there were any more comments. She scrawled something on on her notepad in a new column.

"Of more interest to me was why the allegedly competent and disciplined members of the White Fang were trying to dispose of Kali Belladonna and were wiped out in their entirety. My understanding was that the plan had been to use a single assassin the following day at a private meeting,"

Cinder had clearly taken his warning on board, "Due to an unfortunate combination of circumstances, the original assassin had been killed earlier this evening."

"Indeed. Who by?"

"Emerald and Mercury. They acted out of the best of motives as they had not been told that the original Belladonna supporting person had been encouraged to leave Vale and had been replaced by a cousin who was a close look alike. They saw a note on my local sub-contractor's desk berating him for not having dealt with him and wished to please me by acting on it."

Hazel said, "Emerald and Mercury did well at the night club. OK, they were too late to call things off, but that was hardly their fault. They gave us good intelligence on the reactions of the students and the authorities and the contacts they made then helped them in finding out what others knew about the events at Kulsa." He decided that it was safe for him to put a word in favour of the two youngsters. He felt sorry for them as they were damaged children who in some ways reminded him of Gretel and himself.

Salem nodded at him, but continued to concentrate on Cinder, "So if not them, which of your subordinates or sub-contractors were to blame?"

He watched as Cinder bit her lip and engaged brain. "The evening was an unfortunate combination of accidents. Mercury and Emerald had arrived back in Vale early and had no reason to know that Roman and Hazel had come up with a different plan to deal with the Tukson problem. Hazel had no reason to know the note was on Roman's desk. I expected Roman either to act on the note or throw it away rather than leave it in what passes for his in tray. None of us knew in advance that Kali Belladonna was meeting with Goodwitch, and the White Fang assumed that she was just having an evening off. She has a certain reputation for enjoying city life which she cannot indulge in Menagerie. Certainly no one knew that some of the best Vale students had decided to go for a night on the town at the same venue."

Hazel added. "Adam Taurus accepted this analysis, and they were his troops."

Cinder nodded her agreement.

Salem shrugged, "I have not been fighting Ozma for so long without things going wrong because of accidents realistically beyond anyone's control. I can see there were forgivable failures of communication. I can see that Cinder's playthings tried to redeem their error. I do want the four of you to think about what lessons we can learn from the events."

She stared at each of them in turn before continuing. "I have some initial thoughts. First, I want you all to engage brains before improvising. We are rapidly approaching the crucial part of stage one of the plan. I do not want to risk losing any of you at this time. Even if an opportunity looks straightforward, ask yourself whether it furthers the main plan. While I have talked separately to Tyrian about this, in retrospect his incursion into Ansel province was only ever going to have a marginal impact on the stability of Mistral. It was not worth risking the injury, no matter how unlikely it was to take place. I should not have indulged him on this occasion."

This startled all of them. Admittedly she did give Tyrian more leeway than the rest of him, but this was close to admitting error

"Second, are there any lessons we can learn from this about the people we are relying on in Vale? Do any of them know too much, do we need to keep them more in the loop, are any of them unreliable, how far can we trust them to obey orders or to do what they are expected to do?

She ticked off something on her do list and on the printed document.

Cinder said, "Adam Taurus is motivated and wishes to do damage to Vale and to Beacon in particular. I see no treason for him to rock the boat before the attack. He also is unlikely to object to the escalation of the attack."

Hazel and Watts assented to this. Hazel thought the man was a little too obsessed but felt that those present would not see that as a disadvantage."

Salem said. "I gather you all arranged for the surviving White Fang member to die. First, what did he know which was important? Second, if it was that important, who else do we need to kill? Third, worst case scenario, what can they work out about us from the explosion on that airship?"

Cinder said, "Really, it was only the details of the Vale operation such as the location of the warehouses, safe houses, the fact that we were stealing the dust for a special operation rather than for resale and the identities of Roman, Mercury, Emerald, Neo, and myself. Obviously there were concerns that the Bruno team may have spoken to the robbery team about other plans. It is unlikely to be good policy to kill all the White Fang operatives who know us."

Salem stared at her and thought for a few seconds, "Fine, but in light of Hazel's negotiations in Mistral, we need not replace the White Fang operatives who were needed for robberies. Unless they are necessary for the movement of the dust imports and for the destabilisation programme, I would prefer if you sent as many of the White Fang secondees as possible back to Adam Taurus and would prefer that he used people who are unaware of the Mountain Glenn operation for the political assassination and destabilisation work. Cinder, perhaps you can talk with Taurus"

Cinder bowed her head and said, "As you command."

