In Human Skin

by Akemi Homura-san

In January, a.t.b. 2010, Empress Marianne vi Britannia, Knight of Two and His Majesty's favoured consort, was assassinated at her residence in the Imperial Villa at Aries. But for Justine and Juliette vi Britannia, her daughters, this proves to be a blessing in disguise... Surrounded by old foes and sheltered by new and unexpected allies, their tale heralds the dawn of a new era.

28. Ain't No Rest for the Wicked

Imperial Capital of Pendragon, January, a.t.b. 2015

Viewing Pendragon from the air was like nothing else that Kallen had ever seen before.

Just a few hundred miles south of the Mojave Desert, the capital of the Holy Britannian Empire sat in a lush patch of flourishing greenery, at once both within striking distance of the Gulf of California, and cradled by the various rivers and tributaries that flowed into and through it, on to the Pacific Ocean beyond. To see the metropolis was to understand suddenly how the Britannians had so easily sectioned off the entire Greater Tokyo Area into the single city that was the Tokyo Settlement: Pendragon was every bit its equal in size, if not perhaps half again. It was at once a marvel of engineering and a monument to the might and the domination of the polity it governed. Hell, the Imperial Palace alone likely would have spanned two-thirds of old Tokyo, from her memories of it and the maps she'd seen, a megalithic superstructure that lent a great deal of credence to how Juliette had spoken of her father: clever and ambitious, perhaps, but heavy-handed and almost disdainful of subtlety. And while the Imperial Palace claimed its own district, from what she'd been told, she could certainly see how a single man could house one hundred eight wives, the different sets of servants they all commanded, half the nobles in the Empire and their households, and an entire chivalric order within the same building—to say nothing of the outbuildings. From the air, the image it was meant to convey was as clear as it was unambiguous, given how the gargantuan structure of the palace encompassed its surrounding districts (each of which was wholly devoted to a different office of government), within the span of its shadow: that His Majesty was the supreme authority of the country, and thus that all other affairs of state were to be conducted in service of his reign.

And yet…

"It's really tacky…" Kallen confessed. She looked away from the window of the shuttle, and shifted her gaze to the beautiful young woman sitting across from her instead. The sun brought out the golden tone in her hair, her amethyst eyes seemed to sparkle and dance, her kissable lips set into an absent sort of smile, and she'd chosen to wear a version of the same dress she'd been wearing the night they met, this one a rich shade of blue that was contrasted against a lighter shade, the bodice especially edged with gold trim and brocade that did wonders for her…well, her breasts. Even if the heiress had no knowledge of her identity, the woman in the other seat looked the part of her station so thoroughly that Kallen imagined there would be no mistaking her.

Her Royal Highness Juliette vi Britannia, Sixth Princess of the Realm, and Kallen's girlfriend (if she was being honest with herself, that term still felt more than a little weird to apply not only to a literal princess, but also to one she'd been more or less recruited into defending as her Knight of Honour), merely shrugged with a smile that was at once both fond and coy. "I suppose it is quite gauche. Though, in its defence, it looks much better from the inside—and besides, it isn't as though it's not going to have to be rebuilt in its entirety after the next interregnum anyways, so it won't be such an eyesore forever."

That got Kallen's attention all over again, perking her up, and not in a good way. "I'm sorry, did you just say 'the next interregnum?'"

Juliette's look turned pitying, though Kallen could see that she was teasing underneath. "Well, yes, of course I did. You don't seriously think the Emblem of Blood was a one-off, do you? His Imperial Majesty Charles zi Britannia is the ninety-eighth to hold the title of Holy Britannian Emperor in the span of two hundred years; and chaotic and ruinous though the era was, the fact remains that the vast majority of claimants never even got that far. There were thirty-two claimants during that debacle who could be said to have ascended the Chimeric Throne after Reinhard the Kinslayer; and of them, His Majesty was the one who managed to keep it. But that doesn't account for the other sixty-four, does it?"

"So you're saying that…?" the half-Britannian countess began, mildly horrified at the implication.

"Every emperor ascends the throne from out of a period of bloodletting," Juliette confirmed easily, as if this was common knowledge—though in fairness, Kallen supposed it must be among noble circles, and she would have known this were she born a full Britannian and trained as a noble scion from a young age. "At this point, it's become something of a cultural tradition. Admittedly, more than thirty claimants ascending is at the extreme high end—typically it's considered a dull affair if there's not at least three, and five is when it actually starts properly making its way into the history books. But that's why His Majesty even has the One Hundred Eight Imperial Consorts in the first place: hundreds of potential heirs who are born so that they might grow up to compete against each other, thus 'ensuring' that the one who proves themselves the worthiest might claim the title of Holy Britannian Emperor—once our lord father leaves this mortal coil."

"But that wouldn't even necessarily mean that the one who claimed the throne would be good at it," Kallen argued, even as she sat back into the plush leather of the seat.

"I agree with you," Juliette conceded without hesitation—which was surprising to Kallen, though it perhaps shouldn't have been. Her girlfriend (she had not foreseen that using this word would have turned out to be so difficult) had proven to be very open to criticising the country that she might one day rule, with no special exemptions for its culture or even its entire national ethos. "The act of gaining power and the act of holding it are two separate challenges that typically have much less in the way of overlap with one another than most peers and politicians wish to admit. But in this case, the collective monstrosity of the peerage is for once to the nation's direct benefit: an emperor does not claim the throne alone, after all, and is generally saddled with marriage alliances in the double-digits in order to even win his claim…"

"His?" Kallen interrupted, jolting forward out of her seat a bit. "I thought…"

"There have been a few Holy Britannian Empresses—that is, empresses who weren't consorts—and Justine could probably name them all off the top of her head were she here," Juliette clarified impatiently. "And they even have a better track record when it comes to subsequently holding the power they've won. But generally speaking, the number of men who have claimed the throne and held it outnumber the women three-to-one even so. We have Britannia's silly national superstition surrounding Queen Elizabeth III and the Humiliation for that. Now, if I may continue my initial explanation?"

"Right, sorry," Kallen apologised, leaning back again. "Carry on."

"Thank you," Juliette sighed. "Anyways. As I was saying. An emperor ill-suited to ruling, who is in some way dim of wit, or given to excess to the detriment of the state and its prosperity, or simply more tyrannical than the nobility is willing to stomach, is almost certain to find his reign cut short."

"The consorts assassinate them?"

"Sometimes, but not typically," Juliette refuted. "Generally speaking, the inevitable regicide is done by the hand of one or more of the Knights of the Round more often than not."

"Aren't the Rounds meant to be loyal to the Emperor?" asked Kallen. "To guard them and see their will done?"

"Yes, well," Juliette began with a chortle. "Let's just say that the current crop of Rounds being more than simply 'knights in name only', at least for the majority of them, is something of a vast departure from the norm. Lord Waldstein runs an impressively tight ship: your typical Knight of the Round tends to have a great deal more in common with Lord Bradley, historically speaking. The Order of the Round Table has ever been made up of those who are considered to be the finest killers in the realm, if not the world; and a reputation like that does not tend to attract the most reputable or savoury sorts. We actually checked once: before Ser Bismarck became the Knight of One, the Knights of the Round had slain as many emperors as they'd successfully protected."

To say that Kallen was aghast could possibly be considered an understatement. "…How on Earth do you people function?"

Juliette smirked at that. "Oh, we muddle along. The emperors who don't get assassinated early on in their reigns tend to reign for a very long time, so we have that going for us, at least. Rule of thumb is that if you're not murdered in your first ten years, you're typically almost guaranteed to die of natural causes. It's a bit of an unspoken thing, you see: the trick is to keep the nobility's ravenous appetite for power, scandal, treachery, and backstabbing directed away from the throne. It gives you the space to rule well, without any truly significant degrees of obstruction.

"In His Majesty's case, this redirection is accomplished through the means of an edict, which was made by His Majesty at the beginning of his reign, and has thereafter been enforced by the oppressive lingering shadow of a secret police," the princess continued, speaking the word 'edict' with such disdain, scoffing, as though its very existence disgusted her to a degree that defied direct articulation. "The Office of Secret Intelligence, it is called. Its task, separate from the Offices of Military Intelligence, is to spy upon the designs of every player of consequence in the Game of Shadows. Put simply, the OSI was meant to be not so much a piece upon the board, as it was to be the board itself. And it has been shown to have eyes and ears everywhere, hundreds of little flies on hundreds of walls, straining to catch even the slightest sliver of sedition, so that they can smother it in its proverbial cradle for the sake of His Majesty."

"I can see why you call him 'heavy-handed,' now," Kallen replied mildly, not entirely certain of what the appropriate response was to this kind of venting, but nodding in support of her all the same. When in doubt, as the saying went.

"Yes, well, I can't say the weight of his hand hasn't worked in his favour," Juliette sulked, propping her chin up with her fist. "With the Empire having just come out of the Emblem of Blood only barely intact hardly more than twenty years ago, Lord Waldstein serving as his Knight of One, his edict in effect, and the nobility seeing the shadow of the OSI lurking around every corner of every building, day and night, our lord father's position is seen as practically unassailable, to a far greater degree than that that has ever been accomplished by every successful emperor before him. And because of this apparent security in his reign, the nobility look at him and they see living proof of the very mechanisms that produced such a man and his reign, that having every last emperor rise from out of a bloodbath has succeeded in producing a 'higher and superior class of ruler.' It's quite ironic, you know, since I sincerely doubt that His Majesty genuinely feels anywhere near the same level of affinity towards them as they do towards him…"

"But then…if the OSI really does have eyes and ears everywhere, then how are you all so free with what you say?" Kallen asked, squashing the nascent flash of panic in her gut. It wasn't like Juliette was stupid, after all: if she was saying stuff like this, she most likely had sufficient reason to believe that she could get away with it.

