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Kipa shook her head, shrugged. “You know what she tells people when she wants things handled. It was decisive.”

“But you're here anyway?”

Her eyes were wide and serious. “Of course,” she said, and Suyana ached to believe her.

When they shuffled into the cramped studio—feeling even smaller in the dim of closed curtains—with a table and a quorum of rickety folding chairs squeezed beside the bed, Martine and Grace were sitting in a haze of nervous smoke from Martine's cigarette.

Grace glanced up first. When she saw Daniel, her eyes went wide for a heartbeat before she could smooth her face back to a polite nothing. Martine barely spared either of them a look; she must know Daniel better.

“Suyana,” Grace said, “you know he's surveillance.”

“He's with me,” Suyana said as she took a seat. Daniel, after some silent negotiation with himself, sat gingerly on
the edge of the bed, hands in his lap. “And he's not taping this. I've struck a deal.”

“Oh,
well
, if you've struck a
deal,
then I suppose that's all sorted out.”

“Martine.”

Kipa raised her eyebrows, and Suyana tried very hard not to do the same as she leaned forward and said, “It's about Margot.”

“So he told you?” Martine said, casting an unimpressed look at Daniel.

Daniel hadn't told her much, really, and for a moment her fingertips stung like she'd lost blood. She ignored it. He'd sent her a lieutenant, and he'd followed her when she gave the word. She'd asked nothing else of him.

“Do you mean the attempted murder last year, or the attempted murder last night?”

“Last night?” Kipa had a hand on the table, staking her claim to talk—not a bad move, but her nail polish was chipped. Suyana would have to break her of that habit.

“Margot sent someone after me last night. The knife got me. My snap saved my life.”

It was a bit much—“took care of it” would have worked just as well—but she had brought a new press order on all of them, and sometimes you had to oversell. Sooner or later, everybody was susceptible to a good headline.

Kipa was the first to summon an answer. “So what are you going to do?”

“Shit,” Grace said a moment later, as it occurred to her. Martine shook her head tightly, once.

Suyana said, “I want her out. Tomorrow's the first day of session. Everyone will be gathered, but there won't be anything scheduled for vote or debate. National press will be present. I want a vote of no confidence in Margot before she can say a word. Call in your allies, whoever you have who would be willing to second a motion.”

Martine narrowed her eyes. “Who did you say was going to lead this stirring
cri de coeur
in front of every country in the world and a hundred of the army?”

Suyana smiled, all teeth. “I will. Don't worry, Martine, I never mistook you for a woman of action.”

In lieu of an answer Martine sucked in a pirate's breath off her cigarette, and if she looked like she was on the verge of regretting something, the smoke made it hard to tell.

Kipa broke in. “But then wouldn't the vice chair just step up?”

“That's in case of death or emergency. Otherwise it's a vote. We'll need a new candidate for chairperson. Immediately.”

Grace blinked and frowned. “Who, exactly, did you have in mind?”

“Not me,” Suyana promised. She never could. As soon
as she was under the lights, the truth would come out, and maybe Chordata deserved it, but she wasn't going to make a decision for the entire organization. She knew what it felt like for decisions to be made without you that couldn't be taken back.

Kipa said, “Not me either.”

“So what?” Martine blew smoke through her teeth so hard it looked like the edge of dragon fire. “It'll just be someone else on the Central Committee. She's groomed that whole place to do just as she says. She'll be replaced by herself.”

“Not if a majority backs an outside candidate. The Committee can't risk making the wrong appointment themselves in the middle of no-confidence upheaval. It taints by association.” She risked a look at Grace, who seemed staggered but was paying attention, and pressed her luck. “An outsider will be the best solution—they'll take her on to see if she'll fail, and by the time she succeeds it will be too late to remove her.”

Martine frowned. “How the hell do you know she would succeed?”

Suyana looked across the table with deliberation and met Martine's eye without blinking. “If I put her there, I will make sure she succeeds.”