"How about the criminal and the young girl? Are they still useful and if not do we need to dispose of them? They do not seem to have any reason other than money and survival to serve our purposes."

Hazel said, "The mute girl Neo has a very versatile semblance."

Salem nodded, "I gathered. I actually wondered whether we should replace Emerald with her."

Hazel decided that this was one time where Cinder would not mind him pre-empting her. "Emerald is devoted to Cinder and thus devoted to you. Neo's only allegiance is to Torchwick and if we want her, we have to have him. She is also a sociopath. You watched the footage which Arthur took from the VPD files of the fight at the nightclub. While it succeeded in obtaining an offer to attend Beacon she was a little more enthusiastic than was strictly necessary."

Tyrian cut in, "If you are in a fight then you must assume that everyone else who is not clearly on your side is out to kill you. I will not make that mistake again."

Cinder cut in, "I agree that Neo is the best reason for keeping Torchwick alive. Besides which we do need him for the next few months. I doubt that any replacement would be any better and would probably be more likely to be a security risk. He is good at what he does but is not part of a larger organisation and has no close friends other than his doxie."

Well frack, that told him more about Cinder's past than he had ever wanted to know.

Hazel coughed and said, "Sister or cousin, actually."

Watts looked at him and said, "Really, she is a relative of Torchwick?"

Hazel said, "I spoke to Lionheart about them. The girl survived two weeks by herself in a farm where everyone else she knew was killed by the Apathy. Apparently the community leader thought that the Apathy could be used to dull emotions so as not to attract Grimm as he could not afford the fees the local hunters charged. She learnt not to make any noise and to disguise herself. Roman turned up as soon as he could and took her back to Mistral."

Salem said, "Hazel informed me of this a couple of months ago."

Hazel said, "It does mean that Roman believe he had genuine reasons for not trusting hunters and huntresses."

Watts said, "She may be nuts, but she can fool cameras and multiple people at once. Her semblance is clearly far superior to that of Emerald."

Cinder sighed and said, "Emerald can be trusted and is loyal. Also a targeted illusion has advantages. Dear Roman is lazy but a competent delegator. However, he and therefore her are always looking for an escape route and testing the boundaries. If he was ever given a hint that she was essential to the plan then it would encourage Roman to be extortionate."

Salem said, "While there are limits, one advantage of living forever has been that I have a very diversified portfolio of investments. I think that I can afford to provide her with unlimited amounts of ice cream and access to streaming services and indulge Mr Torchwick's cigar habit."

Cinder said, "Roman is someone who pushes and the amount he is paid is his way of judging the score."

Hazel coughed, "While it may come to the same thing, I think he is more focused on being his own man. The lighter the bounds and the more respect he is shown the less obstinate he is."

Salem said, "Fine, no need to rub his nose in the fact he has no choice. If he understands that independent contractors are also killed for betraying our confidences, then does it serve any useful purpose for any of you to humiliate him? After all he does not know of my involvement." She ticked off another note. She then paused and asked. "Is he a boaster?"

All of her subordinates answered with variants of "Yes" with some adding expletives.

Hazel then added, "Mostly about how wonderful he is. He may boast about a heist but does not give details of his employer unless they have agreed to give him a reference. We found him because Little Miss Malachite said that he was good." He held up his hand, "I was using a cut out and it was an enquiry as to whether there was an independent criminal in Vale who was potentially useful and comparatively trustworthy."

Cinder, Tyrian, and Watts all stared at him with a look of disbelief. "Look, the man does take a certain pride in being competent and knows the importance for an independent contractor of not having a reputation for double dealing. Frankly, the insolence and the image are all unimportant."

Watts nodded.

Salem then had one of her unpredictable attacks of insight, "Is he a sort of wannabe Raven Branwen?"

"If he could, he would be. He does not have the skill, power or the work ethic."

"Hazel, you negotiate with him. Try and make him more comfortable with the arrangement. Pay him a bonus but do not pay him the first figure he asks for."

Cinder said, "Should I kill Roman and Neo after the dust has been transferred to Mountain Glenn? Failing that, should I order them to join the Mountain Glenn contingent"

Hazel coughed, "I have no doubt that any of us can take out Roman. Emerald and Mercury also if Neo was not there. Neo can't kill us, but I am not certain that any of us could guarantee killing her if she decided to vamoose and she might succeed in saving Roman as well. Besides which her semblance is very useful to us. In any event, for some mysterious reason the White Fang workers rather like her and find Roman amusing."