"They don't," Juliette replied casually, waving her hand in a dismissive, airy gesture. "Justine made sure of that much, ages ago. All that remains of the Office of Secret Intelligence is the name whispered between the careful words of courtiers, the pall that lingers and is in fact one of the only things keeping His Majesty's power base intact. To put it shortly, the OSI as an entity does not truly exist any longer. The only eyes and ears lurking in every shadow are the ones that belong to us. Or, more specifically, the ones that belong to Milly."

And no sooner had the Devil's name been spoken than did she appear, stepping up to where the two of them sat—like Juliette, she wore a similar version of the outfit she'd chosen during her wife's combined bridal shower and birthday party (which sounded much sleazier than she meant it to, she realised), with her only real differences being that she held a large, sturdy black cloak folded over her arm, that she wore a set of black leather gloves instead of white fabric for today, and that she'd elected to have her long hair cascade unbound down her shoulders in a river of spun gold, instead of tying it back. "I just got word from Taliesin on the ground. Clovis will meet us at the airport with the car. We're going straight from there to the palace, so for all intents and purposes, we're on from the moment we step off the shuttle. Kallen, I trust that you've already asked Juliette for help if you needed any questions answered, but how're the clothes fitting? This is your first time attending a session of court, so they will tear you apart if you seem even the slightest bit uncomfortable."

Kallen stopped and glanced down at her own attire: a black pair of breeches and high boots covered her beneath the waist; above the waist, she wore a white blouse and a black leather jerkin with a long skirt that went to just below her knees, trimmed with intricate vines of gold thread, while they'd taken the time to fasten a white cravat about her neck. Black gloves and a pair of boiled leather vambraces protected her forearms, and she'd been given a violet cavalier's shoulder cape, also bearing gold trim, that she was meant to wear over the entire ensemble, and which tumbled to her calves in a cascade of silk. There had been some debate over the colours chosen, but Milly had pointed out (quite rightly) that the striking red of her hair left few options in terms of hues that wouldn't clash with it, and so they'd taken the risk of dressing her as she currently was, with the colours of the cape and her shirt meant to be what differentiated her from Princess Justine and the group who were so loyal to her that they'd voluntarily gone to war for her sake.

"If I'm being honest, I feel a little like a peacock," Kallen confessed after a moment. "But for what it's worth, they fit well, they're well-made, and they're pretty comfortable."

"The ornamentation is a necessity, I'm afraid," Juliette chimed in before Milly could say anything. "In the Imperial Court, image is everything, and appearances are an important tool in our arsenal. If we're to make Justine's plan of you becoming my Knight of Honour work to any appreciable extent, you'll need to look the part. I cannot stress enough how crucial it is that we leave the courtiers with the impression that is most advantageous to us, and thus to our goals."

Kallen sighed heavily. "I figured as much. But I don't even have a weapon, and I sincerely do not understand how this outfit is going to help us sell any kind of impression without one…"

"Then I suppose it's fortunate that you have us," said Juliette, smiling at her teasingly. "One doesn't bring a weapon into court unless they already hold an official position that would necessitate its carriage. It's considered astonishingly poor form to do otherwise. And in case you were wondering, the official positions that fall into that classification are the Knights of the Round, Knights of Honour, commissioned officers of the rank of major and above, and members of the Imperial Family who can also boast a military commission. That means that Lord Jeremiah and Justine can both bear arms into court, and Oldrin Zevon can attend whilst armed to the teeth; but you and I aren't allowed to do so, at least not yet. Once I knight you officially, that changes, but for the time being, it's for the best that we leave all talk of weapons aside."

"It's worth noting that Juliette won't be of an age to claim a Knight of Honour, not until February," said Milly, leaning over Kallen's chair to interject. "Not that that's the main impediment. The issue at play here is that you, Kallen my dear, are a complete unknown. Unlike Jeremiah, or even Villetta, you have no service record, or really much of anything. Therefore, knighting you, who is not only an unknown but one of 'impure blood,'would draw quite a bit of unwanted attention to us and our endeavours, especially given the unholy mess that the late Empress Marianne left in her wake. Thankfully, however, clever Juliette has found a convenient workaround for that particular obstruction."

"Indeed I have," Juliette confirmed with a sigh, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "You see, if a princess of the realm claims an official position, she's required to name a protector upon assumption of her duties, provided she has not already claimed one. This was a rule from the times before we had enough of the nobility to go assigning knights to every female member-by-blood of the Imperial Family, and it was generally seen to be unnecessary to go back and update that law. After all, or so the thought process went, what sitting ruler would allow a potential heiress who's filling an important position in the governance of the realm to go unprotected, and thus put the stability of the ruler's reign at risk?"

"Of course, they completely neglected to consider the fact that it's well within the emperor's ability to hand the power to make such assignments off to another individual, since delegating in such a way rather significantly dilutes the emperor's own sovereign authority, a misstep which in times past was tantamount to suicide," Milly supplied with a smirk.

Juliette sighed again. "Yes, Milly, very good. Now, would you rather give the explanation? Or will I be allowed to say my piece?"

"Sure. Got what I wanted out of this anyways," Milly replied cheekily with a wink before stepping back and retreating.

"I'm generally very fond of my sister-in-law," Juliette confessed once a few seconds had passed. "But merciless Hells is she difficult to deal with when she's angry…"

Kallen returned her attention fully to Juliette at that, her eyes wide in surprise. "That's angry?"

"You must not have seen her get genuinely upset before," the princess chuckled, leaning her chin on her fist again. "Not that I particularly blame you, you see. It's very rare that she becomes so incensed. I've only seen it a scant few times before, myself—most notably, back when we were small, and Milly had just found out that not only was she originally meant to be betrothed to Justine, but also that our late mother had annulled that betrothal when Justine was born, and came out…well, Justine. But I can guarantee you this much: that as we speak, there are distant stars that burn with less intensity and incandescence than Milly's current level of rage. So great is her fury that it ascends past anger and settles into a different sort of calm. I expect we're about to have to get our hands very dirty indeed…"

"So…I'm guessing that you're going to get yourself assigned an official position?" Kallen said, not really wanting to get into the troubling implications of her never actually having seen Carmilla Ashford (or, she supposed, Carmilla vi Britannia, now) get truly and genuinely angry.

"Got it in one," Juliette replied, picking up the renewed thread of their conversation seamlessly. "But, of course, I can't do it immediately. Justine hasn't won yet, so while my power base is quite vast at first glance, I still don't quite have the necessary political capital to make my move even the greatest of masons can form bricks without clay, or so the saying goes. But that doesn't mean I can't at least lay the groundwork for what is to come."

"So…what's the plan?" Kallen prompted.

Juliette, on the other hand, raised an eyebrow at her. "I suppose it would be a much simpler matter for me to show you, rather than tell you. Not to mention, if you are to be my lover, my knight, or both, you will need to be able to understand just what it is that I do."

That…was a question that Kallen hadn't even thought to ask yet, much to her own embarrassment and internal chagrin. "And…what exactly is it that you do?"

"Justine wages her wars in ledgers and on battlefields," Juliette responded, drawing herself up into a more upright position in the process. "My wars, on the other hand, are the ones that can only be waged in ballrooms, boardrooms, and back-alleys. We are a team, my sister and I, you see; and as a team, we are each of us meant to use our aptitudes to shore up one another's shortcomings. I am a socialite, and I am a politician, Kallen; mine is the Game of Shadows."

Then, the intercom pinged to life, cutting off whatever response Kallen might have given. "Your highnesses, we are currently making our final descent to the Edwin Drood Memorial International Airport private airfield. Please begin to prepare for landing…"

Juliette grinned at her impishly. "Well! Sounds like it's showtime…"

---

Charles was very well-acquainted with his own paranoia at this point, it being an impulse that he'd long since mastered, but that had nonetheless plagued him mightily during his youth. In those bygone days, his older brother had been the only person he felt he could trust implicitly, for despite his albinism, Vespasian had been born with all the things that Charles, first as a boy and then as a young man, had found himself lacking. When they were both young, Vespasian had had all of the arrogance and braggadocio that was expected of their station, and to an extent still did, with a steel spine and a choleric disposition that his body had been too weak and deficient to properly sustain; but he had loved Charles fiercely, and done all in his power to shield his spineless, frightened, gentle younger brother from harm. It was an errant thought that had crossed Charles's mind several times already nonetheless, but sometimes he wondered at how great of an emperor Vespasian might have been, had he not trapped himself in everlasting boyhood for Charles's sake, and if he had instead ascended to the throne. Of course, Charles was a child no longer; he knew that even were their roles reversed, and Charles had become the immortal while Vespasian had somehow made it to adulthood without his deficient body completely failing him, the sheer fact of his condition guaranteed that Charles's older brother would never have ascended as Charles himself had. Assassination would have been the lucky outcome of that hypothetical, such as such things were; but of course, none of this wholly erased the sheer tantalising temptation of asking the question, though only to himself, of 'what if'.

