Chapter 761: Devious

Despite Elodie’s unwelcome news, Jadis was overall pleased by how the tea party had gone. No one had tried to kill her. She hadn’t tried to kill anyone. And there had been no major political fiascos that could have caused her trouble down the line. Sure, dealing with Duke Colgrave was going to be an unwelcome hassle, but Jadis felt as though she had gained an unexpected ally in his granddaughter. If she could leverage what Elodie had told her against the duke without causing damage to the family reputation, or even better, manage to give the young noblewoman some kind of beneficial advantage, then Jadis would feel like she had really come out on top. Of course, Elodie was not the only new ally that Jadis had gained.

“It truly was a pleasure to meet you,” Princess Lynn told Jay with a warm smile. “I look forward to many future meetings and interesting discussions.”

“I do too,” Jay bowed before the royal. “I need to invite you to dinner sometime soon, so you can meet all of my wives.”

“That sounds lovely,” Lynn nodded as her expression turned sly. “Will my husband be invited as well?”

“…I’ll have to think about that,” Jay replied with her best impression of someone who didn’t hate the proposed idea.

With a stifled laugh, Lynn turned to the task of gathering her children, a feat that was assisted not only by nearby servants, but by Jadis and her lovers. They had their own child to gather, after all.

“Thank you… For entertaining… Hope…” Alex bowed her head to young princess Astra. “She likes you…”

“You are welcome,” Astra curtseyed, her good manners on full display. “Thank you for answering my questions.”

“It was… My pleasure…”

“Do I get a thank you as well?” Syd teased as she wrapped one arm around Alex’s waist while addressing the precocious princess.

“Do you?” she frowned up at Syd. “Are you the you that I was asking questions of?”

“Who else would I be?” Syd put a hand to her chest in mock confusion. “I’m always me.”

Astra continued to frown suspiciously at Syd as she slowly turned away from her. Instead of answering, she focused on the still alert baby Succubus held in Eir’s arms.

“It was very nice to see you again, Lady Eir,” she addressed the elf, first. Then, to Hope, “It was nice to meet you, too.”

“As always, you are a—”

“Shit!”

The whole world seemed to freeze at the sound of the sudden and unexpected expletive. Alex, Eir, all three of Jadis, Princess Lynn, and the various servants who were nearby all stared with wide, unblinking eyes. Even Severina, who had been some yards away talking with Duchess Linnea, turned on her heel to face the source of the astonishing curse word. All failed to find any sort of response to what had been shouted so loudly and joyously. All except for one.

“She said shit!” Astra pointed at the baby in Alex’s arms. “Did you hear that? She said shit!”

“Yes, she did,” Lynn quickly swept up next to her daughter and took her by the shoulder. “However, that doesn’t give you license to use such inappropriate language, does it?”

“No, mother,” Astra looked abashed, though her expression changed back to excitement just as rapidly. “Was that her first word? Was Hope’s first word sh—ah, poop!?”

“Poop!” Hope copied Astra with wild exuberance.

“Excellent… Pronunciation…” Alex praised Hope while petting her on the head.

As Jadis scrambled to finish her official farewells to the royals and get the suddenly potty-mouthed Succubus away from the excitedly bouncing young princess, Dys turned a reproachful eye heavenward.

“I don’t know how,” she muttered, “but I know you were involved in this, D. And I’m going to get you back for this.”

From there came a rush of pardons, excuses, goodbyes, and well wishes. There were a surprising number of nobles who took notice of Jadis’ rapid departure, and many attempted to get a few words in, offering invitations for visits to local manors or private estates. Jadis used two of her bodies to run interference while the third led Alex, Eir, Severina, and Hope out of the palace gardens and to the cobblestone courtyard where the specially sized carriages were waiting for them. As they loaded onto the vehicles with all the haste they could muster without looking like they were fleeing, Jadis noticed that they had a tagalong.

“Would it be a terrible trouble if I joined you in your carriage?” Svana asked as she caught up with Jay’s large steps. “I wish to spend more time with my daughter, and the party is wrapping up anyway.”

“Of course,” Jay extended a hand to help the noble elf up into the carriage that already contained Alex, Eir, and Hope. “You know that you’re always welcome with us.”

With Lady Aedraheill’s seat secured, Jay got into the covered carriage herself and closed the door. Her Dys and Syd selves were with Severina in the other wagon, and since nothing else needed to be done, Jay knocked on the roof, letting the driver know that they were ready to go. In a moment, the two carriages were on the move, heading back over the bridge for their return to the Fortune’s Favored Compound.

“So,” Jay sighed as she leaned her head against the cabin wall and closed her eyes. “Shit.”

“Shit!” Hope agreed with only a slight lisp.

“Yes, thank you Hope,” Jay laughed tiredly.

“Did anyone have ‘shit’ as her first word in the betting pool?” Svana asked curiously.

“No,” Eir shook her head. “Kerr wanted to claim all curse words in general, but that was deemed as too broad a bet. She settled on ‘fuck’ instead.”

“Right, well, I guess it’s nice to know the wait is over,” Jay reopened her eyes and, quickly leaning forward, gave her daughter a kiss on her horned little head. “Let’s just hope we can steer her away from shouting about feces at every opportunity.”

“Fe-sees!”

“You little—”

Shaking her finger at Hope’s toothless grin, Jay turned her attention away from the imp to look at Svana, who was sitting demurely next to her.

“Did you get what you need?”

“What, don’t you want to spend more time gushing over Hope’s first words?”

