Winter Wedding

And with a little help from above

You feel the power of love

~ Huey Lewis

Chapter 4

Revenge, like some poisonous plant, replete with baneful juices, rankles in the breast, and meditates mischief to its neighbor. ~ Wellins Calcott

The dungeons beneath the palace were clean, well-swept and heavily guarded. By virtue of his noble status, Leon got one of the better rooms, with furnishings that most nobility would probably consider a crime against their dignity, decent insulation against the winter's cold and even some privacy. The door had a window made entirely of bars, but at least neither that nor the wall was entirely bars, so he had the appearance of privacy.

"Were you expecting this, master?" asked Luxion. The AI had snuck a drone into the prison room earlier, which provided at least some security if someone decided to kill Leon for some reason. The drones weren't heavily armed, but they had pretty nasty taser functionality if needed.

Leon sat cross legged on the bed, which was at least better padded than the thin layer of stuffing on the seat of the available chairs. "No," he admitted, subvocalizing. "It happened in the book - a little later, but not by much. The thing is, that Leon had already badly blown his cover as being just an ordinary baron's son who'd got lucky. He'd demolished an entire Fanoss fleet and captured Princess Hertrude, defeating the famed Black Knight of the Principality. Locking him up was basically an attempt to strong-arm him into giving up the lost items he'd used to do that - meaning you."

"And you don't consider your own actions to be so blatant?" Luxion enquired.

"Dreadnought's pretty appealing," Leon admitted, "But it's not done anything quite so obviously out of local leagues and with both knight-armours destroyed, I'm not that big a fish."

"The forged letters present a convincing picture of you plotting to bring northern Holfort's lords over to the side of Fanoss in the event of a war," the AI reported. "Convincing, that is, to anyone unacquainted with you."

"Which Frampton isn't…" Leon broke off as he heard the guard approaching, and they weren't alone. "What's this?"

"Two of your harem, master."

"What?" Leon gave the drone a sceptical look. He didn't have a harem. He didn't have the time! There was a reason that most actual cultures with harems had a major imbalance between the agency of the genders. It was rather difficult to maintain even a friendly relationship with too many people, and romantic relationships were an order of magnitude more complicated. Leon suspected that most actual harems were more a matter of dominance and showing off than anything serious. Well, and baby factories for dynasties that wanted a lot of backstabbing among their scions.

He had to admit though, if only to himself, that if it was the two women admitted by the guards then he might be willing to at least try the idea out.

Clarice grabbed him in a hug as soon as he'd stood up to greet her. "Are they being too beastly?"

"Not really. It's a bit boring, but you turning up has sorted that right out." He hugged her back and kissed the side of her head before looking at the other guest. "Excuse us, your highness. On this occasion, you're outranked."

"I'm pleased to see that you have priorities." Queen Mylene pulled one of the chairs back for herself. "Do carry on."

Leon promptly sat down on the bed, pulling Clarice into his lap. "You hear that? That's a royal command," he teased her and got a kiss in on the other side of her head before she pushed him back a bit.

"Not in front of the queen," she hissed - although she also made no move to get off his lap.

The queen looked wistful as Leon settled his arms around Clarice. "It may seem strange, but I envy the two of you. Even under these circumstances."

"I don't find that strange at all," he assured her. "I'm sure Clarice will hug you as well if you ask nicely. Ow." The 'ow' was because he'd just been pinched.

"Er, yes." Mylene managed to say, though she didn't quite keep a straight face. "I'm assuming that the letters found in your room at the academy are forged - not that you'd tell me if they weren't."

"I don't know what's in them," he lied, "But why would I have written correspondence? She only left the academy a few weeks ago and we had ample opportunity to conspire in person if I was minded to."

"That's a rather good point. But why would someone frame you?"

Leon sighed. "I know. I'm such an inoffensive person."

"No, you're not."

"But you love me anyway?"

Clarice tightened her grip on him slightly. "Not yet, but I'm considering the possibility."

"Oh good, my feelings aren't unrequited," Leon declared gleefully.