It had hurt him, his brother's betrayal; it had left an indelible mark upon his soul, the measure of which he was only just now beginning to comprehend. Vespasian had broken their bond, had forsaken the truth of him, the truth they both swore on, in his crusade of jealousy against the one and only woman whom Charles could have ever been said to truly love, and had it not been for Marianne, who had inspired Charles to set about mastering his paranoia, ironically enough, the Ninety-Eighth Holy Britannian Emperor had no doubt in his mind that he would never have thought to trust another living being in his life; and indeed, he may well have taken his own brother's life, his immortality, right then and there. Marianne had ever been his patience, had ever been the one to beg him to stay his hand when he was about to do something hasty in the early days, back when success was a novel taste upon his tongue. And he had learned her cunning—oh, how he had learned…

That was why he'd stayed his hand in dealing with Justine as a possible threat. And that was why, at his wife's behest, he had chosen such a roundabout method of getting rid of her.

Perhaps she might even be of some use, he imagined, if she managed to survive this. After all, he'd brought Friederike's ambition and the threat she posed to heel long ago; the dangled promise of ascension after his death would keep her loyal, and perhaps the same might be true of his and Marianne's eldest.

He had been seated upon the throne of the Chimera, the serpent and lion which Britannia's flag had on display oh so brilliantly all around him, before the doors had been opened and the supplicants had been allowed to enter the throne room. He'd held court like this more often these days, what with the fact that he was simply too old, now, to enter with all the drama and gravitas that had once been the cornerstone of his rule, of his presence at court—he was a large man, and arthritis had begun to get the better of him as he approached sixty. All the stomping and flourishing he had done in his younger years began to yield only further damage to his ageing body as he kept it up, and at Marianne's behest, he did his best to look after himself—and in fairness, he could hardly think of how he might live it down if he had to experience the rest of eternity with joint pain because he'd been stubborn.

But of course, that meant that the dynamic that suffused the throne room, and indeed the rest of the courtiers in attendance, was subtly distinct from how it had been in days past. He could not exactly put his finger upon the precise nature of the distinction, as it was more a feeling than something that lent itself to easy articulation, but he was as certain of its existence as he was of his own.

"Presenting His Royal Highness Clovis la Britannia, Second Prince of the Realm; Her Excellency the Prime Minister Friederike el Britannia, Second Princess of the Realm, High Chancellor, Minister of the Interior; Her Royal Highness Marrybell mel Britannia, Fifth Princess of the Realm; Her Royal Highness Juliette vi Britannia, Sixth Princess of the Realm; Her Royal Highness Euphemia li Britannia, Seventh Princess of the Realm; Her Highness Princess-Consort Carmilla vi Britannia, wife of the Fourth Princess of the Realm; Her Excellency the Minister of Foreign Affairs Countess Priscilla, of the House of Maldini; and their honoured attendants!" the herald called out, and Charles felt a twinge of pity for the man, that his was a lot that necessitated speaking that many names and titles in one go—and having to keep them all straight so as to recite them all correctly at a glance, to boot. It was something that Charles himself privately held some doubt in his ability to accomplish. That momentary spot of empathy came and went, however; and in its absence, he took the time to consider as the mass of finery that denoted the attendees swept in through the great double doors that barred entry to the throne room.

There was quite the stir from the already-gathered courtiers, his own progeny included, but Charles tuned all of it out, the benefit of dozens if not hundreds of hours of practice doing exactly that. It was more than a little odd, seeing Clovis at court; he held no affection for Gabrielle, but no enmity either, which was more than he could say for most of the remaining one hundred six—Gabrielle had proven herself to have possessed the wisdom, or perhaps merely the simple gentility of nature, to endeavour to remain at the very least cordial with Marianne at all times, and to the best of his knowledge, she even refrained from speaking ill of her now that she was 'dead'. This regard had communicated itself to some degree in the direction of the son he had sired upon her, leaving him with no strong feelings towards the young man one way or the other. He had no use for Clovis, not really; what need was there for art, after all, in the world they meant to build, where the root of misunderstanding and deception in the disparity of individual perspectives was to be a thing of the barbaric past? When all could see the world as all others did, what use was there for a painter's brush? But there was a steel in him, now, which Charles had missed the development of, for all that Clovis seemed more than willing to allow firmer hands than his to take the lead.

The next to bear up under the weight of his perception was his second-eldest daughter, Friederike, and it surprised him that she had not taken up a leadership role, brilliant weaver of webs and representation of all that he despised in the world that she was. His read on her had always been that she would never get herself visibly involved in a cause unless she owned and directed every last facet of it, and yet…still she seemed to look to others. His paranoia raised its ugly head within the shackled depths of his mastered mind, and he felt the corresponding itch at the back of his eye to bring forth his Geass, and to delve into her recollections to see what she knew; but he had beaten that hound enough that he needed but raise his proverbial hand to have it back down and cower before him. No, he would not allow himself to grow over-reliant on this trick of his, to have it escape his control entirely; and certainly not in front of the entire court. The non-zero risk of having to delve into the memories of multiple individuals preemptively gave him a headache, and so he allowed the cooler parts of his mind to prevail. It did not matter what did or did not happen to Friederike; neither that, nor how she grew or changed. She was the same creature deep down, and the goal of his grand vision was to ensure that such a creature never got the opportunity to ascend to the throne.

The plunging of the Sword of Akasha into the bosom of the Collective Unconscious was all that he needed to worry about. It was his sworn purpose, and his sole concern.

He slipped his gaze then to Carmilla, the girl Marianne had envisioned as the bride of the boy who would have been their firstborn son, Lelouch; the girl, now a young woman, had recently wedded Justine, or so he'd been told, but she seemed…cheerful, almost, for all that every step she took oozed more lethality than the last. She was his daughter-in-law, now, he supposed; and if not for Friederike's presence, he would have thought her the most likely leader of this little band. And yet, even she stood in deference to another.

It occurred to Charles, then, suddenly, that he may well have just sent the one they looked to as their leader, of a sort (perplexing though the thought was to him, especially in the case of some of them), off to a warzone to perish. Which, on the one hand, ought to have brought him some measure of comfort, that he'd cut the head from the proverbial snake, nipping whatever undetermined threat Justine may or may not have brought upon his reign and his plans in the bud. But that nonetheless left the fact that if that was true, then the purpose of their presence was unknown to him; and paranoid or not, he did not like the feeling of not knowing the goals of others—not knowing if it was a snake he had beheaded, or a hydra.

And yet, far from coming forth and attempting to address him, their group seemed content to slink off into the crowd, staying together but mingling nonetheless—there was Marrybell, there was Euphemia, and there was Olivia's daughter, Oldrin, keeping in a trio; while Friederike and Priscilla mingled adjacent to them, as though they wished to signify some common interest. Carmilla, Juliette, and a redheaded girl dressed in the garb of a wandering or mercenary duelist from the early days of his reign, before peace had truly settled, all banded together around Clovis, and were receiving well-wishes from some of the other courtiers: Lupin and Vergamon, Rochefort and Rathbone, pairs he never would have expected to see from factions that were typically cordial at best, but each powerful and illustrious in their own right, seemed to gather around and talk, engaging one another amiably, as the little company that had formed up around Justine seemed to have formed their centre.

A moment later, he recalled why that might have been the case, that each had some special interest in one or more of the young women who had followed Justine to war; and he knew in that moment that his method of doing away with Justine had only galvanised them, inspiring them to unify their influence with the bloc that was beginning to form. He had misstepped quite egregiously; but one look at Luciano Bradley, who was eyeing them none too subtly, as though just barely managing to withhold himself from joining in, brought to Charles's mind both the recollection of the fact that the one-eyed scoundrel's obsession with Justine had failed to alleviate, and in fact might only have grown further entrenched over time, as well as the sobering knowledge that his attempt to do away with Justine as a potential threat under the auspices of Geass had been a necessity. It was a bitter trade-off that he had had to make, curtailing the possible danger she might have posed as a Geass user (never before had the Ragnarök Connection flared twice in such quick succession, leading him to believe that it was far more likely to be a result of the entity that V.V. had inadvertently released rather than that of anyone gaining a Geass contract) at the expense of increasing the political threat that she represented quite substantially; but with all that was going wrong all around him and those he cared about, as well as the lingering spectre of an as-of-yet unknown manipulator hanging the Sword of Damocles above his head, mostly inactive but undeniably present, he wasn't a fanciful enough man to expect that there'd have been any good or clean solutions put before him.

Surviving the Emblem of Blood had managed to quite thoroughly disabuse him of that fool notion.

Regardless, there were more pressing matters in dire need of consideration than the task of handling his brood, or at least attempting it; in his mind, herding cats would be preferable, as at least where the cats were concerned, their motivations could be known and accounted for. The entity that his older brother had discovered in the crypt beneath the pyramid was still on the loose after having wiped the Nile River and all of its surrounding areas clean of all life—what was one young woman's ambition, who was essentially still little more than a girl, in comparison to a creature that could wreak devastation on that scale?

No, the tableau before him was one of trivialities and mundanities.

