Vol. 1 Chapter 7: Conspiracy Theory

“Therefore Kevin needs to die.”

“What?!”

Nicole’s chair scraped backward across the stone floor before she was fully aware she had moved. Rob covered his face with one hand. Liza looked delighted in a way that immediately made Nicole distrust whatever was about to happen. Alec stared at Kevin.

“You mean metaphorically.”

Kevin regarded him as though the answer should have been obvious. “Well, I would rather like it to not be literally.”

Nicole opened her mouth, stopped, then tried again. “That is not what metaphorically means!”

“Officially, then.”

“That is a very important word to leave out!”

“I thought the context was clear.”

“The context was everyone discussing whether the Church might execute you!”

“Yes,” Kevin said. “Which is why it would be useful if they believed someone already had.”

Nicole stared at him.

A few hours ago, she had been asleep.

That fact kept returning to her whenever the night managed to become more ridiculous than whatever had happened immediately before it. She had gone camping with four friends she had known for most of her life. She had expected a bad mattress, mediocre food, and Kevin working on his laptop when everyone else had agreed not to work.

Instead, she had awakened in an imperial sanctum in what was either another world, a very elaborate hallucination, or a neurological event she currently lacked the equipment to investigate. She had a glowing mark on her arm. Liza had nearly made a fireball. An imperial princess had invented a religious explanation around them because armed guards had needed a reason not to panic. Now that same explanation had become a political problem, and Kevin had decided the obvious next step was apparently dying.

She understood what an isekai means.

Years of group chats had exposed her to screenshots, memes, arguments about worldbuilding, complaints about protagonists, and long discussions about what fictional governments should have done instead of whatever stupid thing they had done in the story. Nicole had usually skimmed them unless somebody tagged her directly.

None of that made this feel more reasonable.

Kevin turned back to the serving tray covered in charcoal. “Or that I died through some other politically satisfactory circumstance. The specific implementation remains subject to review.”

Nobody answered him for several seconds.

Liza slowly covered her face with both hands. Alec closed his eyes. Princess Aurelia had gone very still. Lara held the damaged folio against the table with the expression of someone who had just discovered that an administrative problem could become personally offensive. Varris remained beside the princess, unreadable.

Serina simply stared at Kevin.

Kevin finally noticed.

“What?”

Nicole pointed at him. “You cannot say that you need to die and then act confused when people think you mean dying.”

“I clarified.”

“After I screamed.”

“Which created an opportunity to clarify.”

Nicole took a step in his direction before Alec caught her gently by the arm.

“Nic.”

“I am not going to hit him.”

Kevin glanced at the water pitcher.

Nicole followed his eyes.

“I wasn’t going to hit you with that either.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You looked at it.”

“I observe risks.”

“Then stop creating them!”

Rob finally lowered his hand from his face. “So, uh... let me get this straight.”

Everyone shifted their attention to him.

He pointed at Kevin. “Your solution to everyone potentially wanting to kill Kevin… is to kill Kevin first.”

“Officially,” Alec corrected.

“Without actually killing him,” Nicole added.

“Preferably,” Kevin said.

Nicole turned her head.

“Mandatorily.”

Kevin considered that for a second. “Mandatorily.”

“Good.”

Rob nodded as though the amendment had settled an important contractual point. “Right. Kevin remains alive while becoming dead.”

“Yes,” Alec said.

Rob looked at Aurelia.

“So your empire, the Church, every rival noble house, and possibly several gods need to believe Kevin is dead.”

“That was the initial proposal.”

“And none of us can appear to have helped him.”

“Correct.”

“And Princess Aurelia cannot appear to have released him.”

“Yes.”

Rob rested one elbow on the table. “And presumably nobody can recover a body because somebody will examine it.”

Varris moved from beside Aurelia.

“That would be the first problem.”

Nicole looked at him. “The first?”

“A death requires proof.”

Rob turned to Lara. “What qualifies?”

Lara’s eyes moved briefly to Kevin before settling on the folio. “A body. Witnesses. Magical confirmation. In certain circumstances, evidence that recovery is impossible.”

Kevin tilted his head. “Impossible or impractical?”

“Impossible.”

“That seems unnecessarily strict.”

“You are discussing whether the Church would accept your death.”

“I am evaluating requirements.”

Nicole folded her arms. “You are not a requirement.”

Kevin looked at her.