"Why is it that I find the two of you endearing, while my son's flirting with Lady Lafan makes me want to throw up?"

"...how long do you have?" Leon asked, more or less seriously. "Because that could take a while. I might need paper to draw visual aids."

"Perhaps another time," the queen decided. "I take it that you have no enemies?"

"The Olfreys, if they still had influence," he said promptly. "Baron Sullivan - or his heirs if he has any?"

"No," Mylene told him. "If he doesn't wake up - and even with the dark magic removed he hasn't yet - then the lands will revert to the crown. Marquis Mason and his son might be up to something, but they're both being closely watched so that seems reasonably unlikely."

"I'm not really important enough for this to be aimed at me," Leon pointed out. "And honestly, faking letters is much more effort than would be needed to get me out of the way for a while. I'm only a count's second son. My suspicion is that someone's testing the waters."

"What for?"

"If we knew that, we'd be forewarned. Unfortunately, I don't know. Perhaps simply to see what resources could be mobilised to protect me. I'm on decent terms with the Stuarts and a lot of their allies. Taking me right in front of Gerald Rafa Stuart was provocative to say the least. It's just a theory, but someone could be testing their political might. If they have the influence to get me out of trouble, that would provide a benchmark for what they might be able to do for other purposes."

Mylene frowned. "It's plausible. The marquis seems to be positioning himself to get behind the charges. Marquis Frampton, that is. We can't really dispense with him right now - the traditionalists aren't fond of the crown right now and our usual core supporters are in disarray. It's also possible he's testing how far we'll let him go."

"You can't mean you'd let Leon take the fall!" Clarice exclaimed.

"If it was just him?" the queen arched an eyebrow. "I left my own son holding the bag for his own actions already. Lord Bartford is very likeable, but I've made sacrifices before. In this case though, I'd be offending far too many people he's befriended, you and your father among them."

The young woman didn't seem to know how to take that.

"How is Julius, by the way?"

"Please don't ask," Mylene murmured, pressing one hand to her head as if feeling a headache coming on. She probably was.

Leon nodded in understanding. "Alright. So back to your question, I'd suggest moving forwards with the trial as soon as possible."

"What? Why?" exclaimed Clarice.

"Because right now he has one very weak piece of evidence," he explained. "But if he thinks he's pushing a door that's already swinging in his direction, he'll have too much momentum to back off and less chance to try to come up with something more persuasive. Let's see what he does."

"That's something of a high risk strategy," warned the queen. "If we agree to the trial then I can't really do anything to block any unfortunate results."

"No, but you can stack the nobles I'm being tried in front of," Leon suggested. "Not too much, but if you could persuade Marquis Field to take a seat then that would work out nicely."

"Do you know him?"

Leon shook his head. "And thus he's notionally disinterested - on the one hand, I'm accused of supporting his family's enemies in Fanoss, but he's also a neighbour of my mother's county and has us to thank for Brad not being engaged to the Olfreys any more."

"I think I'd rather he still was. At least then he wouldn't be joining my son in his current idiocy."

Clarice snorted. "I went to school with Cassandra Fou Olfrey, your highness. Marie Fou Lafan is a two-faced troglodyte, but she's infinitely preferable to Brad's former fiancee."

If Marie had just stuck to seducing only Brad Fou Field, Leon would have probably supported her fully, he thought. Well, as long as he also kept Julius and the others from falling at Olivia Campbell's feet. That would also have had its problems. But Marie was just barely of socially acceptable rank to marry into a marquis' family and the Fields would have squashed the Lafans if they tried to keep exploiting the girl. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would have been workable.

If. He shook his head. There was no use in dwelling on ifs.

At that moment, more guards started moving outside. "What now?"

"Excuse me, your highness, we'll need to secure this room while we move another prisoner in across the hall," a guard offered through the door apologetically. "Would you rather we lock you in or will you wait outside?"

"This already?" Mylene asked. "No, I'll stay."