In the end, the plan was all that mattered.

---

Arsène Lupin, Duke of Rocambole, was the third head of the House of Lupin to bear that name. As the orphaned scion of his house—his mother Suzanne, the Duchess of Rocambole, having died under some suspicious circumstances when the boy was young—he had for many years before this led an oddly private life, what with his estates being under the management of his rather tepid uncle, Percival, Earl of Blakeney. That had all changed the moment it became known that he'd made the decision to attend the youth program of Ad Victoriam Military Academy alongside his adoptive sister, Maria Valentine (who was herself notably orphaned by the same tragic 'accident' as had befallen the good duchess), and thus eventually brought himself into contact with a rather notorious princess of the realm, in the form of her wife. These things, Milly knew because she had made it her business to know, especially when it became clear that one of her wife's school friends and wedding guests, Hecate Gaunt, actually had some level of romantic involvement with the aforementioned ward. And so when the young lord had approached their group openly instead of through the use of a retainer or aide as an intermediary—and during a session of court to boot—bearing with him an offer to call upon him at the townhouse his family owned on Rickard Row, Milly knew enough of the redheaded young nobleman's reputation to understand that he was essentially putting his cover under direct scrutiny with such a bold and audacious move. It was, as Juliette had put it, a gesture of good faith, and Milly would be lying to claim that he didn't at the very least manage to secure her attention.

By the time that His Imperial Majesty had chosen to retire, thus calling the day's session of court to a close, the midmorning had bled into the early afternoon, with the sun high and the air brisk. It was there, at the steps of the palace, that the group went their separate ways: Euphemia and Mycroft, Marrybelle, and Oldrin all piled in with Clovis on his way back to Warwick Palace for luncheon, and eventually from there back onto Lilith; Taliesin took Friederike, Priscilla, Juliette, and Kallen in another of their cars (the Panther De Ville, if Milly wasn't mistaken) off to Friederike's offices to see about their own joint machinations; and last but not least, Simon came along with the Phantom, bearing Milly and Naoto, who had proven himself her most capable secretary and aide, off across this part of the city—Sayoko having already secreted herself into the vehicle with them, to Naoto's muted start and Milly's complete lack of surprise.

Still, Lord Stadtfeld was learning quickly not to doubt Milly's personal shinobi-turned-maidservant, and in her mind, that was impressive enough in its own right.

Pendragon was a massive city, a true megalopolis. At a population of around fifteen million at last count, while it was certainly dwarfed by many cities within the territory of the Chinese Federation, the high cost of living in the capital, which meant that the nobility and their households made up between a quarter and a third of the city's inhabitants (the remainder being mostly wealthy merchants and businesspeople), let it claim the status of perhaps the most splendid, vibrant city in the world; and even should a detractor seek to contest that claim, it was inarguable that the Imperial Capital was certainly in the running for such a title. Unfortunately, this, combined with the fact that the peers of the realm had a practically pathological urge to display their wealth and power, meant that it would be unseemly for a woman of her stature to be witnessed taking advantage of the city's robust mass transit infrastructure (which was, much like hidden passages for servants, not something one spoke of in polite company), especially given her recent elevation. And so, the three of them drove from the Palace District, past St. Darwin Street and the offices of government, to where the higher-ranked nobles made their homes in the capital—St. George's Square, Elizabeth III Avenue, and the most prestigious and coveted address of all, Rickard Row.

Well, I imagine we're going to be here and driving for quite a while, Milly thought to herself. Might as well try to make some conversation…

"So, how are you liking your first time in Pendragon thus far, Lord Stadtfeld?" she asked, just to break the ice.

Her aide was staring out of the window of the car with a carefully blank look on his strong-browed yet boyishly handsome face, though his almond-shaped and slightly-angled bright, electric blue eyes were noticeably wide with wonder. And to his credit, when she called upon him, he didn't startle, and instead he barely did more than blink in surprise, running a hand through his shoulder-length crimson hair. He clearly took much more strongly after his father than his younger sister did, but the family resemblance between Naoto and Kallen was quite striking nonetheless. "It's…certainly very large, your highness…"

"Yes, well," she sighed, with phantom images of certain royals suffering a procession of creative, very painful, and bloody deaths dancing in her mind as she spoke. "My advice to you is not to get too used to the view. Come the day of His Majesty's death, this entire place will be a glorified war zone. Usually, the political backstabbing and infighting of the Imperial Family would serve to pre-emptively cull the potential claimants, but with the moratorium on political violence in effect, the upcoming succession is likely to be bloodier and more chaotic by far than any we've ever seen—with the marked exception of the Emblem of Blood, of course."

Naoto stilled for a moment, pausing in his thoughts to choose his words with visible caution, and she had to admit that with how his pensive expression seemed to highlight the sharper, more angular and more classically Britannian elements of his face, she could begin to see how he'd become so very popular with many who worked under her, regardless of gender. He looked for all the world like he could have been a male idol, had his country avoided poking the great slumbering beast that was the Britannia of half a decade ago. "I've actually recently taken the opportunity to do some research into the circumstances of past imperial successions, Princess Carmilla. What's been recorded in the accounts that I can find often seems…unbelievable."

"You'd do well to learn to believe it, Lord Stadtfeld," Milly replied. "Because where Britannia is concerned, succession is something of a blood sport. It's how we've had so many different emperors in all of two centuries. An emperor reigns for twenty, thirty, forty years, and then there's a succession of shorter reigns, all quick and bloody, before another claims the throne for another few decades. It's in our blood, to an extent; and all His Majesty's edict has done is keep a lid on that pot as it boiled. The moment he falters, or is otherwise unable to enforce his will, all that suppressed ambition, resentment, double-dealing, malice, and treachery comes flowing forth to make up for lost time, with interest. If the Empire survives afterwards, I think it's fair to say that this kind of edict will serve as a cautionary tale for rulers of this nation from now on and into posterity…"

"That…doesn't seem sustainable, if you don't mind me saying so, your highness," Naoto remarked.

"Oh, you can be sure that it isn't," she replied easily, having long since made her peace with it. "But I sincerely doubt His Majesty much cares for such concerns one way or another, since he certainly doesn't account for them. I sometimes wonder, in fact, whether he even intends for Britannia as a polity to survive him in the first place…"

But that's just as well, I think, Milly concluded silently. Regardless of his actual intentions, the Holy Britannian Empire that produced Charles zi Britannia will surely perish alongside him… And when that day comes to pass, we will be there, to make what we will out of its ashes…

"I took the liberty of confirming the rumours, ojō-sama," Sayoko spoke into the silence that ensued. "Her name is Nishimura Ayame, and she's been a servant there since about a month before the war began. I remember the Nishimura were prominent politically when I was living in Ikebukuro; they were some of the major leaders of the faction pushing against the escalation of force against Britannia in the Diet, but as tensions between both empires continued to rise, and eventually Emperor Boruhito began giving those who called for war his support, they fled so as not to be branded sympathisers or dissidents. Ayame is their only child, as it happens."

"Very good," Milly nodded. "And I trust you've already made arrangements for Juliette to receive the same information?"

Sayoko nodded. "Of course."

Milly smiled wryly. "Whatever would I do without you…"

"I'm afraid I'm somewhat unclear on why I've been brought along," Naoto confessed. "I have my suspicions, but no confirmation either way."

"I expect that the good duke will have some manner of proposition for us when we arrive," Milly explained airily, swirling her wrist in a gently dismissive gesture. "Arsène Lupin is, after all, the true head of the single largest criminal syndicate in the world. He might have heard something or other about the deal I struck with the Majima Clan several years ago, and is of the belief that I'm someone he can negotiate with. I imagine that the fact that his sister's own paramour is currently every bit as much in harm's way as my wife is also a substantial motivation behind this. From what I can tell, he and his sister are rather close. That's where you come in: you're there to help us get the bureaucracy of our association rolling as soon as we've agreed upon an arrangement—as if the man is offering us what I have reason to believe he is, time is absolutely of the essence."

"A…criminal syndicate?"

"Smuggling, primarily," Sayoko supplied readily. "As well as an established arms dealing business, several racketeering operations in the E.U., at least a dozen rings of fences, a considerable investment in pirates operating from Cape Horn to the Indian Ocean, four or five different money-laundering schemes… The Duke of Rocambole is in many ways the modern-day Moriarty. My shinobi have run across his agents on many occasions, particularly in the course of monitoring the black market. It's neither exaggeration nor hyperbole to say that more than thirty percent of the transactions that take place in the criminal underworld ultimately wind up contributing financially to any of several different bank accounts Arsène Lupin owns under various pseudonyms."

"He's stayed out of Area Eleven thus far, at least," Milly added with a shrug of her own as she saw the futurism and the splendour of Pendragon pass by in her periphery. "I can only assume that he's done so out of a sense of professional courtesy, which is why I'm willing to treat with him seriously; unlike various profiteers and robber barons who sought to establish a foothold in Area Eleven before the viceroyalty could find its footing, I haven't had to send the heads of some of his agents to his doorstep in a box, and frankly, that's really quite refreshing at this point…"

Naoto nodded slowly. "…I'll pull up the grey ledgers for the meeting, then."

"Good," Milly praised; then, she continued: "You can also consider this an assessment of sorts."