She held his gaze until Alec dragged the serving tray closer.

Both Kevin and Liza made sounds of immediate protest.

“No,” Kevin said.

Alec ignored him and picked up the charcoal. “We need to define what you actually mean.”

“I already did.”

“You said you need to die.”

“Officially.”

Alec found another patch of usable space beneath the previous discussion and wrote:

REMOVE KEVIN MERCER FROM PUBLIC VIEW

Kevin leaned over the tray.

“Better.”

Nicole looked at him. “That is better?”

Kevin shrugged.

“It sounds better than writing ‘Kill Kevin Mercer’.”

“I hate that you can say that naturally.”

Varris studied the new line. “If Mercer is declared dead, the investigation does not end.”

Kevin nodded. “It changes subjects.”

“Yes. The council stops investigating the mark and begins investigating the corpse.”

“And whoever produced it,” Aurelia added.

Her voice had gone flat.

“If Mercer dies while under my protection, my brother will accuse me of murdering one of the divine marked witnesses.”

Lara shifted the folio. “Can we stop from calling them divine marked witnesses?”

“It would not make the accusation less useful,” Aurelia said.

Varris nodded. “The Church would demand independent confirmation. The council would want the circumstances, the witnesses, and the authority under which the death occurred. Every faction involved would ask whether the other four resisted, consented, or intended retaliation.”

Nicole felt her jaw tighten.

“They would not need to question that.”

Kevin glanced at her.

She did not return it.

The discussion had somehow moved from Kevin saying something stupid to several government officials calmly explaining what documentation would be required for his corpse, and Nicole could feel the part of her brain that dealt with absurdity beginning to give up.

Rob leaned back. “So a dead Kevin has a poor return on investment.”

Alec drew a line through a smaller word Kevin had added beneath the heading.

DEATH

“Actual death rejected.”

“Strongly,” Nicole said.

“False death?” Rob asked.

Varris shook his head. “Still requires evidence.”

“No body?”

“Greater scrutiny.”

“Destroyed body?”

“Thorough examination of the supposed location.”

“Consumed by divine fire?”

Lara looked offended. “Do you imagine the Church accepts every unexplained fire as an act of the gods?”

Kevin returned his attention to the tray. “False death remains possible but politically expensive.”

Nicole narrowed her eyes.

“No.”

“I said possible.”

“I said no.”

Aurelia examined the crossed-out word. “A false death also requires someone to create the evidence.”

“If no body is produced, the search intensifies,” Varris said. “If false evidence is produced and later discovered, every protection currently attached to the other four becomes suspect.”

Alec drew another line through the word.

“False death also rejected.”

Kevin looked mildly dissatisfied.

Nicole caught it immediately.

“You are disappointed that we refused to fake your death.”

Beside them, Liza leaned closer to Serina.

“This is the part where everyone attempts increasingly complicated methods of killing the brooding character without technically killing him.”

Serina blinked. “Is that common in your world?”

“In stories.”

“Why?”

“Drama.”

Serina studied Kevin. “He does not seem dramatic.”

“Thank you,” Kevin said.

Liza shook her head. “No, no. That is part of the archetype. They act calm while arranging circumstances that make everything resemble a season finale.”

“I am standing here.”

“I know. It improves the commentary.”

Nicole closed her eyes briefly.

She knew exactly what Liza meant. She had seen enough arguments about scenarios exactly like this in their group chats that she once muted the conversation for two weeks.

She wished she could also mute this one.

Lara studied the heading Alec had written.

Alec looked up.

Varris answered before Kevin could. “Mercer being seen is not inherently dangerous. Remaining publicly recognized as the fifth Witness while his mark cannot be identified is.”

Lara nodded. “As long as he remains part of the group under Her Highness’s protection, the Church has a reason to keep asking what he is.”

Alec looked back at the tray.

“So the problem is his position in the group.”

“Yes,” Lara said.

Alec rubbed the charcoal between his fingers, then changed the heading.

REMOVE KEVIN MERCER FROM PUBLIC WITNESS GROUP

Kevin read it.

“Closer.”

Nicole hated that one more.

“That still sounds like you’re being fired.”

“Less permanently.”

The discussion slowed after that.

Every version of Kevin disappearing seemed to create another problem. Alec kept asking what outcome they were actually trying to achieve. Varris kept reducing proposed solutions to security consequences. Lara objected whenever somebody treated Aurelia’s improvised Covenant like an established institution. Rob briefly suggested retirement, which led to several minutes of argument over whether someone could retire from a religious office that had not existed before dinner.