Cinder looked at him in disbelief, "She is irritating, ill-disciplined and unprofessional. He is arrogant, treats them with disdain and is pretentious."

Arthur Watts decided to twist the knife, "My assistants tell me that the White Fang transport operatives like her because she shows you as little respect as possible. Roman more amuses them than angers them and he is seen as not bad for a human. They attribute his worse behaviour to keeping you happy."

Hazel continued, "In addition, Neo has been invited to apply to Beacon and will be attending open days next term. She is friends with the Malachite twins who are also applying to Beacon and are apparently enjoying a sexual relationship with at least one and possibly more of the current students. She may be useful as a source of information about conditions in Beacon ahead of Emerald and Mercury arriving as part of the Haven contingent. Having her disappear just before the Vytal festival may risk raising questions"

Salem nodded, "Fine, they have their uses, killing them without evidence that they were betraying us will make the White Fang and Arthur's servants question whether they are next and there is a small risk of failure. Anyway, the affair in Kulsa teaches us not to waste useful semblances. The girl has a useful semblance. We will need to be creative with how we use her and make certain that we never let Roman out of our sight. Never waste a useful asset just because they are not totally loyal. After all it is why some of you are still alive." A pause. "I am only joking. Seriously. while I would be able to locate her, a woman with her semblance cannot be tracked easily by any of you so to keep her as an asset we need to keep Roman under close tabs. Arthur, perhaps you could work on a tracking device we could add to the lining of his hat."

Hazel realised how shocked he was. He did not think that he had seen her so fully involved in the detail of the planning previously.

Salem continued, "Take them to Mountain Glenn a few weeks before the attack. Tell him about the mildest version of the attack we have planned. He knows we must have something planned. It may be that we need to involve him more, but's let drip feed the bad news. Certainly, let them live until after the operation. Even if she could not take any of you out in a fair fight, she might be able to finish you off if you had been weakened, Cinder, suppose that you had just defeated Ozma and were preparing to take the Fall Maiden's final reserves of power and Neo suddenly intervened. Are you 100% certain you could prevail?"

Cinder could see that Salem had made her mind up, "Fine, I agree that an angry Neo would be worse than an insolent one."

They then moved on to discussing the explosion aboard the Atlas airship which had been taking eth survivor back to Atlas. Both Cinder and Watts for once agreed that there was no reason to believe anything had gone wrong and that the explosion had happened at a point which would have meant that the wreckage was not recoverable. Hazel thought that they were protesting too much and clearly Salem was not entirely convinced. She eventually stared at them and said, "I can see that worrying too much about whether killing the surviving White Fang member revealed too much to our enemies would risk making us jump at our own shadows and give up now. What is done is done. If you two are happy to take the risk, then so be it. Do keep an eye out for any suggestions that the Atlas authorities know that their computer systems are vulnerable or have worked out the nature of the girl's semblance."

Hazel supposed that it was an advantage for her of never dying that she could be fairly blasé about Cinder and Watts taking risks as they had limited consequences for her.

Salem paused and seemed to draw up energy inside her. "For the next four months I want you all focused on the Vale operation." She looked at her notes and said, "You all are following me because I give you the best opportunity of allowing you to achieve what you want. Let me make it clear that unless Grimm can be led to the centre of Vale while the hunters and students are out doing their goodwill missions in the rest of Vale then none of your objectives can be reached this year. I assume that the Grimm attack will be defeated within a matter of hours as the hunters and students return to the city. However, the longer it lasts the greater the pressure within the Vale council to dismiss Ozma as headmaster of Vale or at least to severely clip his winds. The involvement of the White Fang will only improve the position of the Respect party who will be able to say that I told you so. Ozma's conciliation and light touch policies will be discredited."

She paused, "All of you agree that Ironwood will offer to provide enhanced security support during the Vytal festival after the train attack and that the Vale political leaders will accept the offer. We need to focus on the ways which we can take control of these resources without warning then in advance that we are capable of doing so. Arthur tells me that if we can take over the Atlas flagship that will give us the best opportunity of suborning the whole of the fleet even if they have improved their security. Please focus your minds on how we may achieve this and what preparations can be made without warning Atlas what our intentions are."

Another pause, "Arthur while of course Polendina and Scarlatina are inferior to you, they are smarter than the average human. Do be realistic about what they are capable of."

Watts nodded, "They would be the best second-rate subordinates one could hope for."

