“This had better be good, Maggie,” I snarled as I entered her classroom.

Ms. Edwards hopped up from her seat. “Good evening to you too, Mr. Marlowe,” she said with manufactured cheer. “Close the door. You and I have much to discuss.”

“I couldn’t possibly be in trouble, could I?” It was eerily similar to conversations I’d had with mother about missing snacks or broken vases. Those had often ended with light caning, and I wasn’t the type to find that appealing, even if Ms. Edwards was the one doing the caning.

The redheaded teacher shook her head. “No, of course not. Though you laid it on a little thick there. A snakebite? Really?”

“You put me on the spot,” I said. “The memes that Rose sends me make Australia sound like a Hellhole, so it’s the first thing that came to mind.”

“Fair enough. Cast a Zone of Silence and we can get started.”

“You don’t think we’re bugged in here, are we?” I glanced around suspiciously.

“It’s going to be the one time we don’t take precautions that we’ll get caught,” she said. “You walking in on me and Haru taught me that.”

It did strike me as funny that I had left on secret rendezvous for another. I kept it to myself; Maggie didn’t need any more ammo to bother me with. I nodded and cast the spell for the second time that night. I set the size a bit larger than before by adjusting the angle of my ring finger. I didn’t feel the need to be pressed up right against Maggie like I had with Kiyo. I sat on one of the students’ desks and kicked my feet in the air.

She seemed to disagree about our personal space, sauntering over with her arms under her chest. She had left a few buttons undone, and she bent at an exaggerated angle before sitting upright in a rolling chair.

I decided to clear the air right away. “My dear, one might get the impression you’re out to seduce me.”

She chuckled a throaty chuckle. I was still a bit heated from my near miss with Kiyo before, and my heart skipped a beat. “Might get? Might get? Were the photos too subtle? How about the outright invitations? Are you playing hard to get, or just dense?”

“I’m a taken man,” I said, though not as firmly as I would have liked.

“Did you delete the pictures?” She asked, leaning back in the chair.

“Well, no,” I admitted.

“Then you aren’t that taken,” she replied. “That isn’t why I asked you here. Teasing you is just a side benefit.” She pulled out her phone and pulled up a news feed. She tossed me the glass and plastic device. “What do you see on there?”

I scrolled through and it was an ordinary news feed. It had the usual mix of light and soft news that reported a starlet’s breakup with a boyfriend of three weeks and the bankruptcy of a major manufacturing firm side by side. There were a few stories about the aftermath of the failed invasion of Sumatra, all glowing reports of heroism and suspiciously low casualty reports.

After a minute of tapping at the phone, I lobbed it back. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to see.”

“Do you see the mention that every wizard cadet and schoolchild in the Anti-Demonic League saw a hacked message from the Holy Brotherhood?” she asked.

“No, I can’t say I did,” I confessed.

“Exactly!” She hopped to her feet, grinding her teeth. She put her hands behind her back and began to pace. “Thousands of people saw our broadcast, but there is not a peep on the major news websites. Any post that mentions it on social media is being silenced as well.”

“I’m not sure I see what you’re driving at,” I said. “The message got out.”

She stomped her foot, not a maneuver I would have done in heels. “It did, but it should be going viral! We pointed out the failures of the League, but they’re doing everything they can to paper them over. Damn them, they’re even succeeding!”

I raised my eyebrow. “Slow down a little, my dear. I’m still new to this little club. Why should we care?”

“Because your little friend Hiro and his fan club exposed an operation from the Taiwan branch that got us driven underground months ago. We haven’t been able to defend ourselves. They’ve silenced us at every turn, and I’m damn sick of it!”

There it was again. I couldn’t help but notice she had said the d-word without flinching. It was a bit of a surprise; humans had become so touchy about it after we had invaded. “Ah, you’re trying to get back into the conversation?”

She snapped her fingers and pointed emphatically at me. “Exactly! When we were a minority party in the League Parliament, we were making gains every year. The League is letting the world fall apart bit by bit and we were exposing that.”

“What of the fact that you were trading refugees for fabricata?”