Nicole rejected every sentence containing the words corpse, sacrifice, acceptable loss, or permanent disappearance.

Somewhere during that mess, Serina gathered the nearly full tray and examined what little writing space remained.

“We need another one.”

Alec glanced at it. “Probably two.”

Serina looked at Aurelia.

The princess gave a small nod.

Serina collected one of the empty cups from beside the tray, apparently as a reference for whichever servant she intended to bother, and slipped out through the chamber door.

Nicole barely noticed.

Her attention had shifted to Aurelia and Varris.

Neither of them had said anything directly, but the direction of the conversation had changed. Varris had stopped considering ways to make Kevin legally disappear and had started asking questions about what could be controlled instead. Aurelia’s attention kept moving between Kevin and the rest of them.

Nicole knew that look.

Not the specifics behind it, but the shape.

They had started thinking about Kevin separately.

Keep him somewhere controlled. Limit access. Keep the Church away. Restrict who could see the mark. Wait until they understood what he was.

From their position, Nicole could almost understand it.

One unknown person was easier to contain than five.

Alec noticed too.

“If the solution is that Kevin gets detained separately, then the agreement is over.”

The room quieted.

Aurelia turned to him. “That is not what I said.”

“No. But it is where this is going.”

Varris’s expression tightened slightly.

Alec set the charcoal down.

“We agreed to stay. We agreed to confidentiality. We agreed to restrictions on what we can do while this gets investigated. We did that because we stay together and nobody gets handed over because one of us is inconvenient.”

“Mercer presents a different risk from the rest of you,” Varris said.

“That does not make him separate from us.”

“The Church may disagree.”

“The Church is not sitting at this table.”

Nicole liked that answer.

Aurelia rested her fingers against the edge of the table. “If his presence threatens the protections available to the other four, I cannot simply ignore that.”

Alec did not raise his voice.

“If the Crown contains Kevin separately, you lose the cooperation of the other four.”

Nicole answered before Aurelia could.

“Definitely.”

Alec glanced at her, then back at the princess.

“You can probably have one or the other.”

“Not probably,” Nicole said.

Kevin looked at her.

She ignored him.

The agreement they had spent half the night constructing suddenly felt much thinner than it had ten minutes ago.

Nicole became aware of the guards outside the door. Varris still stood close enough to Aurelia to move if he needed to. Liza’s power station rested beside her chair. Kevin remained near the wall. Alec sat with the charcoal between his fingers. Rob had gone strangely quiet.

Nobody reached for anything or threatened anyone. At least not yet.

Aurelia, Varris, and Lara will not concede.

The five of them will also not let Kevin be handed over.

Nicole could feel exhaustion sitting underneath everyone’s patience. They had been awake for too long, frightened for too long, and negotiating with people they had met only hours earlier about rules none of them had known existed that morning.

Rob raised one hand.

Everyone looked at him.

Nicole narrowed her eyes.

Rob being silent during a negotiation was suspicious enough. Rob raising his hand after being silent was worse.

“What if he doesn’t need to die or be handed over?”

Nobody answered immediately.

Alec leaned back slightly. “Go on.”

Rob pointed at the serving tray.

“You called us witnesses.”

His attention settled on Aurelia.

“Not servants. Not soldiers. Not prisoners. Witnesses.”

Lara frowned.

Rob continued before she could interrupt.

“You said we were called to observe, judge, and provide guidance.”

“That was the explanation given in the sanctum,” Aurelia said.

“Right. And Alec already made you agree that judgment requires information.”

Lara’s frown deepened.

Rob tapped the tray with one finger.

“So what exactly is Kevin supposed to be judging if you can order him to stay here, submit to examination, accept whatever the Church decides his mark means, and shut up?”

Nicole looked at him.

Rob had stopped joking completely.

Alec slowly picked up the charcoal again.

Aurelia considered the question. “He would be obeying the Crown.”

“Exactly.”

Rob spread his hands.

“That is not independent judgment. That is compliance.”

Varris looked at the tray.

Rob continued.

“You needed the Witness explanation because you could not publicly treat us as prisoners after we appeared. Fine. But if the explanation only applies while we agree with you, then the first time one of us makes a decision you dislike, everyone gets to see how much independence the role actually has.”