"…May I ask what I'm being assessed for, exactly?" the redheaded boy inquired calmly, raising a single strong crimson brow—very much inherited from Stephen, she'd wager; though, it would be a fool's bet, given that said eyebrows were for all intents and purposes identical to one another.

"A new position," Milly summarised. "You've acquitted yourself admirably thus far—you're a very capable subordinate, Lord Stadtfeld, and I do not say that lightly—but organisations of all stripes are filled with people who were promoted to their current level of incompetence. To that end, instead of simply granting you this promotion, this meeting today will be your trial run as my retainer. If you demonstrate a capacity to perform well under that kind of pressure, I'll arrange for it to become a permanent elevation in your status."

"…With all due respect, your highness," Naoto began slowly, seeming to measure each word with a great deal of care. "Would it not be more appropriate to grant such a title to…"

Milly chortled at the meaningful look he shot in Sayoko's direction; the Stadtfeld siblings' quite glaring lack of understanding of the very same setting she was born and raised in, and that they, too, were born in, as well, was as quaint now as it had been when she'd first encountered it, for all that the surprise of those first few awkward fumblings to establish a proper dynamic was very firmly a thing of the past. "It's a very particular choice of words you made just there, and perhaps even an unintentionally illuminating one. Would it be fitting for Sayoko to take the position of my retainer? Yes, I should say so. But it would by no means be appropriate; after all, a retainer is, rather paradoxically, a position that constitutes a high degree of visibility, and that would only serve to frustrate Sayoko's more clandestine efforts, shall we say? As far as Britannian high society is concerned, Sayoko is my body servant, and up until my wedding, one could even have gone so far as to call her my majordomo, if not for the fact that my wife was for all intents and purposes a ward of my family, and as such, her man Taliesin naturally fell into that position. Elevating someone in that situation to the station of my retainer would be inappropriate in and of itself; and even that explanation notably leaves out the fact that she's also a Number in the eyes of the realm.

"As the ascendant viceroy of Area Eleven—the fastest-growing territory in the empire, by the way, in terms of both sheer material wealth and gross domestic product—as well as the wife and consort of the so-called 'Commoner Princess', I'm allowed a fair degree of leeway regarding my alleged 'eccentricities' in the eyes of the court," Milly explained, resting her elbow against the door-frame of the car and propping up her chin with her fist as she spoke. "Naming the 'half-breed' son and spare of a vassal of mine—who's a prominent nobleman in his own right, mind you—as my retainer won't see an eyebrow raised, especially once Kallen is knighted, and news of her and Juliette's romantic entanglement hits the aristocratic rumour mill. Sayoko, on the other hand, is entirely a bridge too far."

"…I see…" Naoto replied pensively, his brow furrowing; he looked none too pleased, of course, but at least she was reasonably certain he understood. Regardless of her own feelings on this particular subject, the facts of the matter were as they were, and the cold hard truth was that they didn't yet have the requisite pull to change that.

Not that they were looking to be in the business of 'reforming' the empire, anyways, but still.

"If it helps any," Milly added in to sweeten the deal. "The promotion, such as it is, will constitute a negligible shift for you, professionally. Essentially, you'll be expected to accompany me when I'm to strike an official deal with anyone of similar stature, and to work more closely with Sayoko moving forward. The rest is essentially just everything that you've already been doing."

Just as she finished speaking, the car began to slow beneath her, now approaching their destination. A silence fell over the inside of the vehicle as Naoto mulled over what she'd said, and she'd wager a guess that his sentiments towards it were more favourable as a result, but they were more or less out of time at the moment. She shifted her position, uncrossing her legs while the Phantom slowed even further, with the full townhouse in which the House of Lupin dwelt while abiding in the capital at last coming into view. "You don't need to give me your decision right this moment, Stadtfeld. Take some time to consider it, and then get back to me. But otherwise, we seem to be here already…"

The car shuddered to a halt at last, and it punctuated her supposition quite nicely.

"Sayoko, do whatever sweeps you need to, and then come and join us," Milly instructed, preparing herself to exit the vehicle. "Lupin's clearly not an idiot, so he'll be expecting something. But if I can get out of him what I think I can, we want to demonstrate that we're treating with him in good faith."

"Understood," Sayoko replied as the driver's door opened, and Simon began the walk around the rear of the car to reach and open Milly's door. "I'll be discreet."

"Very good," Milly acknowledged, nodding. "Stadtfeld, you're with me."

"Yes, your highness," replied Naoto with a muted sigh, gathering himself as Simon opened the door to let Milly and company step out of it.

"Thank you, Simon," she said to her faithful valet with a smile.

Simon, who was perhaps a bit old to be doing all the travelling she requested of him, smiled back at her and tipped his cap all the same. "It's my pleasure, your highness."

Her smile broadened at that; unlike many others Milly knew, particularly among other highborn, when Simon used her new form of address, he meant it. "I imagine we'll be here for a few hours yet, so go ahead, and don't wait up. Sayoko will let you know when to retrieve us, as always."

"I understand, your highness," Simon said, nodding.

Milly nodded once in response as the door closed behind Naoto; and with that handled, she turned her attention to the townhouse that towered before her. An edifice of whitewashed granite reached high into the air, much the same as the other townhouses to either side of it; and though the building was full-sized and not terraced, Belial Palace still dwarfed the area it took up on the ground, necessitating it to have been built upwards—land prices in the Noble District were exorbitant in general, and Rickard Row was the most notorious offender in that regard by far, to the point where even a man of Duke Rocambole's means had to give some concessions to the financial cost of maintaining such a residence. It was a thought she took some measure of petty joy from, that part of her that Cassiopeia had all but beaten into her for the sake of making her fit in better with the rest of the vapidly conniving blue-bloods her late mother fraternised with; and with that, she sighed, and started walking from the curb up to the marble steps that led to the townhouse's black door—reinforced oak, by the looks of it, and old growth to boot. A sturdy and practical choice.

She spared Naoto a glance as she ascended, and had to suppress a chuckle at his attempt to conceal his bewilderment; choosing, then, to spare him the effort, she said, "Don't bother looking for Sayoko. She's said to be the best there is at what she does for a reason. You won't find her until she wants to be found."

Naoto looked back towards her, appearing almost startled to have been caught out like that. "I…my apologies, your highness, just…"

"It's your first time working with her, I know," Milly interjected, not unsympathetically. "I'm afraid you'll just have to trust me when I say that, unnerving though it may seem right now, you eventually do get used to it."

"I don't doubt that," he sighed heavily, inadvertently rolling his well-built shoulders with the thick leather-bound folio of her documents under his arm. With his black frock coat, waistcoat, and trousers, his white shirt and his maroon cravat, he absolutely looked the part of a solicitor, which was good; for all that a man like Duke Rocambole might have something of a reputation of not caring too much for appearances, a nobleman of Britannia he remained, and even if he didn't assess someone's worth or capabilities from how they presented themselves, image was nonetheless paramount in high society, to the point where an attempt to eschew the conventions that the ton so insisted upon would most probably be considered an implied but no less grievous insult. He lifted one black calf Balmoral boot onto the first stair, and nodded towards the door. "Forgive me, your highness; I hadn't meant to delay us."

She nodded at him slowly, moderately impressed. She turned back to ascending the steps, and left one parting comment before she reached for the large, heavy bronze knocker, figured in the shape of the snarling head of a gargoyle, and firmly rapped it twice against the door. "For what it's worth, I have every confidence in your ability to rise to this occasion. Food for thought."

They didn't have long to wait for someone to respond; by the time that a servant came by to open it, Milly had already fixed her features into her most inscrutable, yet vaguely congenial smile. "Hello there. I was hoping to call upon Lord Lupin today. Is he in yet, by any chance…?"

She was taken aback a bit at first, the sight of the individual in the door-frame giving her a moment of pause; it was a woman, clearly and unambiguously, dressed in something not too dissimilar to how Milly might choose to attire herself around the office, except much flashier. Black trousers led down into black sandals with a pronounced heel, around ten centimetres, while above the waist she wore a collared black blouse, with its neckline plunging halfway to her navel, a scandalous amount of creamy pale cleavage on full display. Her sleeves were long but loose, almost akin to the cape sleeves her wife was fond of in her own dresses, and as Milly's eyes scanned above the woman's throat, she caught sight of full, crimson-painted lips tilted in a smirk, a nose that wasn't particularly prominent, and full cheeks to round out a heart-shaped face, framed with long hair, jet-black and pulled back on one side to tie into a tail. The other side, however, formed a curtain before half of her face, and drew attention to the striking, yet familiar scarlet of the woman's visible eye, and the dark, almost malevolent arch of her brow. "See something you like?"

"I merely expected a servant to attend the door," Milly replied, momentarily shocked by the timbre of the woman's voice, low and husky, especially in combination with her obvious beauty; but she recovered quickly, to her credit. "Something which you very clearly are not."

"How very astute of you," the woman remarked, her tone so pervasively playful that it was difficult for Milly to discern whether she was being sarcastic or sincere—not that it mattered either way. "Sorry, but I don't believe we've met. I'm Rhiannon Blackwood."

Immediately, something clicked into place in Milly's mind. "Ah, I see. That explains it."

The Blackwood woman's smirk faltered, and she cocked her head slightly. "Excuse me?"

