Shara glances at Vohannes’s white suitcase, which sits underneath her desk. “Perhaps I would have something,” she says savagely, “if you would allow me to review his dead drop material!”
Vinya snaps forward. “And if you did that, then you would be directly disobeying a Ministry order! That material is be reviewed by me first! And if I think it could be of use to you, then I will allow you access to it! That’s how the chain of command works! It’s what our entire intelligence agency is predicated on! And I will not allow my arrogant niece to buck the system solely because she feels like reading enough dusty old books gives her more insight than any other intelligence officer! Your fascination with the Divine has always been a fault, not a virtue! And I will tell you right now, right now, that my first instinct is to rip you out of Bulikov and put you on a ship back here right away!”
Despite the argument, despite the promise of punishment, despite everything, Shara’s heart leaps at this idea. Yet she gets the creeping sense that Vinya’s disappointment in her is a little too complete: Is Vinya actively discrediting me? She is astounded at the thought of it, yet Shara realizes she herself has done this to her own enemies many times: after all, why kill someone when you can make them out to be an incompetent fool?
“But,” Vinya continues, “I cannot. Because of what you did. You are a glorious hero here in Saypur, Shara. The champion of Bulikov. Hail the conquering hero, grand victor over a threat she herself created! So much talk is swirling throughout the halls of power here right now, and I have no idea what the final resolution will be. I wish I could tell them exactly how terribly you’ve botched everything, but that would require telling them about the Warehouse—which I expressly cannot do. So, rather than endanger any of my functioning, productive policies, I will do nothing. I will do nothing but give them all what they want—you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. I am promoting you, dear. I am fully recognizing your status as chief diplomat to Bulikov. And I am putting you somewhere where you cannot damage any more intelligence operations.”
Shara blanches. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. You will be a public creature. I am, for the moment, suspending all your intelligence credentials. You will lose all clearance to all sensitive materials, to all operations. Any requests you make to any other Ministry operatives will not be answered. You will be, in effect, the very prominent and very accessible face of Saypur in Bulikov. And I am sure you will be applauded and celebrated for it,” she says acidly.
Shara feels sick. There is nothing—nothing—that could ever be more terrifying to intelligence operatives than being installed in public office, exposed and vulnerable to all the pleas and restrictions they could previously simply sidestep in their shadow life.
“You will, I think, be very busy,” says Vinya. “Bulikov and Saypur very much wish to talk to one another, it seems. And they will talk through you. I don’t know if you and that man, Votrov, concocted this scheme together, but if so, you must be so proud that it worked—so I am going to make sure you shoulder the majority of the burden, for now.”
So this is her punishment, Shara thinks. I almost would prefer to be indicted and imprisoned. But Vinya never has had a taste for mercy.
Shara clears her throat. Increasingly, she feels like she is in a game of Batlan where her opponent is secretly playing another game, but she is willing to try anything at this point. “Auntie Vinya … Listen.”
“Yes?”
“If … if I was to tell you that there is a real, credible threat in Bulikov … that I have witnessed, firsthand, evidence indicating one of the original Divinities, in some form or fashion, has survived … What would you do?”
Vinya looks at her pityingly. “Is that your great secret? Your terrible suspicion? That’s why you went into the Warehouse?”
“Yes. I’m sure of it. I really am, Aunt Vinya.”
“Oh, Shara … I would do the same thing I did when I heard it the last time, two months ago. And the time before that, seven months ago. And the time before that, and the time before that, and the time before that. … I receive, on average, nearly ten reports a year telling me that the gods aren’t dead, that they’re still kicking around somewhere, planning their return. We have received a steady stream of these since the War. If we stacked them, the pile of reports would be three stories tall! And all of them are always completely convinced this will happen—because the Continent is convinced this will happen. It’s their silly fable, their desperate dream, like the Dreylings and their Dauvkind. Lost kings and queens that will one day sail back … It’s nonsense, Shara.”
“But … I am the most experienced expert on everything Divine. Doesn’t that count for something?”