The guard gave Leon a warning look. "Don't try anything."

"The lady I'm courting is literally sitting on me, sergeant. That would make it rather difficult to ravish the queen on the table."

"LEON!" Clarice shouted, right in his ear.

"I… but… no, that's…" Mylene was crimson from ear to ear. "He… he is joking, sergeant."

"I can't believe you said that," Clarice continued to harangue him. "The sergeant's just doing his job, don't threaten to carry out high treason in front of him."

Leon winced and rubbed his ear. "Yes dear."

The sergeant's eyes had practically crossed. "I really think you'd better leave, your highness."

"Perhaps you're right." The queen rose to her feet, looking a little unsteady. "Lady Atlee."

"Indeed." Clarice left Leon behind. "I take it you'll be throwing the book at Lord Bartford?"

"Given his behaviour, I see no reason to further defer his trial," Mylene said in what was clearly intended to be icy disdain. It missed the mark, but only because Leon could see her fumbling with her fingers like a nervous young man about to approach a pretty girl and not quite sure what he should do with his extremities while doing so.

The door opened and then slammed behind them. The guard gave Leon a vicious smirk through the window, confirming his suspicions that he was less innocent a gaoler than he purported to be.

Leon leant against the door and watched the ladies leave. Hopefully he hadn't gone too far with the whole 'ravish the queen' comment. At least the queen had taken it up as justification to go ahead with putting him on trial sooner rather than later and he could probably claim he'd said it so she'd have an excuse to pretend to be mad at him. But he probably could have been a bit more subtle.

Maybe Nicks and their father had a point that he ought to rein himself in on being a smartass. He'd gotten away with a fair bit, up until that dark mage - Sara? Sarah? It was something like that - had mindjacked him. That should probably be a warning.

Actually, Leon admitted to himself, the being arrested was likely something he should be taking more seriously. He'd managed to play it cool since Luxion had let him know about the search of his rooms and the 'discovery' of letters that totally hadn't been carried in there by the court baron overseeing the search and planted under a floorboard that'd been yanked up hard enough it would be impossible to prove that it hadn't been loose enough to be used as a hidden storage area for personal papers before the search took place.

Still, he was under arrest and on charges that wouldn't just hurt him. He could escape, but his entire family were essentially hostages against him doing anything egregious.

"Tsk." He clicked his tongue and watched as the outer door opened and the new prisoner was marched in. He barely saw her at first, surrounded as she was by much larger guards, but a flash of curly blond hair identified her. "What are you doing here?"

Marie Fou Lafan tried to stop and reply but the two guards behind her, wearing the colours of temple knights rather than the royal guards, pushed her on and into the room across the way from Leon. "What am I doing here? What are you doing here?" the girl yelped and then the door slammed shut behind her.

"Enjoy your new neighbour," the guard from earlier told Leon. "I gather lots of you young lords have."

Marie's hands came into view and she pulled herself, red-faced, up to the barred window in her door. "Bartford? Why are you here? Can you get me out of here?"

"Shh, no talking about escape plans when the guards are here," Leon drawled, giving the guard a wink. Never let them see you sweat.

"See if you're laughing this much when you're on trial," the man shot back and trailed the other guards as they left the wing.

Leon watched Marie's face drop out of view and then she hauled herself up again. "You know, you could push the chair over to the door and stand on it," he suggested.

"...I knew that!" She vanished from sight and he heard a chair being dragged over the floor.

The boy shook his head. It wasn't as if she didn't have her good points, but the 'particularly dumb puppy' girls didn't really interest him other than as a quick joke.

"So what are you in for?" he asked once she re-appeared, no longer having to cling to the bars to see him.

"It's my family's fault!"

Leon considered what he knew of the Lafans. Broke, constantly borrowing money to maintain the high-rolling lifestyle of capital nobles, nasty habit of taking the loans out in Marie's name - which was technically legal since she was their child and therefore a minor in their care. It was a loophole in the laws intended to be used by regents caring for a minor heir to a domain, but it could be applied to your own children if you were bankrupt morally as well as financially. "Okay, I can believe that. But how? This is the royal dungeon!"

