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(The last contact Suyana had met on home soil had vanished—prison or dead, Zenaida never told her. He had been expendable; contacts always were. Suyana was the constant they risked it for. If she came back again, and there was more work that needed doing, it wouldn't be Sotalia. Sotalia would be long gone.)

“I couldn't get much,” Suyana said, and rolled out the length of paper towel, sketching the rise of the hills in concentric
circles.

After a few marks for the trees, Sotalia said, “Is it really that close to the forest? They must be serious about pretending they care.”

“It looks that way,” Suyana said, her stomach pulling tight, suddenly, from doubt. “The mud flat faces the entrance approach, but they keep most of the seeds right above the entry pod.”

Sotalia looked at her, skeptical. “So what? We should be careful not to set the charges there when we burn the building down?”

Suyana took a breath, straightened up. Not that she had much full height to draw up to, but she was taller than Sotalia. “You shouldn't set charges anywhere yet. I talked with one of the administrators, and I think we should wait until they've gotten the first planting in, to hold back the erosion. The erosion is a bigger threat than the red tape right now. I want this to be a reconnaissance mission.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“They're getting sponsors to buy enough plants to slow down the erosion. If they mean it, then the planting needs to happen first. And if they do it in good faith, then maybe they're serious about conservation. I think you need to wait and see.”

Sotalia folded her arms. “Yes, of course, I had forgotten
the meeting where we decided to believe everything we were told by the people in charge.”

“I'm not saying trust them. I'm saying wait. It's at least structured for conservation—it's messy and we have to be careful before we let them get away with patents or anything permanent, but—”

“And I remember how the mining outpost was supposed to create jobs that would make it worth all the trees they were tearing down.”

“They aren't some American mining company,” Suyana hissed.

“It's outsiders trying to make money off the forest! There's no difference between one outpost and another!”

Too young for this, Suyana thought. Reckless. Her hands were beginning to shake. She pressed them harder against the counter. “Maybe no one's told you my connection to the last group of outsiders.”

“Oh,” said Sotalia, with weight. Her dark eyes glittered. “No, don't worry, Lachesis. I know who you are.”

Acid rose in her throat. The last man who did what you're doing is gone, she wanted to say. The last time I did this, I was sure it needed to be done (I'm still sure, surer than I am of this, surer than I am of anything now). The last time this happened, I lost the only man I trusted in the world. Don't ever say my name like you don't think I earned it.

What she said was, “Then you can be damn sure I know the difference.”

Without looking away, she slid the paper under her hand sideways, right under the water. It ran over her fingers, ice cold, and it would take care of the ink.

“I have specifics,” she said. “I have the names of the plants they're hoping to patent—that has to be stopped, and I would think that's something Chordata would be interested in. I know the facility layout, and their timeline, and their potential. And you won't be getting any of it until I can be sure you know the difference, too.”

On her way out, she scooped her tablet off the table, just in case Sotalia got any ideas about procuring information the hard way.

Tell me I'm not a coward, she thought to Hakan as she met her bodyguard and walked through the lobby with a marble floor that cost more than some towns made in a year. Tell me I'm not doing this just to spare my mother; tell me I'm right to believe that letting someone pay to assuage their guilt in exchange for good press isn't just some lesser devil. Tell me there's still a believer left somewhere, and not just a shell that looks like me.

The singer onstage was finishing a lesser Yma Sumac song when she got back. Suyana slid back into place, nudged tight alongside Ethan by the crowd, and caught the final
key-change chorus in time to applaud the soprano. The soprano's nerves looked like they had returned the instant the singing stopped, and she nearly tripped trying to bow and smile at the same time.

“Poor thing,” said Suyana. “Why would she be so nervous when she can sing like that?”

“Because she knew what was coming,” said Ethan, his voice falling out of hearing just at the last, and Suyana didn't understand why until she'd processed that he was kneeling, that he was holding a ring, that the singer was still onstage behind the mic and waiting to say something. To sing something. Everyone was waiting.

Ethan was looking at her, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, but amid the hundred flashbulbs that had gone off, she could see the crow's feet that tensed around his eyes when he was nervous and thought he was in the wrong.

He'd gone for coffee, he said when she was alone with her mother. He'd been strange since they got back from the research facility. She'd known Margot must have called him, and had assumed the worst.

Turned out Margot could still outdo her.

“Suyana Sapaki, will you marry me?” he asked, and the crowd went wild (her answer didn't matter, she didn't have an answer, she had a given), and she looked over at Magnus's ghostly face and out at the sea of people behind
them and down at Ethan, whose hand was beginning to tremble. She looked at the smooth column of his neck and thought, That's where the knife would go, if I carried one—I could use my knife and run for it, and you wouldn't know any
different.

She said, “Of course I will.”

Daniel spent three days shadowing Martine through New York.

“We're still deciding who to assign as her new regular,” Li Zhao had told him, and he thought of Hannah, taking pictures of Martine filing her nails in Assembly sessions and heading out clubbing for years, removed as soon as things got interesting.

Not that Martine was interesting. That was the point.

None of the Big Nine had much public personality—when you were Big Nine, you didn't need one—but Martine's was the only one that felt cultivated. There had always been a sense of deliberation in how inert she was, even back when he was first doing research for Hae Soo-jin's
press pit. Not that he blamed her. The IA was unstable. Martine was trying to be a block of marble amid electric wires.

But Daniel watched her wrap her huge scarf around her neck—she vanished above it, glossy lips and a pretty face and nothing else—and thought about Suyana telling him she had to go home but had no way to get there. Then she'd gone out with Grace and Martine for a single night, and suddenly the path had opened.