Martine opened her mouth to refute it, smoke rolling across her cheek. But the words never came; she looked at
Suyana like she was remembering something, and then her face shifted a centimeter and she sat back.

“Well, I'm not doing it. I've seen what happens to anyone who ends up on top. I'm out.” Her voice trembled; her hand trembled. “You're wasting your time if you want to change anything.”

True in the long term—how could it not be?—but Margot had been on top for nearly twenty years, which was a good enough run to offer her successor, and now wasn't the time to lose focus. Suyana turned to Grace, whose hand was already a fist on the table, knuckles down. “Grace, do you want to be chair of the Central Committee?”

Grace tried a smile—one of the canned ones, one that wouldn't fool any of them. “It's not that I doubt you, Suyana, but this is dangerous business.”

“It is. And it won't be easy. But I've seen your face when we're expected to vote No on something important. You have things you want changed, Grace, I know you do. With the right support—”

“That sounds like a threat.”

“If you feel like it is, Martine, you're welcome to abstain from the voting.”

Grace raised a hand off the table an inch and stopped them both. “So, this is the plan? I say yes, and you somehow make it work to oust Margot on camera?”

Suyana looked at her, tried to summon whatever conviction she still had about anything. “Grace. Do you want to be chair?”

Behind her, Daniel took in a slow, heavy breath and held it, like he was trying to get a steady close-up. If he was, Suyana thought, and this camera was rolling, she'd kill him, too.

After what felt like a long time but couldn't have been, Grace said, “I'll accept the nomination.”

She would have kept pushing—accepting wasn't the same as wanting, they'd all done nothing their whole lives but accept, and this had to be different—but there was a glint in Grace's eye as she spoke, hunger looking to be fed.

With power there was a far-off chance of justice; Suyana knew what that felt like. The first time someone suggested it to her they took a picture of her standing in front of the green, and the International Assembly had sworn her in beneath the official photo of her staring out at them all and already making plans.

“We need two-thirds,” Kipa said, reaching into her bag for a notebook. “Do we have it?”

They looked at one another. To discuss something like this was dangerous. To write it down was treason; to begin a list like this was putting your head on the block.

Kipa said, “New Zealand.” She wrote with the concentration of someone whose letters were usually written for her,
and Suyana felt a pang. She couldn't fail—not if it would put Kipa in danger. (That had been part of Grace's thinking in bringing her, Suyana had no doubt. Kipa might be an ally, but Suyana wasn't a fool.)

When she glanced over her shoulder, Daniel was looking at her, the shadow of a smile on his face. She returned it, just for a second.

Martine said, “Norway.”

And because it was important, and because it was important that they saw it as soon as possible and recognized what she had done (what she was capable of), Suyana held up her hand with the engagement ring and said, “The United States.”

The list took several hours to put together, which only surprised Daniel because he'd figured there was going to be a harder time finding people who were willing to move against Margot on someone else's word.

Martine had a list he believed. She was brittle, but that kind of sharpness got results. No surprise if she had three dozen countries who owed her a favor.

“Denmark,” she said, pointing to the paper like it would know exactly why Denmark was a lock, and even Kipa smiled as she wrote.

He'd underestimated Grace. He suspected a lot of people had underestimated Grace—except Suyana, expert at taking
someone's measure—who had appeared affably diplomatic, but was actually concealing an impressive network. Daniel had images of her getting elevator doors unstuck like a comic-book hero just before it plummeted, while a dozen Faces shook her hand and promised they owed her one.

Every so often, Suyana glanced at him sidelong and looked ready to smile, which meant she was enjoying the surprise of being believed. He smiled back; he was angry with her, still, but he worried for her more. The fight could wait until they had the luxury of a fight.

“If you're not sure, don't list them,” Suyana said. “We'll have half an hour, at most, to talk to people before they call the session to order. There's no time to convince the undecided. Lock down anyone you can, and ask them to talk to people they trust. Margot's had a whole day on us to shore up support for whatever she's planning. I don't think it's enough, but we have to be efficient.”