The girl sniffled. "I convinced the temple that I might be the saintess' successor so that they'd lend me a skyship to go after the treasure island I learned of."

"I… I'm not going to say that I think that was a good idea, but it's resourceful, I'll give you that."

She gave him a suspicious look. "You're not usually this nice."

Leon sighed heavily. "Prison changes a man."

"How long have you been here?"

"Since yesterday. So go on."

Marie rested her forehead against the bars. "My idiot parents borrowed more money in my name, claiming that as I was the saintess-candidate, the temple was guaranteeing the loan."

"...I take it that you didn't come back rich beyond your wildest dreams."

"I didn't find anything!" She started pounding her fists against the door in frustration. "Now I'm not a saintess-candidate, I'm even further in debt and half the temple leaders want to burn me at the stake!"

"I take it that your friends objected to that?"

The small girl was red-faced, trying not to cry. "They did everything they could, but it wasn't much. Julius managed to make an appeal to his father but all he'd do was arrest me for financial fraud so I wasn't in temple custody."

"Well, that probably saved your life."

Marie wiped her nose on her sleeve. "So what are you doing here?"

"It's political. Frampton's trying to get me done for treason."

"Oh. I was thinking you'd knocked someone up."

"...I really need to work on my reputation," Leon sighed. He should probably meditate on his flaws and try to behave more respectably when he was on trial. There was a fair bit riding on it. "Look, at least there's a bright side to all this."

"...like what?" the girl demanded.

"Three warm meals and a bed?" the boy offered after a moment's thought. "I mean, that's better than you got at home isn't it?"

"You're insufferable," she hissed. "Especially when you're right!"

In the spirit of his new resolution to be less of a smartass, Leon decided to give her the last word.

"If it's not one thing at this place, it's another." Alan Rafa Stuart put the spade he'd been using away and left the shed so that Mary Fou Hunt could put her own tools away. He stretched, feeling the ache of the evening's work in his muscles. But it was a good ache, the sort that you had after exercise, not overstraining.

The engaged couple had been helping Katarina Rafa Claes with her vegetable garden. Mary often did this, and seemed to have picked up something of a rivalry with the other girl's new helper - her magic leaned heavily towards plants, but the elf woman's magic was something else. For Alan it was simply a way to vent his frustrations in physical effort.

"I know," Mary agreed. "First Leon is arrested, then it's Lady Lafan. And now Nicol, of all people, has decided to start looking for a bride?"

"Mayhem." Alan held the door for her and then dropped the latch once the girl was done. "Next we'll have cats and dogs living together."

Leon's arrest had been a shock for the student council, but Lafan's situation had drained Julius' clique of energy as well. Almost the entire first year special class was affected by one or the other of the two students.

"Sophia can't believe it," continued Mary. "She's asked Olivia twice to check her brother hasn't been affected by dark magic."

"He's not getting younger," the prince noted. "He'd almost have to marry in the next couple of years if he wants to succeed his father. I'm not sure why he waited this long - perhaps being student council president took up so much time he didn't feel he could until now?"

They waved to Katarina and Yumeria, who were still working. The elf woman was employed by the Ministry of Magic as a gardener, but apparently someone had pulled strings to send her here to tutor Katarina in gardening. As a bribe, presumably - the Ministry and the Temple were both squabbling over their friend's attention. Personally Alan figured that the Ministry was on the right track.

"It's probably also to do with Leon's situation," Mary advised him as they walked back towards the campus.

He glanced at her. She was usually more aware of political issues than him. "How so?"

"Even though he's probably innocent, the possibility that Fanoss is conspiring with someone inside of the kingdom undermines the new agreements that were made under Count Ascart's foreign affairs ministry recently. Now that his father's under fire, Nicol may feel obligated to shore up his family's position by offering a marriage alliance."

Alan snorted. "More of Frampton's fear mongering. Come on, we met the princess - do you think she'd really start a war?"