Martine got coffee, and went to museums and absorbed culture like she was supposed to, and spent most of her time alone. Ansfrida hardly ever went with her. It took him two days to realize that was the normal run of things, and not some strange negligence on Ansfrida's part. His first guess was that Martine had someone on the side, but Martine never used the solitude to contact anyone. She'd had one lunch with Kipa, but only New Zealand's cameras were there—they were the ones getting the favor—and it was just tacos from a truck a few blocks south of the IA offices.

After that, Martine took Kipa to a matinee (some action movie where Martine spoke to Kipa every time the shooting started and Daniel couldn't catch a word) and then dropped Kipa back at the offices like dry cleaning. Martine didn't so much as step onto the sidewalk in front of the IA, and she spent the rest of the day walking up Madison and down Fifth, pretending to shop and not buying a thing.

He sent a marker to Bonnaire, flagging her hesitation at the IA border for review. Was she wanted in another country, and couldn't leave United States soil? (Wasn't hard to imagine her wearing out her welcome somewhere.) Was everything all right, and this empty fishbowl of a calendar just what it meant to be powerful in a place that asked nothing else of you except to do as you were told?

He didn't buy it. Martine was lying low. He just didn't know what for.

“What did Li Zhao think of it? Am I looking for a pattern with Martine? What's her plan?”

Kate
ooh, mm-hmm
'ed like a nagging aunt. “Daniel, Li Zhao fainted from the excitement of it all, just as soon as she heard.”

Dev snickered. “Li Zhao hasn't—” he started, then paused before he said, “We don't know if there's a pattern yet.”

Daniel imagined Kate waving Dev silent, wondered what exactly
Li Zhao hadn't
, what plans he was excluded from.

Martine conducted no business at all for two days, meeting other people only after the sun was down and she was wearing sequins like chain mail. Then, with the cameras on, she grinned and gnawed her cigarette and pulled back her hair so tight it scraped her skull. She'd go out in a knot of the Big Nine, and when they reached whatever ridiculously dim club it was, she'd leave them all in
the VIP section and dance in the center of the crowd, eyes closed, where nobody could reach her.

By the third night, he'd started sending emergency messages to Bo. Whatever this was, he wasn't going to sit through it alone.

This is the weirdest beat. I'm tailing a cloud

Hold until further notice.

Has Margot moved on anything? Feels like Martine's waiting for something

Negative, follow and hold.

Has the boss gotten someone for this job yet?

Negative.

Have we heard from Suyana? Did Nicodema say anything?

Negative.

She's going to another club, Bo. Request cover

Cover unnecessary, follow and hold.

Cover urgently requested, I can't stay up until 3 a.m. again tailing her

I'll cover at 1:30. Give me coordinates.

At Hypatia. May be forced to engage mark if cover not available by 1 a.m.

Negative, follow and hold.

Confirmed, visual contact maintained, I'm waving

Not sure if you're joking, given your track record.

Fuck you

She says hi

This won't get you removed from assignment early.

Beg to differ, hope you're showing the boss

Bo, Martine's beautiful, I want to marry her, I'll send you a picture of us in a second we look really good

Bo, I bought her a drink, that's still professional, right?

I'm going to go meet all her friends, when whatever news the boss is waiting for breaks, you let me know

I'm going to go dance with Martine come find me when you get here

We're married now, we didn't invite you

Daniel, there's news about Suyana.

× × × × × × ×

It wasn't news. It was terrifying and all wrong, but it wasn't news. News surprised you.

Suyana had told him as much about seven months back, when he'd lost his temper—who knew why, it was the end of a short meeting, he hadn't been patient even when she still looked like there was a soul inside her—and asked how she thought this fucking contract relationship was going to end.

And she'd looked right at him (he'd turned an inch away from her, pressed his hand against his eye socket so hard it stung) and said, “Retirement.”

A wretched word—a word years away—but it was a comfort. The worst wouldn't happen; there wouldn't be
a wedding. There was never a wedding. Marriage was much too permanent a statement for two Faces in good standing. You wanted a life of international possibility that kept you exciting to the public, of use to your country, and sold magazines. You had a physical clause to protect each country from accusations of intent to tamper (like Faces were cars whose warranties had to be obeyed; he'd laughed when he read it). Marriage was for after no one cared who you were sleeping with.

She'd looked like she doubted she'd make it that far. Daniel had tried to ignore it. That was seven months ago, when he'd had hope of success understanding her.

This was just an engagement. It was a ring and official portraits and a few sets of candids of them at second base in a nightclub. It was a promise that would keep Suyana out from under suspicion, that was all.

The publicity shit could go on for a year. Suyana planning a wedding. Suyana announcing a honeymoon destination they'd never see while ten thousand people dropped their magazines and dove for their phones to make bookings. Suyana taking the UARC photographers with her to try on wedding dresses for Magnus to look at and debate and decide on, while Daniel stood outside and watched without
moving until it was all over.

× × × × × × ×

The third day, Grace came to visit Martine.

Daniel stood across the street and watched her duck into Martine's building, which required a staff badge at too many places for him to sneak around inside. He was debating the best way to make himself scarce and still be able to clock Grace's departure when Martine lifted the shades on the living room window, seven floors up, and looked right at him.

He tried not to laugh. Now Grace on top of it all. She'd probably already known. She'd probably seen him in Terrain a year ago when he made a scene with Suyana, and he imagined even Martine would be loath to keep a secret as choice as knowing where their biggest press leak was always coming from.

Off to the side, beyond the scope of his temple camera, he waved waist-high.

Grace raised her eyebrows and was smiling carefully in another direction as she pulled back and out of sight, calm and practiced as even Magnus could wish for. Martine stared until the shade was drawn. He couldn't tell if it was a warning, or if there were some things she didn't see the point in lying about any more.