"Anyway, because Ozma insisted on allowing the Vale Council to have the power to sack the headmaster of Beacon so that he could rely on being able to install himself, he left it open to his opponents to use it against him."

Another pause, "If they do sack him we will rely on Mercury and Emerald reporting on who gets taken to the headmasters' office to see who they try and pass on the powers of the almost still the Fall Maiden on to decide who to target. Luckily Goodwitch is too old. Hazel, I will be grateful for your analysis on who you think Ozma will nominate. I will of course pass on my experience of the jerk to you, but there have been at least two new personalities absorbed since we last met."

Hazel nodded. He at least had met Ozpin and had an insight on the type of women he chose to be heroes. He would look for the candidates which most resembles Gretchen and Summer.

Salem turned to Watts, "Arthur, I understand that you commissioned polling as to the effect of the night club attack on opinion in Vale. Is it all bad news?"

"Not entirely, those who really distrust the Faunus were confirmed in their opinion and others said that it made them more nervous about terrorist incidents. The fact that they were dealt with so easily meant some people became more relaxed about the threat. A smaller group thought that the ease of victory meant that now was the time to teach Faunus to know their place. The worst thing from our perspective is that the approval ratings for Beacon and Ozpin rocketed and that a lot of the uncommitted are more receptive to talking to the moderate Faunus Leaders."

Salem then said, "This suggests that in order to get the result we need we will need to make the raid more devastating. It will be necessary for the attack to be during the day and we will need to take steps to ensure that sufficient Grimm to terrify people follow the train down the tracks. Hazel, I know that you would prefer as few civilians died as possible. An explosion in the centre of town at midnight with few casualties will not suffice,"

Salem then continued, "Before our next meeting, I want you to think about the impact of the night club incident and the events in Mistral on our plans. In the light of the silver eyed girl, I am contemplating whether I should travel to Vale and ensure that the Grimm attack in waves."

Hazel reluctantly decided that he would have to say his piece now. "Ma'am, I am worried that things in Mistral might be developing in ways that will not help our plans in Vale."

She looked at him said, "We are due to discuss Mitral and Kulsa tomorrow. Can this not wait until then?"

"I thought it might be best to raise my recent concerns in advance so as to inform that discussion."

She stared at him, "If you believe that it is necessary."

Hazel breathed a sigh of relief. At least she was prepared to listen to him. "First, the fact that Raven Branwen fulfilled her side of the contract a month early suggested that she had a huge stockpile of dust waiting to be moved. Second, my agents have said that the majority is in plain packaging rather than that of the SDC or other mining organisations. Now it may be that she has arrange for it to be repackaged to reduce the risk of challenge, but it suggests to me that the Branwen Tribe has established a mining industry in its territory."

Watts said, "Interesting, but what does it have to do with our operations in Vale?"

"My informants tell me that Sienna Khan has been looking less stressed and more excited recently."

"Still a Dead Cat Walking. We all know the Albains are plotting to overthrow her for her failures. Just bravado."

Salem said, "My experience is that when hope has disappeared fighters either relax and accept the inevitable or work out how many of their opponents they can take down with them. Either way they do appear to be calmer."

Hazel said, "I understand that. It is just that Sienna suits Raven Branwen. They have worked well together, and my belief is that Raven would help Sienna if she could. We are relying on Sienna Khan either not too weak to control Adam Taurus or being overthrown. It is possible that she may be able to strengthen her position."

Cinder said, "If Sienna Khan uses a human to help her take out the White Fang council members opposing her then that will split the White Fang and would only strengthen Adam Taurus's resolve."

"Fine, I just thought I should raise it. There is a White Fang council meeting tomorrow. No doubt things will be clearer after that."

Salem looked at him and said, "Is there something more you want to say today, Hazel?"

"It appears that an accidental side effect of Tyrian's venture into Ansel province was the presence of Ruby Rose in Kulsa. Her father was her husband and she warned them both that someone they could not fight was on the way to their position. They were evacuated to Kulsa with the results you know."

"She told you that?"

"It was by way of an apology. While she did not appreciate Tyrian's killing of some of her soldiers, she merely intended to protect the life of her husband and his second daughter. To do that she had to warn them about Tyrian and persuaded them to evacuate all the students whose fighting styles involved fighting at close quarters. She says that she had no reason to believe that two students one of whom looked like a Mistral Bay princess and the other being a timid rabbit Faunus could inflict such damage. She did point out that had her husband and his daughter been there as well Tyrian would not have survived."

