I stopped by Sicimmi's dorm room on Fourthday and picked up the forged letters I had commissioned. There had been a campus-wide all-day search for Quinnifred Horvin-Grennick, and Sicimmi was happy to hand over the goods. I flitted over to the administration building, which by now I know fairly well. After taking my own tour of the place before the semester, twice, and then breaking into the registrar's office, in addition to the normal duties and business or getting assigned classes, books and dorms.. well, I had a good idea where everything was by now.

  The building was mostly empty, and people were inclined to think that if you were in these spaces on a Sevenday you probably already belonged. So I opened doors without a key, entered private sanctums, and dropped off falsified documents into faculty mailboxes. I built up the paper trail to get a student transferred from one class to another. Skeici Gianwen was going to get a new history class. I had dummied up an excuse, put in the order from a dean who had just left for vacation, then a letter from his secretary passing this on, and then an order from the registrar to have her moved from her scholarship class to a merit class.

  If anyone came investigating after the fact, there were layers of alibi here. "Did you authorize this?" could only really be answered with "I suppose I must have". And see, here's the orders that prompted them to authorize it!

  After all, if Nathan can use faked paperwork to manipulate the school's functions, then so can I!

  I slept well that night, still relishing the thrill of secret victory. Yet, pulling a file-folder out of a cabinet and exchanging one piece of paper for another is hardly my most dramatic win, but it felt fun and different just because of how covert it was, the sly stealth of it. I know something that nobody else knows.

  Just one more secret for the pile. Secrets like "which twin is actually a genius", or "where does the city's water come from", or "who's responsible for the Berry Blight", or "what happened to Quinnifred Horvin-Grennick?"

  I said I would get rid of her. Sending her back home to the far side of the continent should surely suffice. What was she going to do? Jump in a carriage and ride for a whole month get here in the springtime and then find out if I would do it again? If I would banish her back to Fidiange or if I would just drop her into the ocean at night and let the mystery of her disappearance just fade with the years? She knows I've killed before, she surely knows that getting kidnapped back to her own hometown is the humane thing for me to do. That I was just pulling my punches before, and I would get serious if I had to.

  That was a rush, but so was the paperwork. Starting on Oneday, Skeici would be transferred to the same history class as Nathan and Lachel. In Glitter, Skeici does not go off-the-rails crazy until the middle of Year Three, because Josse and Nathan had a cordial but non-romantic working relationship up until that point. As soon as Skeici sees someone else getting lovey-dovey with Nathan, she starts getting all "fatal attraction" yandere. So, by moving her to this class where Lachel and Nathan are already doing a treacly-sweet puppy-love soap-opera, she was going to accelerate her timetable.

  I don't care about taking Josse out in Year Three. I care about taking Lachel out right damn now.

  That evening, Elica started an unusual conversation. Vancy was away with one of her social clubs, Rinnie wasn't needed, and Larianne was writing a letter home, so we were sitting in the game room alone for once. Rather than playing any gambling games for the most laughably one-sided matchup, we both held a deck of cards to amuse ourselves. She was practicing one-handed cuts while walking the cards from one hand to the other, and I was playing Freecell, analog-style.

  "So," Elica said cautiously. "I'm going to bring up a very touchy subject and I don't want you to overreact." She has a good bomb-defusal voice.

  I scoffed. "I don't have a crush on my brother, Elica. And I feel a little gross that any of you have been thinking that."

  She paused, staring at her cards for a second. "Ah my mistake. My thoughts were somewhat difficult but not that touchy. But it is about Nathan. Sorry."

  One good breath in, then out. "All right, I'm braced and ready. I'm now in 'talk about Nathan without blowing up' mode. Go for it."

  "Well," she said, musing, "as we've learned recently, he's really good at nudging you in certain directions. Sometimes without you knowing you've been nudged."

  I glared at my cards. And not just because I've got both red jacks and both red queens out before the first black face cards at all. "Yeah. Yeah we did learn that. And I'm maybe half-way through being livid about that. Fortunately, it should be a lot harder for him to pull that shit any longer."

  "Sorry, to pull....?"

  "What I mean is, it won't be so easy for him to twitch me around on strings, going forward," I corrected myself. "Now that I know he's willing to deceive and manipulate me for his own goals."

  She pursed her lips and I turned my next draw, still looking for some face cards, clubs or spades. She spoke up again, thoughtful and careful. "And, he is very good at deceiving, leaving people with misleading impressions, whether he has told an actual lie or not?"

  "I suppose so," I said.

  "So nearly anything he does, whether he is caught in a lie or not, could potentially be part of some ploy?"

  "Potentially," I said. I drew an eight and was able to move a small stack, and start revealing some more face-downs.

  "And the only way to know is if it makes you take some new course of action you wouldn't otherwise?"

  The queen of clubs! I got her into a free space and finally got that jack of diamonds moved away.

  "Natalie?"

  "Sorry, what?" I asked, blinking up at her.

  Elica smirked. "So, what have you done now that you can't count on him?"