Kevin straightened slightly.

Alec’s eyes narrowed.

Nicole recognized that expression too.

Rob had found something.

Lara did as well.

“No.”

Rob looked at her.

“No?”

“That is not doctrine.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

“It is not law.”

“I didn’t say that either.”

“You are proposing that a few sentences Her Highness said during an emergency somehow create authority that does not exist.”

Rob nodded. “No. I’m saying those sentences created expectations.”

Lara’s mouth tightened.

Rob pointed at Aurelia.

“She told a room full of people we were independent witnesses called to judge whatever happened. Those people acted on that explanation. The guards lowered their weapons. Officials started using the title. Everyone now expects this Covenant thing to mean something.”

“It does not mean whatever you decide is convenient.”

“Neither does it mean whatever Princess Aurelia decides is convenient.”

Nicole resisted a smile.

Rob had always been dangerous once somebody gave him language to argue with.

Lara turned to Aurelia. “Your Highness, this is not an interpretation. They are proposing that Mercer deliberately appear to exercise an authority that does not exist while everyone in this room conceals the coordination behind it.”

Rob nodded. “Yes.”

Nicole looked at him.

“You could at least pretend that sounded less criminal.”

“I prefer accurate scope.”

Lara stared at him.

Aurelia did not.

Her attention remained on the argument.

“If Mercer decides that the circumstances of our arrival and Her Highness’ appointment require an independent investigation,” Rob continued, “then stopping him becomes awkward.”

“Awkward,” Lara repeated.

“Politically awkward.”

“You are describing a conspiracy.”

Rob paused.

“Yes.”

“A conspiracy involving an Imperial Princess, five foreign Witnesses, and the deliberate deception of the Church.”

“That sounds worse when you say it like that.”

Aurelia lifted one hand.

Lara stopped.

The princess looked at her.

“Would it work?”

Lara did not answer.

Her attention dropped to the serving tray. She read the lines already written there, then went back over them from the top, slower this time. Her eyes paused on the wording of the Witness role, on the conditions they had already agreed to, then shifted to Aurelia.

Nicole could almost see her testing the princess’s original explanation against Rob’s argument.

Lara looked back at the tray.

Then at Aurelia again.

Nobody interrupted her.

A minute passed. Maybe two.

By then, even Rob had stopped looking pleased with himself.

Lara finally set one hand flat against the folio.

“If everything is stated exactly as you have described it,” she said carefully, “and if no one contradicts the account afterward... then yes.”

She paused again.

“Plausibly.”

Rob sat back.

Lara immediately raised one finger.

“Assuming three things.”

Alec positioned the charcoal over the board.

“First, Mercer cannot be formally identified while the arrangement remains in effect. Suspicion can be disputed. A recognized classification is considerably more difficult to deny.”

Kevin nodded once.

“Second, every person involved maintains the same essential account. Mercer chose to leave. Her Highness advised him against it. The other four advised him against it. He acted under his own judgment, and neither the Crown nor the remaining witnesses know where he went.”

Nicole disliked that last part immediately.

Lara raised a third finger.

“And cooperation must continue.”

Alec stopped writing.

“Between whom?”

“Everyone.”

The word landed heavily.

Lara looked around the table.

“Her Highness and the four who remain. Mercer and his companions. Anyone brought into the private arrangement later. If one side publicly contradicts the account, exposes the coordination, or stops cooperating with the others, then everything becomes much harder to sustain.”

Alec stared at the board.

“For how long?”

Lara was quiet for a moment.

“I do not know.”

Rob leaned back in his chair. “So basically indefinitely. Unless some miracle happens and Kevin’s mark gets erased, or everyone suddenly decides it belongs to something else.”

Alec looked at Lara.

“Can that happen?”

“No.”

Rob nodded once.

“Indefinitely, then.”

Kevin folded his arms.

“Then that is a problem.”

Nicole resisted the urge to grab the water pitcher again.

Aurelia looked at him. “Explain.”

“We would be entering an agreement with no defined endpoint.”

Kevin nodded at the tray.

“The story works while everyone cooperates, nobody contradicts it, and nobody successfully identifies my mark. We have no endpoint, and the longer it gets dragged on the more dangerous it is for everyone maintaining the lie.”

Lara gave a reluctant nod. “Yes.”

“And if one side decides the arrangement is no longer convenient?”

“The arrangement becomes considerably more difficult to maintain.”

