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especially. I tended to maim first and ask questions later. “Someone mortal.”
    Her lips tightened into a thin line of disapproval. “Ah. The Accord then.”
    That’s what I loved about Stacia. No bulishit with her; she just cut right to the chase. Mortals trying to kill Furies could only spell trouble for the already-shaky mortal-immortal peace treaty.
    “Exactly.” I gestured toward the doors. “Is the Conclave in session?” Time flowed differently in this place, dictated by the whims of the Elders who conducted most of their business here rather than in the mundane realm. The only guaranteed method of ensuring complete discretion from both arcane and mundane alike. Spies couldn’t make it here—or survive long—if they tried. Few would be stupid enough to risk it.
    “The Lesser Consensus is, yes.”
    I relaxed. Good. The fewer Elders present to bicker with each other, the better. “Shall we, then?”
    She sent magic flowing through the doors with a flick of her fingers. They immediately responded, rumbling open as ancient stone doors brushed ever-so-slightly against ancient stone floor. I took a deep breath and stepped forward. Fourteen Elders—five members of each Fury class when Stacia was added to their number—sat around three sides of a solid mahogany table arranged in the center of the room.
    Fourteen pairs of identical, faceted green eyes watched expressionlessly as I strode across the room, the red, low-heeled boots I never went anywhere without ringing against the tiled floor. Stacia shot me a reassuring look before taking her place near the head of the table. That left me to claim the single chair at the foot of the table,

    separated from the next closest chairs by a good half dozen feet. The hot seat.
    My palms grew even sweatier when I recognized this session’s Moerae, a thin-faced Russian named Ekaterina, the youngest Elder by far, seeing as how she’d been born barely a century ago. She took great pride in rubbing her position in the face of other young Furies. I shuddered inwardly. You couldn’t pay me to be an Elder. Not that this little fact had ever mattered much to Ekaterina. She’d nearly lost her position to my mother—and, now that Mom was gone, had transferred her animosity to me. Joy, joy.
    Ah hell, she’s gonna make this a lot harder than it needs to be.
    Ekaterina waited a half minute longer than courtesy dictated before acknowledging me with, a nod.
    She spoke in barely accented English, the language most arcanes had adopted as a common tongue for conducting official business when Latin crashed and burned a couple centuries earlier. Yeah, so the mundaries had given up. on that dying language long before the arcanes, who take that whole beating-a-dead-horse thing way too seriously.
    “We trust you have an excellent reason to appear before us, unsummoned and without first petitioning for an audience.”
    Yeah, she was definitely going to be a pain in my ass. By custom, she should have granted me the courtesy of a title, whether as formal as Tisiphone (the class of Furies responsible for solving most homicides) or as simple as sister. “A reason of grave importance, Moerae. It touches the Accord itself.”
    Expression flickered across their faces at last. Elders shifted in their seats, formal robes swishing against chair legs as they exchanged glances, voices muttering softly before the Moerae gestured for silence. “Explain yourself.”
    So I did, starting with the discovery of the false Fury and ending with the ambush at the precinct. I tried to keep my recitation dry and factual, not wanting the heat of emo tion to lessen the impact of my words. Once finished relating the day’s events, I fell silent, glancing from Elder to Elder, trying to see which were sympathetic to my news and which were not. Not an easy thing to do; they were true experts at the ice-queen routine.
    Ekaterina leveled a blank stare my way. “Have you further testimony to give?”
    “No,