  I stretched my wrists out. "Ugh. I've had to get more proactive about the monsters and the conditions of the villages in Meadowtam, just to make up for his trade-minister bullshit. Re-thinking a lot of my methods. It looks like I'm never going to get him back on track for the future he needs, and now I'm getting personally involved to a degree that I never wanted to."

  "Well, maybe this is-"

  "Oh, and pursuing House politics even more aggressively," I said. "I had planned on making certain moves and taking certain actions, but mostly just for form's sake. Sitting a role because it needed to be done. But now I find I'm going to need a lot more support than I thought. It's... complicated. Every time I butt heads with the Academy, I'm really butting heads with Pailser, or Skyback, or Aumerje. Every time the administration or institution screws me over, I've had no leverage."

  "Is this about the class rankings?" she asked, amused.

  "Weirdly, it is," I admitted. "He was able to effortlessly turn all the inertia of the entire administration against me, and I had to tear half the legal department down to get the smallest concession, despite a load of evidence. My problems don't really stop until I can snap a finger and get cooperation from any of the Great Houses. So, that's what I've got to do, I guess."

  She whistled at that. "Big ambitions, Lady Natalie."

  "Right now my big ambition is finding a match for this seven. But the problem is that getting aggressive in House affairs is going to affect how... authentic and sincere I am about my performance in certain upcoming events. There's a certain thing I was going to do, like I said, just for form's sake. But now I'm going to have to make it stick."

  "Why are you fighting for that seven? You can just put it up on the eight," she pointed out.

  I sputtered but started setting up the diamonds that were all ready for me to put away. Speaking of- "Oh, right," I said to Elica. "What was it you were saying about Nathan manipulating me?"

  She glanced at me, thinking hard, and then shrugged. "Nothing really. Don't worry about it Lady Natalie."

  Weird. Whatever.

  On Fiveday I was in a damn good mood. I haven't killed anyone or anything all week, and I was still feeling just fine. In retrospect, this should have been the part where I start getting very suspicious.

  Things were going fine until math class.

  "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to cancel our plans for Autumnhigh," Kurumi said.

  "Bullshit," I replied in a very normal and non-confrontational tone.

  And then I checked her status.

  [ Kurumi Lautan ][ Love Interest ][ Class President ]

  [ Kurumi Lautan ][ Love Interest ][ Antagonist ][ The Wealthy ]

  Now, I don't check in on this thing every day, but last time I looked I know that [ Love Interest ] was not 3/4 scratched out. I had no idea that was a thing that could happen at all! I have to assume this is related to Nathan making more headway than me at romancing Kurumi Lautan. Which, granted, is largely because I have not been trying to romance Kurumi Lautan.

  Nothing against the girl, but with women I've got a type and that type is Thumper.

  Anyway, I'm not really interested in following Kurumi to the end of her quest line, I just want to make scandalous amounts of money using her investment exploit, pick up some really cool loot and upgrades from the tombs of the mathematicians, and maybe humiliate my brother a little. But if she's talking about ditching me as a project partner before we've done the tomb robbing, she's also probably pretty close to ditching me as an investment partner! I've gotta salvage this quick or I'll lose everything I've invested. I've got a lot of money riding on this.

  And besides, right now I am not interested in giving up anything to Nathan.

  She was still reacting to that ill-timed and ill-thought-out "bullshit" retort. "Look, Natalie, I just don't think that a dangerous tomb is the place for me, really, and it's probably not the place for you either. These traps are supposed to be very dangerous! And only the very, very smartest people would ever have a chance against those. And, well- we all know-"

  "Kurumi," I said calmly, "You have been my project partner for several weeks now. You have been trading quizzes with me, papers we have completed during class time. You know that I'm capable of this. You've literally watched me work the kind of math that makes other people's heads spin. You are a direct witness that I am just as intelligent as I say I am. Are you seriously doubting my abilities?"

  "Well, it's just that we're not going to have, uh, anyone else to rely on-"

  I took a breath and blew it out. "Kurumi, are you more likely to believe the rumors that my brother is spreading, or the evidence of your own senses? Is he literally so convincing that you trust him more than you trust yourself?"

  "We should-"

  "No," I said. "Answer the question. Answer that question, Kurumi Lautan. What do you trust: what my brother says, or what you yourself see?"

  She went quiet, and looked conflicted. Then she blurted it out. "You might not be right!"

  "What?"

  "You kept saying you were positive about the class rankings. But then you were wrong, and you were third. Doesn't that mean something? Doesn't that show us something?"

  I blew out a tired sigh. "It doesn't work like that."

  Her face screwed up with frustration. "Well, you don't ever say what it is like! You ask a lot on faith, and even when someone proves you wrong you're still just as stubborn!" She paused, and flinched, and winced apologetically. "Sorry. I did not mean that, it just came out. Can we please ... ?"

  I took a deep breath, and hit my mental refresh button. "Hey, Kurumi, what's been on your mind?" I used a bright new tone, like I was starting a new conversation, seeing her for the first time today. Restarting the dialogue tree, as it were.