“Trust me, I’ll be doing that for the rest of the day, and possible for the rest of the week. But right now, while we have a quiet moment. Did you get what you need?”

Just as Svana opened her mouth to reply, Eir held up her hand, stopping her.

“If you don’t mind.”

“Fine…”

A ripple moved across the elf’s body and before a full second had passed, and orange-skinned temptress was sitting on the seat next to Jay, still wearing the same beautiful purple dress.

“Yes, I got exactly what I needed,” Maeve confirmed with a self-satisfied smile.

Information, as valuable as it was, had not been the only gift Svana had given the shapeshifting spy in exchange for a few embarrassing details about Jadis and the rest of her lovers. No, she had provided Maeve with something even more precious: an opportunity.

Rather than attend the tea party herself, Svana had allowed Maeve to go in her stead, letting the Fetch pretend to be her. Such a substitution never would have worked for the average Fetch or illusion-using infiltrator since the Imperial Palace had guards who used detect stones to screen anyone who entered, making sure that all guests were who they claimed to be. Such countermeasures to shapeshifting spies didn’t work on Maeve thanks to her Penumbral Infiltrator class. Still, she couldn’t have just gone to the tea party as someone else and expected an entrance. The guest list was as limited as it was secure. And while Maeve could have gone as Eir or Severina, she wouldn’t have been able to move in the circles that she had wanted to, getting the answers to the questions she needed to ask from certain individuals who never would have given the same response to Eir as they would to her mother.

Which was why Svana had willingly stayed locked up inside a comfortable, windowless room where no one would see or even know of her presence while Maeve went to the palace in her stead.

“You know who the spy is?” Jay asked. Then, a second later, continued. “Severina wants to know if you got any info on a spy ring as well, presuming there is one.”

“No spy network,” Maeve shook her head. “At least, none that I would want to disrupt. Tell Sev that her friend, Eadgar, would be very upset if I revealed who some of those connections are.”

“Are you saying Kestil’s spymaster—?”

“No, no,” the Fetch waved Jay’s question away. “It’s not like that. Lots of spies trade information. There are always more connections than you think. Anyway, the spy that we want is an independent agent. There’s no one else worth going after.”

“Alright, well, who is it?” Jay asked, relying heavily on the soundproof design of the carriage.

“Ned Aubert.”

“…who?”

Maeve rolled her eyes at Jay’s confused expression, then did so again when she saw Eir and Alex’s equally blank looks.

“Ned Aubert. I told you. He’s an independent agent. He spies on important people and sells the information to either the highest bidder, or to specific brokers who give him fixed rates. You didn’t expect to recognize the man’s name, did you?”

“Well…”

“He’s not anyone important or famous, and that’s by design. The only people who know Ned are the people who Ned wants to know. If you did know his name, he wouldn’t be a very good spy, now would he?”

“I guess it would be weird if he went around introducing himself, huh,” Jay mused before shrugging the thought away and focusing on more important matters. “Anyway, you know who he is and how he’s been infiltrating our security, right?”

“Yup.”

“Then do you think we can catch him in the act?”

“Definitely,” Maeve confirmed again. “Not that I’m saying it will be easy, but we definitely can. I know enough about his tricks that we should be able to pinpoint his location.”

“Awesome,” Jay breathed out a sigh of relief. “It’ll be nice to have the information leak finally plugged.”

“The question is,” the Fetch continued, “what do you want to do with him once we catch him?”

“What do you mean?” Eir asked with a furrowed brow. “He has been breaking the law and disrupting our lives. We should turn him over to my cousin right away. He may not have intended to cause direct harm, but he sold information that made its way into cultist hands, which caused the death of many innocents in Cold Brook.”

“I know,” Maeve nodded with a serious expression. “He’s a bastard for that, though he may not have known who he was selling the info to. But that’s really beside the point. Ned Aubert is an extremely skilled and well-connected spy. We could turn him over to the Magistrate, sure. I have no doubt at all that Vraekae would deal with him and we’d never have to worry about him spying on us or anyone else ever again.

“But what if we used him instead? Just, hear me out,” Maeve held up a hand to forestall Eir’s objections. “If we catch him with his hands in the proverbial cheese bag, we’ll have him by the balls. We could squeeze him for information on our enemies, or even people who say they are our allies. We could use him as a means to spy on others that he might not have recent information on. Fuck, we might even be able to use him as a double agent, depending on who he’s been selling information to and what kind of leverage we use against him. Ned is a potentially very useful tool. It seems like a shame to just toss him into the shed and forget about him.”

While the noble part of Jadis’ soul told her to reject the idea, the more pragmatic whispered that Maeve was on to something. If Ned could be caught, and if they could squeeze him, it did make sense to use him for their own benefit and gain an upper hand against those who had been using dirty methods to get at her up until that point. In fact, when Jadis thought about her most recent conversation with Elodie, she had to wonder if maybe luck was on her side that day after all.

“Before any of us can properly answer your proposal,” Jay said as she leaned towards the center of the carriage with a conspiratorial glint in her eyes, “first, I have to tell all of you about my meeting with Elodie. I was going to wait to tell everyone when we got home, but considering Maeve’s news, I think I should explain right away.”

It didn’t take long for Jay to recount the clandestine conversation, especially in summary. Still, by the time she was done, they were already most of the way back to the compound.

“Severina says we should take this to the emperor right away,” Jay conveyed the justicar’s opinion. “And I honestly agree with her. Unless, of course, anyone else has a better idea?”

All eyes turned to Maeve, whose expression had turned disconcertingly devious.

“I might have a suggestion or two.”