Kipa glanced up from her notes. “How will the people we talk to know who else we need to talk to without implicating themselves in treason?”

“The people we talk to have people who owe them favors,” Suyana said. “Call them in. All of them.”

Grace glanced at Suyana's left hand.

“Doesn't anyone have anything on Iceland? This seems ridiculous,” Grace said, and Kipa smothered a giggle, and
Martine said, “It's a fucking miracle, a country that can stand alone,” and they all seemed on the verge of fellow-feeling just before Bo cut across Daniel's feed and said, “I have something you and Suyana should hear.”

When he stood up, Suyana looked over, and it was the biggest, most awful relief of his life that she realized what had happened before he had to say a word.

× × × × × × ×

The front door of the building faced a little row of shops and felt too exposed for what Daniel knew this was, so he took her around the corner to a side alley, where Bo was waiting.

Suyana's first words were, “How did she do it?”

“Ferry from Calais to London. He bought a ticket in cash, paid someone to go with him as his boyfriend. The guy found him in the engine room just before they pulled into port.” Bo took a breath that seemed to rob him of two inches of height. “The body's been identified as Ethan, through teeth. Just a few minutes ago. London police don't know what to do yet.”

Suyana nodded twice, then held her head stiffly still as if afraid of over-accepting. “What are they saying happened?”

“Mechanical accident.”

She made a low, agreeing noise that scratched at the skin on his neck. For a moment, she rested one shoulder against the wall; the shoulder she'd been shot in.

“I thought she'd wait,” she said. “I thought she'd at least
want to see how tomorrow went before she decided. She must—she must know what we're doing. Of course she knows, sorry, that was a stupid thing to say. She wanted to make sure Ethan could never admit she'd asked him to be a spy on his own kind.”

There was a little quiet, because Bo was a quiet person, and because Daniel had no idea what you said at a moment like this.

Then she said, “Whoever's with Magnus now, tell him to put in a claim for the body.”

Even Bo made a face. “Are you sure?”

“I'm his wife,” she said, edged. “I need to put in a claim for the body to start paperwork. The Americans can't let this look like he died before they called Leili in. I want time stamps.” She looked up. “Bo, does Bonnaire have anyone in London?”

A beat. “Li Zhao's dispatched someone from that office. Should be ten minutes.”

“She should call the BBC and deal, now,” Suyana said. “I want broadcasts before Margot can make this disappear. They can say whatever they want about him, so long as he's too famous to vanish.”

She was twisting the ring on her left hand absently; Daniel wondered if she knew.

“Where is she now?”

“She's been visiting a lot of old friends,”
Bo said.

If Suyana thought it was odd that Bo knew who Margot considered friends, she didn't betray it. “Good. If she was confident of her chances, she'd be calling Committee meetings. Keep Daniel apprised of who she sees.”

Bo nodded, and had already taken a step back when she said, “Thank you, Bo. This is invaluable information. It will make the difference for us.”

He nodded again, more warmly, before he vanished, and Daniel tried not to think about how often Suyana had handled people this way in the midst of some disaster that should have knocked her sideways. How many times she must have handled Daniel, that he hadn't even noticed.

Her nails were beginning to scratch her ring finger with every twist. He reached out slowly, his hand over hers—an inch away, not touching her. (It was unimaginable to touch her right now, for reasons he was carefully refusing to examine.) “Do you want to go back upstairs?”

She nodded—more slowly this time, like she was actually considering it and not just unable to keep still. “Daniel. When this story breaks, I don't—I don't know if I want to see the body, if it's too horrible. I need to see it eventually—I'll have to talk about it, make it important, how he died—but not . . . not today.”

It sounded so broken that at first he thought something ugly and beneath him, but when he didn't
answer, she didn't get any more calm or any more upset; she just looked down the street like she was expecting someone, and after a while, it unnerved him enough to say something.