“It feels like there could be an assassin or traitor anywhere,” Lyssa said. “That’s what’s bothering me. I’ve always been paranoid, but now I feel like I have to look over my shoulder everywhere I go. That’s not the way I want to live. Even I need to shut my brain off, eat some ice cream, and enjoy some trashy television now and again.”
“There is at least one traitor of concern,” Jofi said. “That appears to be a fact. The only question seems to be who it is. You’ll likely feel calmer about all this once you find and eliminate them.”
“I wonder if I made a mistake coming here,” Lyssa said.
“Because you confirmed the Northern Trickster has returned?” Jofi asked. “Or because of the lack of additional attempts on your life suggests the bait plan isn’t working as intended?”
“Both.” Lyssa reached up and pulled off her mask. There was no one around to disapprove. “I spent all this time thinking I’d figure everything out if I came to Last Remnant. I thought I was clearing up two problems at once, but I think I just made a new one.”
“Aren’t you being premature?” Jofi asked.
Lyssa replied, “They might not be willing to make their move here.”
“What about the spying shard?”
“It’s just spying, and that’s assuming it wasn’t just Tristan or the Elder keeping an eye on me and lying about it. I’m not Caroline. I’m good at reading people, but both those guys have been lying to people since before I was born.” Lyssa shrugged. “If the assassin was serious, they would have tried to bomb me or disrupt the lift. I think they’re watching me, trying to find more weaknesses. I thought coming here might help move things along, but I’m having trouble understanding the overall plan.”
“I thought the overall plan was to kill Illuminated,” Jofi said.
“But that’s not enough. Means and opportunities are there, but what’s the motive, and how does it fit in with what else has been going on lately? The mine? The smuggling?”
“Must they be related? Human malfeasance isn’t a rarity even among your kind. You wouldn’t need Eclipses and Torches otherwise.”
“But I’m not the queen of the universe.” Lyssa knelt and ran her gloved hand over the sand. “I keep bumping into things that raise new questions. I can accept a few coincidences, but there have been too many for me to ignore.” She stood and shook the sand off her glove. “Assassinating Sorcerers on the island wouldn’t be enough. Even going after the Tribunal wouldn’t be enough. If this is about chaos, similar to what that guy at the mine said, this isn’t a good place to do it. The Society is too strong here.”
The more she thought about it, the release of Jofi here would be the best strategy. They’d have a better chance of containing him, and although there would be damage, the rest of the world would never know.
From what the Elder said, that wasn’t the enemy’s plan anyway. They didn’t want to release him. They wanted his power, suggesting they thought they could use him more effectively than she could, or perhaps they didn’t care to risk an attack similar to the showstopper if it would end dramatically against a major target.
She’d messed everything up by adding more variables. Drawing out the assassins again and finishing them off in America should have been her priority.
“Everything else is conspiring to mess with me.” Lyssa peered at a small crab wandering along the beach. “I keep wondering how much the stuff I’ve run into means something and how much of it is coincidence I’m reading hidden meaning into. Chris, the emails, those internet guys being lured to the mine. Some of it has to be linked, but it also might be separate things that don’t have anything to do with one another. Damn it. I just need to know what threads to follow.”
“You believe the people attempting to assassinate you were behind the mine incident and smuggling?” Jofi asked.
“Maybe not both, but the evidence pointing to the mine is pretty strong. I’m just not important enough that all these things would happen to me by accident.” Lyssa shrugged. “And it’s not like every job I’ve worked lately is linked to something greater. Most of the smaller ones after the mine were standard EAA criminals-out-of-control crap.”
“None of those jobs involved shards or rogues,” Jofi said.
“And that’s why I think that. That’s what most contracts are. The cartel having shards was a big deal, even if it seems tame compared to someone releasing giant monsters toward a town.”
“And you’re comfortable that Elder Theodora isn’t a suspect?” Jofi asked. “You seemed so convinced about that before.”
“And I was wrong.” Lyssa nodded. “No, based on what Tristan’s told me, and assuming, which is a big assumption, that he’s not lying about other things, she doesn’t seem to be anything but an ambitious Elder. It wouldn’t make sense for her to try to recruit me and keep letting Aisha help me if she wanted me dead.”
“That’s all true.”
Lyssa rubbed her temples. “But none of that helps me figure this out. Samuel’s dead. Aisha got hurt badly. Chris is dead.” She sucked in a breath, letting the word hang on the wind before continuing. “Bodies are piling up. Our kind isn’t common, and someone’s willing to go damned far for whatever conspiracy this is. That zealot at the mine said it was about forcing chaos and growth. Tristan said it’s gotten worse lately. I have no idea how true that is because it’s not like the Tribunal’s going to tell a lowly Torch about all the crap they’re cleaning up behind the scenes.”
“Do you have a reason not to believe the man at the mine?” Jofi asked. “He might have been lying.”
“Sure.” Lyssa nodded. “And guys like him don’t even know the big picture. Someone
