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“Doesn’t matter. I’m a big girl, I’ll deal.” She waved a hand dismissively and pushed herself off the island, walking back to the sofas. “We still have to figure out this journalist problem, right?”

“Yeah … right.” The abrupt shift in mood was giving me whiplash, but Kara seemed focused, her face impassive, the emotion of the previous moment wiped clean.

She dropped to her knees on the carpet among the pages. “Let’s start by breaking it down. Are we ruling out killing her?”

I was still on the whole Emma thing, confused and with a strong feeling I was missing something. I liked Emma, but bond her? No … I couldn’t see it. Kara, though?

She looked up at me when I didn’t respond.

“Yeah,” I said. “No killing.” I moved back to the sofa, trying to get my head back in the game.

“So we talk her out of it.”

“You make it sound simple. It isn’t.”

She leaned an elbow on the coffee table and cocked her head at me. “I’ve seen you argue in seminars all semester. You could make someone think black is white—and then thank you for the insight.”

I shifted at that appraisal. “I debate from the truth, not from lies.”

“Then find a truth you can use.” She gestured at the spread-out papers. “There’ll be one in here somewhere.”

I stroked my chin thoughtfully. “There might be something to that. Maybe I could reframe the story … give her a reason to doubt it.”

“Right.” Kara nodded. “So we’re debating in a seminar. I put forward an argument you don’t like, how do you reframe? What do you need to know?”

I knew what she was doing, but my mind was already two steps ahead. I got up again, walking to the windows, watching the people below and the distant traffic as my brain raced. Kara, to her credit, said nothing more, just waited.

I turned. “Do you have a laptop?”

*

“I might have a plan.” I’d set up Kara’s laptop on the dining table, and the day had gone by while I worked. It was dark outside, and at some point she’d turned on the lights without me noticing.

She was lying on a sofa, on her phone, but rose as soon as I spoke, coming over and taking a chair.

“Let’s hear it.”

“I’m going to give her a truth, just not the one she expects,” I said, my thoughts crystallizing as I spoke. “She’s been concentrating on moral pieces. I’ve read everything she’s done, and her conclusions are black and white. Well argued, yes, but … if I had to choose a word, I’d say na?ve.”

Kara exhaled sharply. “And she’s chosen my father? She’s so in over her head.”

“Mmm. I’d agree, but I’m not even convinced she’s linked him yet. The stuff Dacien has given us suggests she’s focusing more on the money than him. Oridian Capital Group and Novellian Partners—do you know them?”

“Er … Oridian is a portfolio investment firm. Novellian …” She frowned.

“Listed as a boutique consultancy working with experimental projects.”

“Oh yeah, I remember. They both do money laundering on the side.”

I gave a dry laugh. “Can’t believe we’re doing this shit. Do I even want to know what your family does to get money that needs laundering?”

“Drugs on the side,” Kara said with distaste, “but mostly, he’s a banker—other people give him money to launder. Incubus, right? He’s charmed his way into all the wrong places, supes and norms both.”

“How nice. Anyway, Jules must know he’s connected, but Dacien’s notes imply she’s not asking about him. And that gives us an opportunity.”

“Oh? I don’t see it.”

“You,” I said, bluntly. “Want to bet Miss Hammond would come to a meeting if I reached out to her as your philosophy lecturer, and told her I could broker an intro?”

“Possibly,” Kara said with a frown, “but why would she want to meet me?”

“Aside from the fact your Dacien’s daughter? How about if I happened to mention your philosophical leanings veer far from his?”

Kara considered it thoughtfully. “She’d think you were a concerned citizen, assume you knew what Dacien’s up to because I told you, and that I don’t approve.”

“Exactly.”

“Yeah, that would get a meeting. But then what?”

“Then I reframe, just like you said. I take the basis of her perfect morality, introduce a little doubt, and lean. Hobbes: keeping the peace whatever the methods. Plato’s noble lie: some truths are morally destructive when shared broadly.

” I smiled thinly. “Some Rawlsian conditionality, just for you.”

“Well now I have to come. This I want to see.”

I stretched my arms behind my head, easing my back. “You know the worst bit?”

“Go on.”

“I’m almost convincing myself. If Jules publishes her story, she’s setting a light to tinder that will have far-reaching consequences.

Distrust and prejudice already exist between norms and supes.

How would the revelation of an entire black supe economic infrastructure affect that?

International scrutiny, watchdogs, SPAR …

this would get political real damn fast. Public distrust and anti-supe movements leading to supe retaliation. It would be a nightmare.”

“Isn’t that what my father wants?”

“Ironically, yes, I think it is. But you said yourself, he’s the banker, not the frontman. He doesn’t want his name at the top of that list.”

“Well, we have to stop her. For those reasons, for her safety, and for yours.”

“Yeah.” I grimaced. “Our good deed for the week.”

We looked at each other, both probably thinking the same thing, then Kara pushed herself up.

“Takeout. That solves most problems, and we’re both hungry. There’s a really good Chinese place I use. That okay?”

“Sounds good.”

While she ordered, I fired off an e-mail to the editor at the Helix Journal for Juliana Hammond’s attention. It was Sunday and too late to hear back tonight, and that meant I could put the whole thing from my mind for a bit—or at least try to.

No matter what justifications I’d used to persuade myself, the truth was undeniable: the whole business made me feel as dirty as fuck.

And this was just Dacien’s little tester.