She flinched. “I don’t like it, of course. I have no idea what the Holy Brothers in Taiwan were thinking, dealing with the Grim Horde on such a large scale, but I didn’t have to make the choices they did. Keeping the terminally ill and the elderly housed, fed, and treated would have been a large strain on their resources.”

I decided to press her on that. I didn’t care, naturally. Hell, I’d been the one to drive them from their homes. Fortunes of war, and all that. I was sitting across from proof that the humans would do the same to me in a heartbeat. But, it was good to know just where she stood on things.

“Oh? You’d hesitate to sacrifice the sick and wounded? Sounds to me like you’re still soft. You said after Haru that you’d do what needed to be done.”

She bit her lip and let out a sigh. “You’re right. I’m deflecting, aren’t I?”

“As long as we understand each other,” I said.

“Fine,” she grumbled. “They were Holy Brothers, and their choices are mine. Yes, if trading invalids to the Grim Horde means we can get the tools we need to win this war and save humanity, it’s worthwhile. Let the devils play with our excess population, if they want to trade perfectly good war material.”

As was often the case when I spoke to Maggie, I felt conflicted. The devil in me enjoyed that I was hardening a human heart. No wonder the tempters had enjoyed it so much; once you knew what motivated somebody, it was so easy! On the other hand, I was making an anti-devil fanatic more fanatical. That didn’t seem healthy in the long run, though I guess I couldn’t make her realizing I was a devil any more dangerous.

“I can’t imagine you brought me here just to gripe.”

“What if I did? You said it yourself, little Magpie, you’re my best friend in the world. I can trust you, because if you turn on me, it’s your neck too.”

“Then I’d ask why you insist on wasting my time when I was with Kiyo,” I said. “You keep interrupting us when things are getting good!”

She leaned forward and winked. “What’s the matter, Soren? Feeling a little backed up?”

I felt my face flush. “You’re going to get us caught if Kiyo gets too miserable.”

“Just be done with her already,” she said. “That would be the safest thing to do.”

It would, but the idea made my guts churn. “Nothing doing. She needs me, and I won’t hurt her like that.” The words came unbidden, and I regretted them. They were true enough, but I worried about giving Maggie ammo.

She rolled her eyes and leaned back in the chair with a huff. “Fine, be that way. If you aren’t interested in trading up, then let’s move on to the real business. First off, our recruitment drive. What did you think of Ms. Yamaguchi?”

“She’s great with a sword, though I don’t think she’s seen any real fighting. I didn’t get a chance to size up her magical skills.”

“That’s where she struggles,” said Maggie. “She has top marks in spellcasting, but she can’t control her affinity for anything.”

“That’s a shame,” I said. “You need a good affinity is needed if you’re going to focus on melee. Otherwise, you keep having to choose between spellcasting or using your sword.”

“Too true,” she said. “I want you to get closer to her. Make friends with her, the way you did with Hiro’s little club. Just keep her far away from them. We don’t need her hearing about the Brotherhood from them.”

“They’re certainly not our biggest fans,” I said in a droll tone. “You’re asking me to make friends with another young woman. You know that’s only going to make Kiyo more suspicious, right?”

“Not my concern,” she said. “I only promised not to hurt her physically. Her precious feelings are only your problem.”

“Like I said, it is if she gets suspicious and starts sneaking around while she’s invisible again! She’s damn good at it, too. My Mimic might be able to spot her, but we can’t rely on it. I need to keep her a little happy.”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“We need somewhere we can be alone,” I said. “I thought the roof was a good choice, until you blundered on us.”

Maggie snickered at that. “Aw, did I ruin your date night?”

Between what had happened with Haru, and then Mariko right after? Absolutely. “Friday night. I need Friday night with no interruptions whatsoever. Are we understood?”

“Are you asking or telling?”

“Telling,” I said, locking eyes with her.

She blinked first, settling back into her chair. “Oh, very well. I’ll let you go have substandard sex with your emotionally stunted little girlfriend.”

“What a wonderful teacher you are,” I said.

She shrugged. “You have to have a realistic assessment of your students to help them. Am I wrong? Could she function without somebody to guide her?”

I set my jaw. She didn’t respond to what I’m sure was a hate filled glare. “Moving on.”

