The meeting had lasted several more hours after the necklace was revealed. So long that Emmy's limbs had gone numb due to a lack of movement and blood flow.
Snake had told the Bandri and the others about the plans of several other Crimson Army divisions, and the Yang, Yin, Wen, and others had all added their own observations. It was clear they were selling secrets, but Emmy didn't understand why they were all doing it together.
If they just wanted the money, it seemed smarter to sell individually and make more?
How had they all met? Shouldn't traitors have been more untrusting? Was it a conspiracy? Had someone recruited them all?
Had Snake?
She was a spy. She made her living talking people into giving her information they shouldn't have, and she clearly had more sources than just the group here.
She must have gotten someone from Chenzhou's office. Maybe that was why she'd been hanging around Anna.
Had she turned Lord Ye's mistress?
A frisson of excitement swept through her blood. She needed to tell Yuze as soon as possible, and waiting for the meeting to end was an exercise in patience.
She took careful note of everything else she heard, but it was hard to focus once she'd started to connect the dots. When they finally started to disperse, she had to force herself to wait an appropriate amount of time for safety before she popped the lif and climbed out.
It occurred to her as she crawled under the bushes and fence that she needed to follow Snake. If she was the mastermind, she needed to find out why, but Snake was long out of sight, and she needed to warn Yuze, too.
She hurried off, stretching her legs into a run once she was out of sight of the guards, and completely missing the tattooed eyes watching her from the shadowed rooftop next door.
***
As cute as the kid was and as excited as Yuze had been to have Chenzhou back, he'd escaped the welcome back as soon as possible. So many people in such a small space, never mind that it wasn't actually that small, was a bit too much for his nerves.
Chenzhou's face had been hilarious when he'd presented his gift. Though Eirian had been thrilled as predicted. It was too bad they'd arrived before he could get Mingzhe to take that bet.
Fox wasn't due back for another two days, based on his original travel plan, and Yuze hadn't been able to kick the worry that had been nagging him since the other man had left.
The Bandri had sent another message that had arrived yesterday, detailing an upcoming meeting to discuss the peace accord with the southern tribes, which was the only good news Yuze had to share with Chenzhou and Eirian and was overshadowed by Mingzhe's worries over his men and Yuze's own convictions that their intelligence networks had been compromised.
He just wasn't sure if it was part of whatever plan had involved the miasma or if it was the tribes growing more sophisticated after so many years of war against the Camelia.
Or if it was some entirely new threat that they'd only just uncovered, which almost made him want to cry.
Almost.
It also made him extremely angry, more so than he'd ever felt before, and only Emmy bursting into his office, smelling of fermented barely and more rumpled than usual, pulled him out of the spiral.
"Are you limp- What happened to you?" He managed to demand through the shock.
"I was in a barrel for six hours." She forced out between gasps, hands on her knees to try and catch her breath. "
There was a part of Yuze that really didn't want to ask why, and another part that suspected she might be affected by the fumes wafting off of her without realizing it.
He covered his nose and breathed in through his mouth, and somehow he could taste the early-stage beer.
He shouldn't complain. Yuze had once spent two days in a pile of organs at a seasonal slaughter and had taken so many baths in the following days trying to get rid of the smell that the healers had told him to stop before he did irreparable harm to his skin. Chenzhou had had to put up with the smell for two weeks before it faded, and even though Yuze couldn't differentiate between the two anymore, the experience had pretty much ruined his sense of smell. He was sure the fermented barley at least smelled better than rotting organs.
"It's Snake." Emmy gasped, and Yuze went carefully still. "It's Snake. She's selling information."
"Emmy, you have to be sure." He warned, hands clenching into fists.
"I am. I know. I saw it all. She even sold a necklace that looked like it came from the vault." Emmy's breath was starting to come back. "She was telling them about the child and what happened in the capital."
"That could have come through other networks." But something cold and burning formed in Yuze's stomach.
Emmy shook her head. "She was talking about the King facing challenges from the throne. From the Princess's father."
Yuze closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to fight down the disappointment and nausea. He was surprised at his own surprise, really. Snake, for all her tendency to hang around when Yuze didn't want her around, had always put forward a good face. Her issue with him and whatever she had against Fox had always seemed personal. Was that worth committing treason?
"There's more." Emmy breathed, leaning heavily on a chair Yuze was probably going to have to replace. "I think she was getting some of her information from-"
"Anna." Yuze interrupted. "Yeah, I put that together." The only people Chenzhou or Eirian had written to about Eirian's father were Yuze himself, Mingzhe, and Anna, since Chenzhou told her pretty much everything despite her lack of interest.
And neither Yuze nor Mingzhe had told anyone but each other.
Emmy collapsed into the chair, her eyes starting to look a bit glazed, as Yuze stood.
"I'm going to talk to Lord Ye. Do you need a healer?"
Emmy shook her head and started to hiccup. "No hic just need to hic sit here for hic a bit."
~ tbc