Biting back the urge to respond glibly, Milly instead took a moment to explain herself. "You looked oddly familiar, and I was trying to place the resemblance. And Taliesin did say he had sisters…"

"Tali, you say?" Rhiannon Blackwood repeated, mildly shocked. "So then, you must be…"

"Carmilla vi Britannia, née Ashford," Milly introduced herself with a brief incline of her head—she was unsure of this woman's station, so she elected to err on the side of caution, respect without deference. "Wife and consort of Her Royal Highness Justine vi Britannia, Fourth Princess of the Realm."

The woman blinked at her owlishly. "Wow that is a mouthful…"

Milly found it in herself to flash a half-smile back at her. "It is, but you get used to it."

"Huh," Blackwood remarked. "Either way, small world."

"I suppose it must be," Milly replied. "In any event, it's quite unseemly for us to be conversing at an open door, where any number of curious ears might hear…"

"Oh, all means, come in," Blackwood urged her, stepping aside and allowing Milly to step over the threshold, Naoto right at her heels.

"And this is Naoto Stadtfeld, my retainer," Milly continued, gesturing towards her aide as he bowed at the waist. "Since I have a feeling that Lord Lupin and I will have much in the way of…lucrative subjects to discuss. Though, if it's not too bold of me, Miss Blackwood, I would like to ask about the nature of your association with the good duke."

"Oh, we're business partners of a sort," said Blackwood with a dismissive gesture, all elegant hands and painted-red nails. "And it's Rhiannon, if that's alright with you."

"Very well," Milly assented easily with a single nod. "I take it the nature of your combined business interests isn't entirely above-board?"

"Mm. I'd say that depends on your definition of how high the board is," Rhiannon replied, glib, but not entirely insincere. "On the one hand, the BlackFrost Corporation is a perfectly legitimate business. But on the other hand,yeah, I guess you wouldn't be wrong to say that we can be sort of shady in a lot of ways. Though, admittedly, that's more Tali's area of expertise than my own…"

"The…BlackFrost Corporation," Milly repeated slowly. "I've heard the name before, but there are some things that Taliesin seems to like playing close to the chest, and my wife's firmly in favour of letting him keep his riddles and secrets for the time being."

"Yeah, that sounds like her…" Rhiannon muttered.

Milly stopped short, and rounded on the woman with a raised eyebrow. "Pardon?"

"What, you wouldn't expect Tali to keep secrets from family, would you?" the immortal challenged, her tone still light—but Milly was sure that had been a slip of the tongue.

Still, she could recognise when an avenue wasn't currently worth the pursuit, so instead she replied, "I suppose not. Still, I'd hardly consider it 'secret-keeping' for him to withhold the minutiae of day-to-day amusements, for the sake of brevity if nothing else. I'm given to understand that you and yours are liable to have quite a bit of time on your hands to take after idle fancies."

"Mm," Rhiannon hummed noncommittally. "Well, in any event, you'll find Arsène in the parlour at the northeastern corner of the first floor. I can guide you both there, if you'd like. Not like there's anyone else around to show you; his sister's back at the country estate, and he likes to give his servants the day off whenever I'm due to swing by. Something about being 'unable to ensure their discretion otherwise'?"

"I suppose that's wise of him," Milly remarked idly. "It's quite the undertaking to regularly vet each and every member of your household, and he's got his hands full with so much already…"

"Indeed, indeed," Rhiannon chuckled. Then she gestured towards the interior of the townhouse with a flourish. "Shall we?"

"I suppose we shall," Milly assented with a nod, doing her very best to keep her suspicions quiet, at least for the moment. "Lead on."

With a cheeky little smirk, Rhiannon turned on her heel and led them through the large townhouse's corridors; and though a dwelling of this size would be far and away beneath the standing of a duke's estate in the country, it was the equal of any gentleman's manor, an extravagance that would have been very much out-of-place in the old homeland of the British Isles, where the size of London would have prevented the existence of even a shadow of this splendour without paying a king's ransom for the land alone (which was a set of facts she only knew because her wife had related them to her some months ago, and despite her teasing at the time, Milly worked very hard to remember everything she said, every moment they spent together). The interior was an artifice of white oak and rich cherry, marble and gilding, bronze and granite and china; and as Milly took in the decorations, the paintings and the sculptures, the vases and the light fixtures and the many bolts of rich, lavish cloth that made up the drapes and the rugs they passed as they made the relatively brief trip from the foyer to the parlour, she began nodding to herself, duly impressed; she hadn't thought that a man such as the Duke of Rocambole would have been ignorant to how the Game, as Juliette liked to refer to it, was played, even on the shallower end that comprised in and of itself the extent to which it was expected of those of their high birth to partake—and in light of that, in her mind, the fact that the man had yet to give insult was a good omen for things to come.

They came at last to the parlour itself, a spacious room furnished with lavish rugs, plush armchairs, and luxurious settees. There was a hearth set off to one side of the room, and to the other, nearer to the back corner, there sat a grand piano—a classic grand, perhaps as a concession to the greater size of this room in comparison to the more intimate dimensions of most other parlours—which was black-painted spruce and decorated with elegant golden scroll-work. And sitting in the settee nearest to the hearth, in the corner that brought him closest to it as well, was a man in tan calf-leather breeches, polished black jockey boots, and a rich, forest-green velvet silk tailcoat, over an ivory waistcoat and a striking vermilion muslin cravat. Young though he was, being between Milly and her wife in age, Arsène Lupin seemed to possess not a lick of awkward gangliness about him, slightly tall by Britannian standards and well-built, an obvious athleticism present in a way that reminded Milly briefly of Jeremiah Gottwald. His features were handsome in a boyish sort of way, delicate and fey, and his lush, coppery hair was tousled and intentionally messy, swept over the side of his face to obscure the narrow shape and emerald hue of his right eye. When he laid the uncovered one upon her, the full lips of his small mouth pulled into a roguish smile that his high cheekbones helped to morph into something almost wholly malevolent, and he rose from his seat, brushing off his breeches, and strode forth to greet her properly, slipping into a courtly bow that seemed to have been taken straight out of comportment lessons, without any visible effort. "Ah! Princess Carmilla! It's quite the honour to host one of your stature in my home. I see you've met my associate, Rhiannon."

"Yes, I have," Milly replied with the proper bow—little more than a nod of her head. "She was very helpful, of course; but then, in my experience, the Blackwoods have been little if not accommodating."

Rhiannon, for her part, seemed to only barely manage to suppress a snicker from where she stood beside Milly at the threshold of the parlour; but thankfully, it seemed that both Milly and Lord Lupin were quite eager to soldier past it, as if it hadn't occurred at all.

"I trust it wasn't too presumptuous of me that I brought along my new retainer—Naoto, the eldest child of my vassal, Stephen, Count of Manhattan and Long Island," Milly continued, stepping aside slightly to gesture to the other redhead in the area, who bowed once, from the waist, in deference to both of them.

"Not at all, your highness," Lupin refused smoothly, nodding to Naoto. "And it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, as well, Lord Naoto. The matter of your family's succession caused a middling stir at court some years past, as I recall. It is good to finally be able to put a face to the rumours."

Naoto cocked a brow, the restraint his younger sister still had to work at seeming to come naturally to him as he spoke. "I don't suppose I should think to ask after what was said."

"A wise decision," Lupin replied without missing a beat—though the comment was obviously quite sincere, and good advice to boot. Then he returned his attention to Milly. "Your highness, won't you come and sit down? My servants are out, but I daresay your maidservant, Miss Shinozaki, is more than capable of preparing refreshments for us from what they left behind in the pantry and the larder."

Lupin did not insult her intelligence by pretending he didn't know that she knew that he knew about her dear servant's infiltration, and so she decided to return the courtesy in kind, not even bothering to act as if she was surprised by his knowledge. This would only have been a power play if either of them had been so inept as to make it one, after all. "I'm sure she'll join us soon enough. Would you like your associate to attend with us while we discuss, while we're on the subject? I certainly wouldn't mind her presence."

"Not that it isn't hot, and all, watching the two of you posture at each other," Rhiannon interjected, suppressed laughter lightening her husky voice. "But I'm just going to save everyone here the trouble. Yes, I'm staying while you two talk. We're burning daylight, and if you're going to ask after what we all know you came here hoping to achieve, then time is of the essence, and every moment counts."

Instead of looking chagrined at the interaction, or even when Rhiannon brushed past both of them to make a beeline for the settee, Lupin flashed Milly an apologetic smile and a small shrug to punctuate it. "Well, there you have it, I suppose…"

"Perhaps developing a set of idiosyncratic eccentricities is merely an occupational hazard when it comes to those of our dear Miss Blackwood's persuasion," Milly replied jokingly, shaking her head as she stepped over the threshold herself, following the master of the house as he led them to the sitting-area. He sat with Rhiannon by his side, and Milly mirrored him on the opposing settee, crossing her legs and leaning back a bit as Naoto pulled out the folio beside her, flipping through the pages and ledgers to arrive at the most immediately pertinent section of them. Rhiannon, for her part, elected to respond to Milly's comment by childishly sticking out her tongue, and grinning immediately thereafter; but all in all, it didn't take very long for the two peers to be comfortable enough in their seats that they felt they were ready to begin this delicate dance of their class. Milly, of course, took the initiative and went first. "I must say, Duke Rocambole, it was quite the pleasant surprise to receive your invitation."