"Absolutely!"

He blinked. "Really?"

"Not because she wants it - she doesn't like Holfort; but as individuals she got on with us, and I think her being here was a good sign," Mary clarified. "But she's very new to the throne and most of her lords probably expect her to lead them in a renewal of the traditions of fighting against the kingdom. If she doesn't she risks being overthrown… Mind you, they might not press the issue and I don't think she'll initiate it - but given the choice then any fondness for us won't be a consideration."

Alan grunted. "And then we're at war. That sounds miserable. One more reason I'm not after the throne - sorry if that disappoints you."

Mary shook her head. "I'm not enthusiastic about being a marchioness. Being queen would be worse… maybe if I got to be king - off with certain heads!" She swung one arm like a decapitating axe.

"As amusing as that might be…"

"Oh, don't worry Alan. Your neck would be safe," the girl told him reassuringly. "You could be my court musician - I'd want Katarina as my queen. No offence, but you wouldn't fit so well into a ball gown."

"That's… a pretty good reason," Alan admitted. He considered and then took a deep breath. Waiting for the right time to talk to Katarina wasn't working out for Gerald, so maybe he shouldn't keep putting off a difficult conversation with Mary. "Can we… talk?"

"Aren't we already?"

"About something serious."

"You say that as if I wasn't serious," Mary said with a broad smile and swept her arm down again. "But sure. How can I help?"

Alan swallowed. "I like you. I respect you. But… our engagement was arranged. I kind of thought that love would come with time."

She nodded. "That's to be hoped for, certainly. I think we're off to a better start than some couples."

The young musician stopped walking. "I'm doing this poorly. The thing is… Looking at Ian and Selena when they got married, I could see us in their shoes but I don't think we'd be smiling at each other the same way."

Mary nodded, but her hand had come up to cover her mouth. "I see…?"

"And while it's not something I'm proud of, given what my cousin and his friends did back before the summer," he forced himself to say, looking away. "There's someone… a girl I could see myself marrying. And maybe being as happy with her as Ian is with Selena." There, he'd said it. If Mary slapped him here, he could hardly blame her.

There was no immediate response and when he looked over, his fiancee was nibbling on one thumbnail.

"Mary? I'm sorry, I know it's not fair."

She looked up. "What? No, it's… Look, Alan I'm not going to blame you for what you're feeling. I mean, you've not acted on this, have you?"

"What? No!" He shook his head. "I wouldn't do that to you. Either of you. I mean, she's with someone else, but even if she wasn't - you'd still be the first person that I'd tell."

Mary looked startled and then smiled. "That means a lot, Alan. So… what do you want to do about this? I appreciate you telling me up front, but where do you see us going with this?"

"If you don't want to marry someone that has someone else in their heart, I can't blame you," he promised. "But I don't have any right to make decisions like that for you. I don't want to lose you as a friend. I do care about you… a lot. Just, not the way I feel for her."

The girl looked away. "You shame me."

"I'm sorry."

"No, not like that!" She shook his head. "You telling me this… when I've not had the courage to confess the same."

...what? "Uh, are you saying…"

Mary looked away. "There is someone I have admired for a long time. I would still marry you. I would respect and honour you, I would try to be happy with you and make you happy… but I would be thinking of them."

That stung a bit, but given what he'd just said to Mary, it was kind of hard for Alan to feel justified in being angry with Mary. He stuffed that first reaction down. "Are you saying that we can just… go on? Ignore these feelings?"

"If I understand your situation, you can't be with her and I can't be with the person I love," his fiancee told him. "All that breaking off our engagement would do is put us both under pressure to marry other people, and almost certainly not the per… people in our heart."

Hearing her stammer, Alan reached out and put one arm around her shoulders. "I guess you're right."

Mary nodded. "I often am." She gave him a crooked smile. "In particular, now that I'm the heiress, my father would be justified in saying that I have to marry as early as possible. So, let's make a pact."

Sure she was okay, Alan released her shoulders. "A pact, huh?"