  She crumpled a little. "I don't- I've just been under so much pressure as the president of our class! Nathan helps where he can, but everyone else is relying on me. There's a couple problems that Nathan's helping with, but it takes up so much of my time that I can't really invest into extraneous things. I will try to talk to the teacher about our project and-"

  I sighed. "What can I do to help free up some of your time? I'd offer to just do your assignments for you -"

  "I don't think that's a good idea," she said firmly. Did she have a moral compunction against cheating? Or did she think I'm too stupid to be of help?

  "- so failing that, what has been taking up your time?"

  She hesitated, she wasn't sure she should bring this to me.

  I had her.

  Grimacing, she looked away from me. "This time of year, the student council is involved in our yearly fundraisers. it's the first order of business after elections-"

  Oh right. The elections just finished up. I don't think I even bothered voting. I've been busy with my own stuff and I haven't really had any attention for anything as prosaic as school board elections. Especially when I really could consider the results to be predetermined.

  Huh. This might be why my relationship with her is already three-quarters canceled.

  " - to set the budget for the year, you know? But just planning the events is taking every spare minute I've got. Most years they do a poetry reading event and solicit donations, but that's usually just to get operating capital for the big winner, the bake sale. We need to buy ingredients for the bakers, and solicit volunteers to do the work, and we can't operate at a loss. So there's-"

  "A bake sale?" I said, trying to withhold most of my disdain and only slip a little of it out. "And passing the hat at a poetry reading?" I had to repeat these and check with her that I understood correctly. I wanted her to not nod at me. She nodded at me. Shit, I had heard her correctly. I reached up and put my hands on her shoulders. "Kurumi. Look at me. Do you know who the best party planner in Meadowtam Duchy is?"

  "... no?"

  "It's me. Ask anyone. I've been revolutionizing the industry since I could walk. Look at me. Since I could walk. Three weeks ago I was at a party that funded a symphony orchestra for a year. Let- let me make this easy for you. Okay. Dunk tank."

  "Dunk..... tank."

  "Dunk tank," I said, and I whipped a comb out of my hair, setting it to spinning in the air over my hand. These days I'm always curving silver just to keep my hair in place. I swell the comb out, several times larger, and then melted down and reshaping, forming into a framework with a open-sided box, and a seat, and a small mechanism to release the seat. "See this thing? Someone sits on the seat. People pay a clip or a bit or a coop to throw a sliotar or a ball at the target. If they hit, the catch is pulled out, like this, and the seat tilts, and drops the person into the tank, which is full of water."

  "And they are... dunked," she said, frowning.

  "Now, if you have a volunteer that is widely reviled in the school," I said, "then you'll have people lining up for the chance to give them a comeuppance. And if you've got a volunteer that is widely liked- well, people will come out to see the person they like, and then pay to throw a ball because that's what we do here. And if your volunteer is cooperating and encouraging people-"

  "- then you could really generate some interest," she said.

  "Let's say that you scale the price of a turn to the size of the line. if there's less than ten people in line, then it costs a clip to get in line. If there's between ten and thirty, a bit. More than thirty, a coop. So it's self-correcting but you're always making the most possible money," I said.

  "You keep saying 'volunteer', but-"

  "Kurumi, you just won a very important election. Who do you think is the most popular, engaging and interesting person in our year?"

  "... your brother."

  "And, who do you think is the most reviled, loathed, and controversial person in our year?"

  "Well, I -" She paused, trying to find a polite way through this.

  "Kurumi." My tone was a warning, don't try to fib me.

  "It's you." She sounded resigned, saying it out loud.

  "Damn right. Now, if you had two of these tanks-"

  "Wait-"

  "-side by side-"

  "No."

  "- you'd make a killing, Kurumi. You would make an embarrassing amount of money."

  "... embarrassing?"

  "Your cost outlay is nothing. I can fabricate the tanks, water and targets from nothing. You are in charge of securing the other volunteer, and all the publicity. I think we should set aside one lunch period to generate interest, and then set aside a following Sixthday to hold an all-day event. You can use the money earned from the lunch promotion to pay for ingredients to hold a bake sale during the all-day event, and serve sweet treats to people waiting in line. People buy a lot more bake sale goods when they're a captive audience."

  She stared at me in genuine shock. She would have been less surprised if I had grown another head and spoken in tongues. She would have been less surprised if I opened the sky and called forth the End of All Light. If I had transformed both of us into mantis shrimp and shown her new colors she could not imagine, she would be less amazed than hearing me wax rhapsodic on fundraiser games.

  "What?"

  "How do you-" she trailed off, her hands spilling out helplessly to indicate all that.

  I laid a hand over her hand, and leaned in, drilling into her gaze with my eyes. "Because I'm smart," I insisted.

  "Oh."

  She took a bunch of notes, we made some plans, I made some promises. And I earned 10 xp and advanced her quest.

  [ Kurumi Lautan ][ Love Interest ][ Class President ]

  [ Kurumi Lautan ][ Love Interest ][ Antagonist ][ The Wealthy ]

  Great. I've taken one step towards being back on an even footing with Nathan. Gods dammit. And I'm not even sure that I've managed not to advance Nathan as well, since he's involved in this dunk tank idea. I didn't even consider that in the moment- I should have tried to think of some way that I, and only I, could help her out.

  Oh well, maybe I get credit for the idea, and also the execution. Let's find out!