"Call me 'Arsène,' your highness, if you please," Lupin replied with a vaguely friendly smile. "And is it so strange that I should seek the means to advance matters related to our mutual interests?"

"More that you would consider our interests to be 'mutual' in the first place, Arsène," refuted Milly. "After all, the well-being of an adopted sister's lover is quite a few more degrees of separation than most of the realm's peers might consider to be the domain of immediate and actionable interest…"

"And yet, I am, very noticeably, not they," said Lupin.

"Obviously," Milly scoffed. "I would never have handled one of them this way. More likely than not I've had to send the heads of one of their servants to their front porch over the past few years—that sort of thing tends to sour prospective relationships, you understand, both as it concerns the manufacturing of that necessity, as well as the execution of the proper course of action to respond to it."

"Touché," Lupin replied with a chortle, shaking his head. "But yes. My adoptive sister, as you've no doubt guessed, is very dear to me; both her safety, and her happiness. As far as I'm concerned, she and I are siblings in truth; and as such, the survival of her paramour of the last two years is of great consequence to me. But beyond such personal motivations, I am also extending this olive branch out of an obligation I bear as an associate of the BlackFrost Corporation. Namely, the survival of your wife is also of consequence to the organisation, and I'm duty-bound to offer, shall we say, tactical intervention?"

"You want to help, but your capacity to render aid is complicated by the fact that as far as the world governments are concerned, the BlackFrost Corporation does not, strictly speaking, exist, and that lack of an official presence is a state of affairs that you have no interest in bringing to an end," Milly summarised.

"A somewhat simplistic, if accurate, assessment, I will admit," Arsène confirmed, nodding. "It isn't within the scope of our plans to have our existence revealed by putting too heavy of a hand on the scales of the world—not at this juncture, at least."

"You're rumoured to be the mastermind at the head of an extensive multinational criminal empire," said Milly, folding her arms across her torso while gesturing with one hand. "And so I suppose that I would be correct to presume that the aid you're willing and able to grant is the sort which can reasonably be traced back to that syndicate?"

"Indeed you would be," Lupin confirmed again. "You mean to have us discreetly deliver supplies of the sort that are not easily obtained on the ground in a largely hostile Area Six, and of the sort that imperial authorities have in the past proven rather lax in ensuring the delivery of to 'irregular units'—historically for political reasons."

"That, and a project of ours that's very swiftly nearing completion as we speak," Milly added with a flourish of her hand. "Both it and a few key personnel will need to be delivered to the battlespace once the object in question is properly cleared."

"Yes, Codename Malory. We're familiar," Lupin agreed.

"My wife would likely have contested the name if she knew," the princess-consort remarked fondly, though she kept an eye on Rhiannon in her periphery as she prepared her imitation. "'The first attributable account was written by Chrétien de Troyes in the twelfth century, and so it's entirely nonsensical to name it after Malory,' she'd say."

Rhiannon flashed an aborted smile; it was there and gone in an instant, but the event in and of itself was proof to Milly that there was something going on there, and that she hadn't imagined or projected what had transpired between them in the foyer. It was something that Milly filed away for later examination.

"Be that as it may," Lupin said, his tone making it very clear that he knew something had just been given away that wasn't meant to be (though he didn't seem to know what precisely that was) as he made to soldier on. "There is another service we may extend to you here, if you wish to avail yourself of it."

"And what service might that be, pray tell?" Milly asked, mildly curious.

"In a word? Advice," Arsène replied, his bearing suddenly quite severe. "I've personally been in the business for a very long time. It's made me a known quantity, to some extent or other, in the household of every sicario, Triad member, big-time racketeer and mafioso the world over. And while if I attempted to do what you did with the yakuza, it would likely have worked wonderfully—and yes, that was an inspired solution, so bravo—it would only have done so because I am an insider. On some level or other, no matter what group they belong to, organised criminals know me. For all intents and purposes, I am one of them. You, your highness, are, on the other hand, very much not. So while you might rightfully be able to count both Majima and Kiryū as steadfastly loyal, their organisation is a very different beast entirely. And when either of them falters, they'll be killed and replaced, and suddenly you'll have an empowered yakuza clan waging an asymmetrical shadow-war against you throughout all of Area Eleven, and even the surrounding islands. It's a powder keg that's only going to go off all the more violently the longer it takes to do so. And Miss Shinozaki, and her ilk? Their talent is very real, and it is terrifying, do not mistake me. But the only result it is likely to yield, if this situation is not handled very, very carefully, is a dramatic escalation in both violence and fatalities. I tell you this because you've erected a very impressive power base in the backyard of your viceroyalty, and you need to be aware of any and all threats to it, whether those threats be internal or external, lest it all suddenly go up in smoke."

"'No honour amongst thieves,' is it?" said Milly, her smile both wry and rueful. In truth, she had in fact considered the possibility of what Lupin was warning her of here, but she'd dismissed it as merely her own paranoia getting the better of her. It was…not particularly pleasant, hearing confirmation that she had been right to be sceptical and paranoid; but her host was nonetheless correct—this was, in fact, very much necessary information. Furthermore, it was a problem that she was already beginning to concoct a fair few solutions to as they spoke—they would, of course, require development, articulation, and refinement, but the disappointment the accuracy of her paranoia brought her was heavily mitigated by the quite heartening knowledge that she did indeed have options.

"There's a reason why those like myself are a rarity, your highness," Lupin sighed with a grimace of his own, propping one elbow up onto the back of the settee and resting his chin against his fist, a posture to match the bitterness upon his face. "The gentleman thief is the exception that proves the rule, I'm afraid."

It was at that moment that the door opened again, and there Sayoko was, a tea set and refreshments set up upon the trolley she deftly pulled in through the door and carted over to them. In silence, and dressed in the same variation upon her shinobi chainmail that she wore whenever she was not actively acting as her maidservant and nothing more, Sayoko set out the teacups and the tray of finger sandwiches and pastries without a moment's hesitation, pouring tea into each of the five cups she'd laid out upon the table as their shared silence yawned wide in the wake of what had just been said.

"…I thank you for your counsel, Arsène Lupin," Milly huffed, shattering the silence as she reached out and picked up the teacup and saucer from the table. "I believe we have several solutions we can put into place to resolve the issue, but to the extent that you're invested in the success and the longevity of my wife, I would be a fool to reject the implied offering of potential aid."

Arsène smiled ruefully once again, reaching for his own setting while Naoto made to do the same, Rhiannon having already secured her own while Milly spoke. "It's food for thought, if nothing else."

Milly returned his expression in kind, lifting her teacup into the air. "Now, before we turn to talk of transaction and remuneration—to old friends, and new alliances!"

Arsène Lupin grinned wolfishly, and he lifted his own teacup with a nod. "To old friends and new alliances, indeed…"

---

It was later on in the afternoon, the shadows lengthening with the approach of the premature winter evening, when Juliette and Kallen left the Palace of Justice, the location of the offices of the prime minister and therefore the most extensive administrative apparatus in the entirety of the empire to the point where it and its grounds literally dwarfed the Vatican in Rome; within its grounds and outbuildings were the various ministries' headquarters, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Coin, the Ministry of War, and so on, all claiming extensive office space in the area, for all that a great deal of the day-to-day bureaucracy involved in the running of all these different ministries, and thus the empire itself, was handled in other buildings in the surrounding district. With this in mind, Juliette, satisfied in the knowledge that Priscilla and Friederike both would be able to maintain their discretion inside those walls, remained only until a messenger slipped her some information she was waiting for, before she took Kallen and walked briskly out of the gargantuan building (still dwarfed by the Imperial Palace, which said nothing at all about the size of the Palace of Justice and really everything about the ostentatious goliath that seemed to dominate the capital in its pervasive shadow), and made for where Taliesin stood ready, the Panther De Ville already running and waiting for them.

As swiftly as she could while still maintaining at least the appearance of grace and decorum, she stepped into the back seat of the car, with Kallen following suit in short order. Taliesin, who had come with his full uniform on—the double-breasted jacket, the gloves, the cap, even the polarised goggles—shut the door behind them, and returned to the driver's seat, stirring the vehicle into motion before too long.

"So," Juliette spoke abruptly, turning in her seat to face the gorgeous redhead she was currently at least semi-dating. "That was your first visit to the Palace of Justice. How did you like it?"

"…Is it bad that, after seeing the Imperial Palace, I expected it to be a little…bigger?" Kallen asked, clearly and consciously at a loss for how she might more delicately have phrased that.

"I suppose not," Juliette mused with a smile—the ease with which such expressions came to her all of a sudden was a heady knowledge, and not entirely reassuring. "The Imperial Palace does make itself into a difficult act to follow. What else, though?"

Kallen took a moment to be silent, her focused electric-blue gaze seeming almost to burrow into the floor of the vehicle beneath them as she thought, and considered. "The Palace of Justice seems…different from the Imperial Palace, somehow. Like it's out of place…"

"Likely due to the fact that to some extent, it is," Juliette affirmed, nodding and turning her head to face forward once again. "I told you before that whenever an emperor finally breathes his last, that's the cue for this entire city to go up in flames, as the remaining royal children truly begin to bloody each other in pursuit of ascension to the throne. Common targets for that sort of destruction, of course, are vast swaths of the Noble District, the Commercial District, the Red Light District—yes, we have one of those, and yes, that is the less-ridiculous name for it—and the Palace District. The Administrative District, however, is in contrast rather rarely in the crossfire, due in large part to the fact that an interregnum is every bit as much a cultural ritual as it is a genuine power struggle; and so when you look at the Palace of Justice, you're more or less taking a direct look into this city's past, with the knowledge that the compound was once considered modern, from an architectural perspective."