The chamber door opened before anyone could answer. Serina returned carrying two wooden serving trays stacked against her chest. She slowed when she saw the room, then crossed quietly to the table and placed them beside Alec. Nobody stopped the discussion to explain anything, so she simply returned to her chair and looked over the writing that had appeared while she was gone.

Liza immediately leaned closer.

“Congratulations,” she whispered, but loud enough for everyone to hear. “You’re part of a conspiracy now.”

Serina turned to her.

Liza lowered her voice further. “Rob found a loophole. Kevin leaves as an independent Witness, Aurelia publicly tells him not to, all of us publicly disagree with him, and privately everyone knows exactly what is happening.”

Serina’s eyes moved to Rob, then Lara, then finally Aurelia.

Lara’s expression did nothing to reassure her.

Liza added, “Apparently it works as long as nobody contradicts the story.”

Serina looked back at the board. The confusion on her face gradually disappeared as she read the newer lines, replaced first by understanding and then by something much closer to alarm. She sat a little straighter and said nothing.

Kevin was still looking at Aurelia. “And unless something changes, there is no actual endpoint.”

Nicole closed her eyes briefly. Then she looked at Kevin, resisting the urge to reach for the water pitcher.

“Do you want me to kill you myself first?”

Kevin looked at her.

“No.”

A brief pause.

“But that would solve a few problems.”

Nicole stared at him.

Liza immediately turned back to Serina. “Does resurrection magic exist?”

Serina, who had only just discovered that fetching serving trays had somehow made her an accessory to a political conspiracy, looked at her in disbelief.

“What?”

“Resurrection.”

Nicole pointed at Liza without looking at her. “Ignore her.”

“I am asking a legitimate magical question.”

“Why?”

“In case Kevin dies.”

Serina looked at Kevin.

Kevin shook his head. “Do not engage.”

Serina looked increasingly confused. “Not that I am aware of.”

Liza sighed. “Shame.”

“Liza,” Nicole said.

“I was checking.”

While they argued, Aurelia had gone quiet.

She was watching them instead. Her attention moved across Kevin and the other four, then across the collection of phones, cables, unfamiliar equipment, and glowing marks that had already created half the problems they were trying to solve. From there, her eyes settled briefly on Lara and Varris.

Nicole could practically see the calculation taking shape.

Keeping Kevin under direct control was safer in the simplest sense, but Alec had already made clear what that would cost. Separate him from the others and Aurelia lost the cooperation of all five. Hand him to the Church and the same problem became worse. Let him remain openly among them and eventually someone would demand an examination she could no longer delay.

Rob’s solution was a conspiracy, and Lara had spent long enough examining it to make clear that she hated every part of it. She had also admitted that it could work. Varris had not produced a cleaner alternative.

Aurelia remained silent for long enough that the room gradually quieted with her.

Serina looked from the board to the princess, apparently realizing that the decision being made now would determine whether the conspiracy Liza had just described became an actual policy.

Aurelia finally spoke.

“Very well.”

Lara’s expression tightened.

Aurelia continued before she could object. “We proceed on the assumption that Mercer may conduct an independent inquiry under the public interpretation already given to the Witness role.”

“Your Highness,” Lara said carefully, “you understand that maintaining this account deliberately is different from what was done in the sanctum.”

“Yes.”

“And that everyone involved would have to continue maintaining it.”

“Yes.”

Lara held her gaze for another moment, then gave a small nod. She plainly did not approve, but she had already given Aurelia the answer she had been asked for.

Alec pulled one of the new trays closer and wrote across the top.

INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION

Serina read the heading and looked even less happy.

Kevin leaned enough to see it. “That sounds official.”

“It needs to,” Alec said.

Rob rested his arms on the table. “The basic story is simple. You don’t accept that anyone here has enough information to tell you what happened to you, so you investigate it yourself.”

Lara immediately corrected him. “Do not present the Covenant as granting him authority.”

Alec nodded. “It doesn’t grant authority. Kevin is exercising the independent judgment Aurelia already claimed the Witnesses possess.”

“That is better,” Lara said.

Rob smiled. “High praise.”

“It was not praise.”

Aurelia ignored him and addressed Kevin. “My position must be that I advised you to remain.”

“You should.”

“For your safety.”

“Reasonable.”

“Because your status remains unresolved.”

“Also reasonable.”