Salem sighed, "I find it hard to blame someone for unexpected side effects of protecting their family. Besides which the woman has helped destabilise Mistral for eighteen years."

Cinder piped up, "Does that mean that if Tyrian had not launched his one-man invasion and the bandit queen had not had an uncharacteristic desire to protect her ex, the girl with the silver eyes would not have been at Kulsa?"

Salem snapped, "A combination of unfortunate and unpredictable events, Cinder."

Do you have anything more to add, Hazel?"

Hazel shook his head. His final point was one which he knew he had to save up for tomorrow and rehearse how he should raise it. Until the Grimm arm had been tested, Salem had taken the view that it did not matter that she did not know who the Spring and Summer Maidens or where they were. The fact that they were not involving themselves with the world of Remnant and the Winter Maiden was now mostly senile just meant that there were three potential problems which could be ignored. It helped that Ozpin definitely did not know where the Spring Maiden was and claimed not to know who or where the Summer Maiden lived.

After the attack on the Fall Maiden had nearly succeeded, Salem had asked him to keep a look out for clues as to the identity of the Spring Maiden. He clearly could not go tramping through the whole of mistral looking for candidates, so he had tried looking for potential clues.

One thought which had crossed his mind was that the maiden was a member of the Branwen Tribe. Raven Branwen has a praetorian guard of around twenty people, half of whom were women. There was one young woman who seemed to be their leader. Interestingly when they went into battle they all wore versions of Raven's helmet. While Raven Branwen was a good enough fighter to defeat anyone on a solo basis in a semi-fair fight, it perhaps made sense of the fact that no team of four had been willing to take on a contract to kill her for the last five years if she had a maiden at her side.

Against this he and Watts had read Leo's files as well a stalking to him about the Spring Maiden who had disappeared. It was clear that she had been overwhelmed by the responsibility and also had been a bit of an idealist. She had been reluctant to use her powers to support the status quo in Mistral. It was hard to imagine that she would have joined a tribe of criminals or that she would have chosen to transfer the powers to a member of the Branwen tribe.

Salem said that she had tried in the past seeing whether maidens would transfer their powers to a young woman who killed them and that it had been a failure. One of the things which Maidens had been trained to do was to identify a successor and when they had not the powers had passed randomly rather than to their murderer.

Another thing which had pushed him away from the conclusion was that Raven Branwen was not stupid. She was a hard woman and a control freak. He could not imagine her being happy about having a maiden in her inner circle. After all, if a maiden had decided to go in for a life of crime, why not be the boss.

Therefore he had dismissed the idea.

/-/

Weiss was sitting next to her mother who was both sober and worried that she could not spare the time to be at a fashion show. Apparently Ironwood was negotiating some special guest appearances which until they were set in stone he was not divulging to anyone. Weiss wondered why he was bothering keeping secrets from mother. Weiss was certain in her own mind that Ruby, Ozpin, Blake. and Kali Belladonna were the principal targets.

On the other side was Yang who was genuinely excited to be at a fashion show. At least she had waited until her father had left for the office to reveal that Team FNKI had extracted the urine from her father last night. What she really found creepy was that the fifty-year-old Parsifal Campion was one of the best people she had danced with, and that Weiss's mother had agreed with her.

No wonder Klein had advised her to go with her instinct to reveal that the ambassador had been in the restaurant but had not interacted with her. She had waited until midway through the meal with Winter and Ironwood to reveal that. It seemed to pass under the radar or perhaps more accurately father had listened and had decided that it was not something he needed to worry about now Weiss had mentioned it.

Clearly last night Ironwood's PR and nudge experts had been readying him with prompts which father would be happy to go along with. The Raddock girl's behaviour which most of her friends had expressed to be something they had never seen coming had allowed the SDC to retrospectively say that they had not understood the demons underlying her uncle and his best friend. Both were now dead. It was assumed that the third member of the three amigos from Mistral was also dead.

Father was technically right to say that the SDC had never been found guilty of breaking the law in Vacuo (ignoring the scarring which could be blamed on overzealous employees). The SDC Mistralian accountant had actually dotted the I's and crossed the T's when he had implemented the employee rip offs and had made the contracts legally consistent with them being independent contractors. In addition, the company store profit margins while extortionate were within the letter of the law at the time. Admittedly the Atlas tax and employment authorities were now threatening the multi-kingdoms with a General Anti Avoidance Rule, but it was still a threat rather than legislation. Brede had explained it as a message that the multi-kingdoms should engage brain as to what was the spirit of the law which in most cases was don't obviously be exploitative.