"Hmm. That's cool, I guess," Kallen considered. "Like taking a tour of Kyoto before the war. It's a sort of visual history told through what survives…"

"And unfortunately, not much does," Juliette sighed, turning to look out of her window so that she could watch the city roll by, together with the healthy flow of automobile traffic. That was to be expected, of course; it was January, which meant the season was getting itself into full swing; noble houses from all over the empire would soon roll into Pendragon to forge alliances with up-and-coming houses, mixing new blood with old and raising all of them further up into the halls of power beneath the emperor's oversight. There had been one truly horrifying speculative fiction novel that Justine had given her to read a few months ago, and thanks to that, she knew of the concept of urban sprawl enough to thank the wisdom of their ancestors, for once, that they had taken steps to prevent such a possibility from coming to pass. "The serpent is aptly chosen, perhaps unintentionally: with each new emperor, we shed our skin. Little and less remains as a link to our past mistakes, reminders of our excesses and our errors; and so, while we may shed and shift, and we may liken ourselves to that symbol of our nation, we rarely ever actually manage to change. His Majesty boasts of progress when he speaks, and of its unfaltering march; but we progress in all directions, and thus do we stay exactly where we are. I suppose you might call that a poetic irony, if you were so inclined…"

To that, Kallen gave no reply; and Juliette found herself glad of the honesty of that silence. She did not often stop to consider whether she loved her nation, her homeland, or not—as was likely the case with most of the members of the Imperial Family who bore consideration, she imagined, the relationship she had with the Holy Britannian Empire was a complicated one, to put it lightly: conflicted, contradictory, fraught, and above all else, sordid. But she could find it within herself to mourn this place, the only homeland she'd ever known, that in spite of all its many, many faults, was perhaps the one place the world over where one such as her, whose joy in the Game was genuine, unlike that of so many others who derived that joy solely through the acquisition of power, and falsely attributed that to the mechanisms that made that possible, was able to thrive as herself.

Did she love her nation? Perhaps she did, and perhaps she did not.

But she knew she would mourn this Garden of Earthly Delights nonetheless, once it finally breathed its last…

"So, where are we headed?" Kallen asked, her tone forcibly light, an entirely too obvious attempt to change the subject on her part—Juliette marvelled at how this woman had not yet been chewed up and spat out, hanging around with Milly, of all people, but simultaneously, she found no shortage of charm in the quaint nature of Kōzuki Kallen Stadtfeld's guilelessness.

Juliette elected not to remark upon it, and instead chose to roll with the sudden shift. "We are, at the moment, en route to the townhouse belonging to the House of Weinberg; at the moment, Friederike is the only one with the authority to handle the bureaucratic necessities associated with the final flourishes of dearest Marrybell's appointment to the position of Minister of the Interior, and so—at the moment—we'd be wasting our efforts were we to linger even a minute longer at the Palace of Justice."

"The House of Weinberg are…cousins of the House of Ashford," Kallen recalled, her expression one of mild uncertainty regarding the accuracy of her recollection. "By marriage, if I remember correctly."

"I can confirm that they are, and that you do," Juliette replied, and she made no effort to conceal the fact that she was teasing Kallen, just a little bit. "But a far more immediate link than the life and times of one Grand Duchess Irina, née Weinberg, of the House of Ashford, is what brings us hence; namely, that Gino, the heir to the House of Weinberg, and thus to the Duchy of Maryland—as well as a prospective Knight of the Round, it has long been rumoured—has been chosen as the commander of the army that is currently being pulled together to deal with the rebellion that my dear sister has been charged with delaying the advance of."

"So, you're going to collect…insurance? That your sister returns from the war unharmed?" Kallen deduced sceptically—and incorrectly.

"Nothing of the sort, I assure you," Juliette scoffed. "Do not mistake me: I have every confidence in my sister's ability not only to survive, but to succeed and thereafter to prevail, especially considering the fact that Milly's making arrangements here on the home front to give Justine direct support abroad. We go instead because the fact that this situation came to pass in the first place has both exposed the source of a dangerous vulnerability to our safety and to our designs, and then presented us with the perfect opportunity to resolve the issue in one. Not to mention, of course, that this will be an excellent opportunity for you to observe me at work, doing what I do best~."

"And what is that, exactly?" Kallen prompted, openly amused.

Juliette smirked right back at her. "Watching dominoes fall. What else?"

"…I'm assuming that's a euphemism for something…" Kallen muttered dubiously.

"You'll find out soon enough," she assured the woman she shared her bed with, leaning back into the plush leather of the Panther De Ville's back seat. "Though I will say, it's rather strange, discussing this sort of thing with someone who doesn't at least have a preconceived notion of what I'm talking about…"

Kallen bristled, and Juliette found herself frowning almost immediately. "Yeah, well…!"

"Peace," Juliette interjected, lifting a hand and vocally cutting off the oncoming defensive outburst. "I wasn't attempting to disparage you. Quite the opposite, in fact; I actually find it to be quite refreshing, however unfamiliar it may be."

Kallen's hackles raised even further at the interruption, but then slowly began to subside as Juliette spoke, the princess speaking in a tone of voice that constituted her best attempt at soothing the other young woman's bruised ego. Finally, the viscountess sighed heavily. "If you say so…"

"I do say so, as it happens," said Juliette, leaning back against her seat once again. She took a look out of the window once again to assess their progress, and then returned her gaze to Kallen. "In any event, we're nearly there, so…prepare yourself, I suppose…"

The redhead huffed, slumping slightly. "Almost showtime, then?"

"Indeed," Juliette nodded. "And it'll be good practice for once I've knighted you: the expectation is that you do little more than stand around and look intimidating for nine-tenths of your tenure, after all. But I personally would very much prefer it if you could keep your eyes and ears open, as well; it's the best way for you to get more of a grasp on the rules of this Game, to my mind, and given that Lord Weinberg's reputation hardly paints a picture of one who is particularly adept when it comes to politics, I believe it's entirely possible that you, Kallen, might wind up catching something I missed or otherwise dismissed as inconsequential. I'm rather firmly shackled to the limitations of my own perspective, I'm afraid…"

"I'll do my best," Kallen sighed as the Panther De Ville slowed and drew at last to a halt.

The Weinberg residence could not boast a Rickard Row address; but the full-sized townhouse on a rather desirable plot of land on Saint George's Square was no less respectable for it. The building bore a stately edifice, with walls of whitewashed granite and a roof made of shale tiles, providing a superb level of protection from the vicissitudes of the elements. Yet, the lack of obvious gilding as decoration upon its window-frames seemed to lend the building an extra air of austerity, and perhaps even a touch of scorn for the affectations of its neighbours. Wrought iron railing was built into the sides of the steps that led up to the door, and upon the face of it, aside from the numbers of the townhouse cast in brass, the head that held the knocker was in the shape of a lion, mane and all—the animal that featured prominently on the coat of arms attributed to the House of Weinberg, which famously laid claim to a direct line of descent from Richard the Lionheart, despite the family's obvious Germanic origins. It was upon this very building's front step that Taliesin released them, going around the back of the car and opening the door for the two of them to leave the vehicle—Kallen first, followed by her turning and offering a hand, as etiquette demanded, to help Juliette out of the automobile so that she could once again plant her feet upon the ground as well.

Juliette took that offered hand gratefully, descending from the car, and then turning towards Taliesin in short order, instructions on her lips. "I don't expect we'll be staying very long here, Taliesin, so don't go too far, and please be back in around half an hour."

"Very well, your highness," Taliesin replied, nodding once, keeping his goggles on (and frankly, she was beginning to suspect he just liked having them) as he did so. "Have a pleasant visit."

"Thank you," Juliette replied, and as Justine's majordomo returned to the car, she turned to regard the Weinberg townhouse with a speculative eye. For a few moments, she took it in, even as the Panther De Ville started up again and drove off, but then she turned to Kallen, and jerked her head towards the black wooden door. "Well then. Onwards and upwards, I suppose. Shall we?"

"Guess so," Kallen shrugged, and then moved to take her first step up towards the door.

Juliette was quick to follow; but Kallen, being far more athletic than she was herself, reached the porch well before Juliette managed the same. When the princess at last ascended to the same height, she did so under the knowing and smug gaze of the heiress, and while generally, she could manage to hide her reaction, here the sullen glare was out on her face before she even considered it as a possibility. Briefly, she was very alarmed at herself, and this much she did manage to withhold, but perhaps more distressingly, she felt as though she was beginning to get used to the lack of fine, precise emotional control that proximity to Kallen seemed to inflict upon her. Filing this away for the moment, though, because there was a time and a place for all things, and the porch step of a highborn's townhouse was neither of those, Juliette composed herself, and reached up to make use of the knocker. She rapped four times upon the door, and stepped back, awaiting the person whom she was fairly certain would be the one to open the house to them…