“And because once you leave my protection, I cannot guarantee what happens if another authority finds you.”

Kevin paused.

“Also reasonable.”

Nicole narrowed her eyes.

“You agree too easily when the logic involves you walking into danger.”

Varris added, “Her Highness is not releasing you from custody because you were never publicly in custody. Nor is she sending you anywhere.”

“She is simply failing to stop an independent divine marked bearer from leaving,” Rob said.

Lara gave him a tired look. “That phrasing is exactly why I called this a conspiracy.”

Kevin considered it. “It has excellent bureaucratic properties.”

Nicole looked at him. “Do not compliment the conspiracy.”

Alec continued writing while Aurelia watched the tray.

“The other four cannot appear to support Mercer’s departure,” she said. “If you do, the Church will assume it was coordinated.”

Alec nodded. “Then publicly, Kevin disagrees with us.”

“Temporarily,” Nicole said.

Kevin glanced at her. “Publicly.”

Nicole turned her head.

He corrected himself immediately. “Temporarily.”

“Good.”

Aurelia continued. “You advise him to remain with the group.”

“That part will require very little acting,” Nicole said.

Kevin wisely left that alone.

Alec wrote another line beneath the first.

PUBLIC DISAGREEMENT

Nicole read it and frowned. “I don’t like that.”

Alec paused. “What?”

“That sounds like we are fighting.”

“We are supposed to look like we disagree.”

“We disagree with his decision. He is not abandoning us.”

Kevin started to speak.

Nicole raised one finger.

“No.”

“I have not said anything.”

Rob had been watching the wording accumulate across the tray.

Rob shook his head. “Disagree is too weak. If this is supposed to convince anyone, Kevin has to break ranks.”

Alec glanced at him.

Rob pointed at the tray. “The five of us agree to remain under Aurelia’s protection. Then Kevin rejects that decision, refuses to cooperate with it, and leaves anyway. From the outside, that is not a disagreement. He turned on the group.”

Nicole frowned. “He did not turn on us.”

“Publicly, he did.”

Kevin started to speak.

Nicole raised one finger. “No.”

“I have not said anything.”

“You were about to.”

Alec considered the wording. “He rejects the collective decision.”

“And Her Highness’s protection,” Lara added.

Varris nodded. “After being explicitly advised to remain.”

Rob leaned back. “So he rebels against everyone at the table and disappears.”

“That is not what anyone watching this will call it.”

Liza brightened. “Oh, this is absolutely a betrayal arc.”

Kevin sighed. “It is not a betrayal arc.”

Liza turned to Serina, who had been following the discussion with steadily increasing concern. “Dark-marked member rejects the princess, breaks with the rest of the party, refuses their decision, and leaves alone on some mysterious investigation.”

Serina looked from Kevin to the others. “But you are all allowing him to do this.”

“Secretly.”

Serina hesitated.

“Yes.”

Liza smiled. “Exactly.”

“Consent rather defeats the definition of betrayal,” Kevin said.

“Only for the people in this room,” Rob replied. “Everyone else gets the version where you walked out on us.”

Nicole knew exactly what Liza meant. She had seen enough arguments about scenarios exactly like this in their group chats that she once muted the conversation for two weeks.

Aurelia brought them back to the wording. “Then the public account will be that Mercer rejects the decision reached by the other four, refuses my recommendation that he remain under Crown protection, and leaves despite all of us advising him against it.”

Nicole immediately looked at her. “Rejects the decision. Not us.”

Aurelia considered that, then nodded. “Very well.”

“And temporary.”

Kevin opened his mouth.

Nicole looked at him.

He closed it again.

“Temporary,” Aurelia said.

Rob glanced at the fresh tray. “So betrayal with consent.”

Alec sighed, but nobody corrected him.

Aurelia looked at the trays.

“Then the explanation is workable.”

Lara did not. She stared at the words covering the serving tray for several seconds, then slowly lowered her eyes to the folio in front of her. She had spent the last half an hour explaining exactly how the conspiracy could work, and now Aurelia was actually going to use it.

For a moment, she looked like she regretted every decision that had brought her to this table.

Aurelia continued as if nothing had happened.

“It does not explain where he goes.”

The room quieted again.

Kevin looked at the fresh serving tray Serina had placed beside Alec.

Then at the map cases stacked near Lara’s folio.

He exhaled.

“Well, that’s one problem solved… Now where do we put me?”