“Which means you concede the point,” she said, triumphantly.

“Moving. On.” I grit my teeth, but forced the anger out of my voice. It wouldn’t be productive. “Do we have any other prospects?”

She shook her head. “You talk with the students one on one more than I do. Most of these students are good little soldiers.”

“That’s what they try to make us,” I said.

“It’s annoying when you’re looking for somebody who can think for themselves, know. Do you have any ideas?”

I thought back on everybody I knew in Class 3-B. They were mostly useless or too simpleminded to keep a secret. If I cast my sights afield, though, one candidate came to mind. Somebody who could keep his intent secret for months, and had talked about politics like a Holy Brother when we had gone bowling. “Paul Wilson, in Holy Sister Macaw’s homeroom. I think he would be sympathetic to our message.”

“He fought us during the hit on Asahi,” she countered.

“So did I. Find the right lever and you can turn anyone.” My eyes drifted south to Maggie’s exposed cleavage. “I think you’re his type, and you could use some relaxation.” It might get her off my case, too.

“You misunderstand me.” Maggie straightened up and preened proudly. “It’s all about the chase. I prefer a little resistance. The real Soren took a while to warm up to the idea that a teacher was attracted to him, but he took the hint much faster. But, if it’s for the cause…”

She was the spitting image of her ex. “I’m sure you’ll lay back and think of England,” I said. “That’s all I can come up with for candidates. What else is there to discuss?”

Maggie’s prideful little smirk vanished. “It’s related. We can’t get more and better recruits because we can’t get the word out! The League is trying to silence us, and they’re doing a good job of it. Do you know why that is?”

“Because they control the means of communication,” I replied. “They were able to flip a switch and cut us off from the outside world most of Monday.”

“That’s part of it,” she said. “It’s because what we’ve done has been too small scale. I think that even if we had killed Asahi, they would have found a way to claim it was an accident. Our hacked broadcast was seen by thousands of people, but if nobody can talk about it, it’s like it never happened!”

“That is the trouble of living through this little glass brick, isn’t it?” I held up my phone for emphasis. “It’s something I’ve noticed with hu…” I coughed into my hand.

“With what?” Maggie cocked her head and raised an eyebrow.

My, I’d almost given the whole game away, hadn’t I? Was I actually starting to be… comfortable around Maggie Edwards? I told myself to get a grip.

“Something I’ve noticed about news, I meant. You can’t verify most of what you learn through here, so a little selective editing can change your whole world, the facts be damned. The Brotherhood needs to do something that can’t be overlooked or swept under the rug.”

She hopped to her feet and nodded enthusiastically. “That’s exactly where I was going! We need to strike a blow that shows the Anti-Demonic League is a paper tiger, so that we can expose their weakness for all the world to see.”

I stood up myself and strode over to her window. The pine trees looked so tiny out there. My knees quivered as my familiar fear of heights took hold, forcing me to look away.

“Is something the matter?”

“This stupid tower is far too tall,” I said.

“Don’t I know it,” she said. “We waste so much electricity heating and cooling a structure that isn’t even half full! They could put that to work for the war effort!” She raised her eyebrow again. “What? What’s that smirk?”

A wicked smirk played across my face. “The Headmaster once said to me, ‘If you’re going to dream anyway, you might as well dream big.’ That was his defense when I mentioned how large the tower is.” I rapped my knuckles on the window. “The media might have a hard time covering it up if we brought the Nagoya Tower down around Tachibana’s ears.”

With a gasp, Maggie’s hands flew to cover her mouth. When she lowered them again, her grin matched my own. “I love it. How would we do it?”

“I’m simply the idea man, my dear,” I said. “However, I know where we can get an absolute boatload of energy. Tell me, are you still tutoring Rose?”

“Yes, I am.” Realization dawned in Maggie’s eyes. “I see where you’re going with it. So it was her! Headmaster Tachibana was coy about where he got that energy for the Peace Bond.”

I felt a pang of guilt as Maggie and I discussed possible applications for Rose’s fantastic magical reserves. Human weakness still lived in me. All the more reason to knock down the tower and get home as soon as I was able.