The girl nodded and pulled him to start walking again. "Exactly. I want you to be happy, after all. And we're a team, right?"

"The best team."

She released his hand and raised hers as a fist. In a gesture going back to their childhood, introduced to them by Katarina (as so much else had been), the two rapped their knuckles against each other's. "So what are you suggesting?" Alan asked her. "We cover for each other until or unless the situation changes?"

"Exactly." Mary nodded sharply. "If the lady of your heart becomes free, then I'll agree to end our engagement so you'll be free to pursue her. But if I have an opening to be with whom I want…"

"Then at that point, we also call our engagement off so you're free."

"Exactly. And until then…"

Alan nodded. "Business as usual, at least as far as anyone else knows."

They walked together, hand in hand, back through the gardens of the school. Everything had changed… and yet, somehow it was as if nothing had save for the weight that had left Alan's shoulders. He'd been able to tell Mary and she didn't hate him for it.

Entering the student council building - duties there were the one reason that they had had to leave Katarina out in the gardens - they saw Sirius Fou Dieke descending the stairs with a tea tray.

"Are you still making tea for people, even now that you're the president?" Mary asked him. "Isn't it beneath your dignity?"

He tilted his head slightly and smiled. "I don't think so. Just as long as you keep doing the great work that you are. Although, today I'm doing this for a guest."

Balancing the tray on one hand, the lord president pushed open the door to the student council lounge. Through the open doorway, Alan saw a head of silver-blonde hair waiting inside. He froze in the hallway.

Sirius Fou Dieke half-turned to close the door behind him and his eyes locked with Alan's. After a moment, a shadow crossed the older boy's grey eyes and he shut the door firmly. Cutting off the prince's view of Violette Rafa Ades.

"Oh my," Mary sounded surprised. "So… assuming that this isn't like one of Sophia's boy-love novels…"

"No!" Alan exclaimed, stung.

"Tsk." The young woman snaked one arm through his and then patted his arm with her free hand. "It'll work out, Alan." Then she slashed her arm down again once more, in that gesture of execution. "Anything can happen in the next few years, really."

In the quiet of the night, light and sound within his cell would have been obvious. But the royal palace was a busy place during the day and the guards had better things to do than check on the dungeon residents between their rounds.

Thus when Leon wanted to have a discreet conversation, he did so in the early afternoon, after the dishes for his lunch had been taken away. The only person still in likely earshot was Marie Fou Lafan, and chances were good that she'd think her nap was the result of being warm, fed and bored rather than Luxion sniping her with a sedative from the drone he'd snuck out and into the girl's cell.

Having two drones just in the dungeons of the palace was a bit of a nuisance, but the extra flexibility made it worthwhile.

The space across the table from Leon lit up with the sight of Larna Smith, sitting at her desk - the surface of the ministry desk and the dungeon table blending.

"Remarkable," she exclaimed, apparently seeing him in a similar fashion. "Are you sure I can't dissect one of these things?"

"If you're going to tell me you've solved all our issues with light magic and dark magic then I'll consider it," Leon replied. "How are you, Larna?"

The woman puffed out her cheeks and then exhaled. "Unfortunately, not very much ahead of when we last spoke. You're holding out on me, aren't you?"

"To an extent. I do have my reasons, but where are you stuck?" he asked.

"The temple is still refusing to give me any access to the Saintess' regalia," Larna complained. "I think the Claes will get the bracelet back eventually - the contract that the Duke's lawyers drew up is terrifying - but it'll take time. And in the meanwhile, a strong faction is pushing the narrative that the Saintess does have an heiress in our generation… they just don't think it's Lady Lafan."

"Let me guess, it's Katarina Rafa Claes that they have in mind."

The director nodded her head. "The main things holding them back are that there's no verified lineage back to the saintess, whereas Lady Lafan was actually able to dig up a credible bloodline to support her claim, and that the Claes don't want a thing to do with the notion."

