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shocked. Was my my plain speaking considered in poor taste?
    “No one has the
right to execute the Emperor,” said Regulos. “But there are other ways to make
an Emperor powerless. There are other ways to change the law.”
    “Our hope is to
change everyone’s mind,” Sato added. “Not kill people. But to do that, we have
to show equal strength. We need to be able to do everything Gifford’s people
can do, and his people are learning to kill.”
    “I don’t
understand this sudden delicacy, Shield Mallorough,” sneered Shield Lavoisier,
liaison between the Triple S and regulars. “It isn’t as though you haven’t
killed people before.”
    Bastard.
    Sato glared at
Lavoisier, then he turned back to me. “We need your help. Are you willing to
co-operate?”
    “This is grossly
tilted,” I responded plaintively.
    “I know,” Sato
admitted.
    For some reason,
that he was prepared to concede to that fact made me feel better. A little.
    Still, I felt
disgusted as I said, “Yes.”
    “Excellent.”
Sato’s gaze shifted to Taro. “Source Karish, can we rely on you to teach our
Sources what you know about creating events?”
    Taro rubbed his
temples before saying, “Yes.”
    “And instruct
them in your healing skills?”
    “Yes.”
    I felt cold.
    Sato’s
expression was calm, not triumphant. “The rest of the day is yours. Tomorrow,
you’ll meet your students and we can get started. You can go now.”
    We were
banjaxed.

 
    Chapter Seven
    The next
morning, we were served breakfast in our room again. Just after the staffer
cleared away our trays, in walked an elderly man, bald and wrinkled, with light
blue eyes, shoulders slightly hunched, and a hand with thickened knuckles
curled around the head of a cane.
    “Professor!”
Taro exclaimed with delight. He hugged the older man. Gently.
    The old man
grinned. He didn’t have a lot of teeth. “My dear boy!” He touched Taro’s cheek.
“I never thought to see you again. And I wish I weren’t, in these
circumstances.”
    “Sir, this is my
Shield, Dunleavy Mallorough. Lee, this is Professor Saint-Gerard.”
    Not a name
spoken often, but always spoken with respect and affection. One of the few
people from the Source Academy who had believed Taro had any wits. I’d never
thought I’d have a chance to meet him, and I was delighted. “I am so pleased to
meet you, sir. Karish thinks so well of you.”
    The Professor
gave me a crinkly smile. “As he does you. He says you take good care of him.”
    “I don’t know
about that. It usually seems more the other way around.”
    “He trusts you
with his secrets. What higher compliment is there?”
    He hadn’t had
any choice but to trust me with his secrets. Most of them would have been
impossible to hide from me. But I felt that compliments could be protested only
once. More than that and the denial became insulting.
    “The Professor
always warned me to keep any unusual activities to myself,” Taro explained.
    “Ah. So you were
the one who taught him to be paranoid.”
    “With good
reason, aye?”
    “Unfortunately.”
The warning hadn’t been to any benefit, though. Mostly because we’d been stupid
and careless.
    “All these
plans, do you think they’re necessary?” Taro asked.
    “Yes,” Saint-Gifford
answered promptly.
    “And the Triple
S has been gathering people with special talents in anticipation of these
events?” I asked.
    “No, no.
Originally, they were just collecting people to study.”
    “Like animals,”
I muttered.
    “Aye,”
Saint-Gerard agreed with a tone of distaste. “The council claimed they were
acting in the best interests of everyone, making sure these unusual people
didn’t hurt themselves or others in unexpected ways. There was dissent, of
course, but the majority beliefs won. Then Gifford took the throne, and we
learned that despite the harsher laws he was enacting against casting, he was
actually gathering as much talent and information as he could for his own use.
Given