Leon nodded. "Katarina's not book smart, but nor is she dumb enough to want that sort of burden foisted on her. I take it that they're digging outwards from Lafan's kinship to try to find a link to the Claes, the Ades or some other ancestor of Katarina?"

"Most likely - it would let them rally more support behind them. As if that's the important thing. Why? Do you think there is one?"

"I doubt it," he admitted. "But I have a strong suspicion that if they traced every line of descent they would find a powerful light mage that is descended from the Saintess. Because according to Ann, Miss Olivia Campbell is the spitting image of her back in her own youth."

Larna adjusted her glasses. "The scholarship student. I wouldn't be surprised if they've overlooked her in trying to find connections to the nobility. Are you sure of that?"

"Even if I'm not, are you spoiled for choices when it comes to light mages? She's stronger than Katarina or Lafan, so once she has some practice and knowledge, she'll probably be the most effective. I suggest that you get her on the ministry payroll before the temple gets involved - in your own department of course."

Larna nodded. "And if one of her friends is working for me then maybe Katarina will join us as well. And bring my gardener back while she's at it."

"Are you missing her?" Leon asked. "I didn't think the ministry gardens were so near and dear to you."

"It's a way to score points in the office politics, you never know when you might need a favour," Larna explained with a shrug. "And Kyle gets cranky when his mother isn't there to tuck him at night."

"I do not!" the half-elf shouted from outside Leon's field of vision.

"Maybe you could do the tucking in?" the boy suggested. "It might awaken maternal urges in you."

"What would I do with them?" Larna asked in apparent bemusement. "Have you met my husband? It's a good job he has brothers or the Stuart line would end with him. But seriously, what are my chances of getting Yumeria back out of Lady Claes' orbit?"

"About on par with your chances of breaking out of that select group," he observed. "Or did you think that your fascination with getting her under your thumb was just about the light magic?"

It was a rare moment to catch Larna Smith or Suzanna Rafa Stuart at a loss. Leon treasured the look on her face as she realised he had a point.

"Welcome to the special hell," he told her, before she could accuse him of being in the same trap.

Larna sniffed, her professional shell forming up around her once more. "So can you help with the relics? Steal them for me perhaps?"

"What makes you think I haven't?" he asked her. "Two of them, anyway. Cleare, you can share our files on examining the bracelet and necklace with Director Smith. We're not getting any further with them and I think we're running out of time to counter dark magic. That mage who got away will get up to something sooner or later and they could be closer than we think."

"Do you think they're behind your trial being rushed forwards?" the woman asked, watching something off at the side. "Ooh, that's useful," she commented - presumably looking at Cleare projecting data on the relics.

"The fast trial is my idea."

Larna looked surprised. "Why? A quick trial may work against you, Frampton has more allies inside the court than he has outside it. More of the nobles called to try you will be his picks than if you wait."

"Frampton is like a dry rot," he explained. "Given time, he'll wear away at the resistance to him within the kingdom. He's already given away one of the Holfort's hoarded lost items…"

"Wait, he did what?"

"A sort of arm, a relic of some prehistoric menace," Leon expanded. "Dangerous in the wrong hands. I replaced it with something that won't harm anyone in Holfort. It's probably blown up by now."

"And the original?" Larna asked. "I think I know the one you mean."

"I destroyed it."

"You vandal! That was a priceless relic!"

"Only if you want to turn someone into a monster, and I find greed does that pretty well," Leon told her. "It was parasitic and deadly to most people it fused with. I can live without having something like that in the world."

The director sniffed. "Keep your hands off my personal collection."

Leon smirked. "But yeah, dry rot. The longer you give it, the more damage it does - but it's weak when you put pressure on it."

"Who cares about that, I want your promise about not destroying any of my relics!" Larna demanded.

"Why are you worried about me and not that fiendish thief, Carmine Sandiego?" he asked innocently. "I hear he has a price on his head in Fanoss. Actually, speaking of thieves… how is Mr Brode doing?" A grin crept over Leon's face as the pieces of his plan fell neatly into place inside his head.