“Can’t prove it,” I said. “But from what Xiaofan said, it sounds like it.”
“Then if she was sending it to Levistus, why would she send it with someone like Leo?” Luna asked. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to use someone who could fight? Or something that couldn’t be intercepted?”
“That’s the bit I can’t figure out either,” I said with a frown. “Maybe Vihaela was so convinced it couldn’t be read that she didn’t care if it got lost?”
“There’s really no way to read it if you’re not the right person?”
“It’s quite impossible,” Arachne said. “Barring some extremely high-level methods that I seriously doubt anyone in this country could access.”
“So it is possible?” Variam asked.
“Variam, the things I’m referring to are orders of magnitude more powerful than anything we’ve been discussing. If your enemies have access to those, then you have considerably bigger problems.”
“Listen to Arachne,” I told Vari. “If she says it can’t be done, it can’t be done.”
“Isn’t that a little strange though?” Anne said.
I looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you said that the air mage who attacked you wanted that focus,” Anne said. “Now you’re saying that Haken might have wanted it, too. If no one except the person it’s meant for can read it, why would they care if it got lost?”
“Maybe they need to know what’s on it,” Luna said.
“But Alex said it had just been used.”
“No, you’re right,” I said. “Everyone’s been acting as though the information on this thing is something sensitive. They’re not afraid of it being lost—they’re afraid of it being read. But if no one can read it . . .”
“Well, maybe they don’t know that,” Luna said.
“But they’d have to . . .” I stopped.
“I still think there has to be some way,” Variam said. “I mean, you can break codes in computers, right? So if there’s some trick—”
“That’s it,” I said. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
Variam looked at me. “You mean—?”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s possible. It just matters whether they think it is.” I jumped to my feet. “I need to go.”
“Wait,” Anne said. “What’s going on?”
“And why are you running off?” Luna said. “Can’t you explain why—?”
“I don’t know if I’m right yet,” I said. “But if I am . . . I think I know who’s doing this. Meet me back at the shop. Arachne, thanks again.” I turned and headed up the tunnel.
Once I was outside Arachne’s lair, I used a gate stone to go home. Then I started making calls.
Most of the mages I tried to get in touch with weren’t much help. Mages tend not to make themselves easily available via phone, and the ones I did get through to didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. But after an hour, I finally managed to find the mage I’d wanted to speak to.
“It’s the middle of the night,” Lensman said peevishly. He sounded a lot more irritable than he had been when I’d spoken to him on Friday. I’d probably caught him about to go to bed. “Can’t it wait?”
“No, this is important. I need to know if you’ve heard anything about a new method of breaking the signature lock on a data focus.”
“A what?”
“A data focus. You know, the old Keeper model.”
“How did you hear about that?”
I snapped my fingers with my free hand. Yes. “Then it’s real?”
“Well, I haven’t confirmed it. But I just heard the same thing. Used almost those exact same words actually—”
“Where did you hear it from?”
“From Verde . . . he wasn’t sure where it had come from. Is it true?”
“Not a clue.”
“Because if it is, it’ll have huge implications for data security. You know how many old Council records are on those things? The whole reason anyone used them was that they were supposed to be unbreakable, but if there’s a way of getting round it—”
“Did you just hear about it today?”
“Yes, this morning. Look, Verus, what’s this about?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said honestly. All right, half-honestly. I didn’t know for sure, but I had a really strong suspicion. “But I should know whether that rumour’s true or not soon. I’ll tell you when I do.”
“All right.” Lensman didn’t sound entirely convinced, but I had the feeling he was keen to get off the line. “I’ll talk to you then.”
I hung up the phone, opened a notebook, and started writing. I kept going for a couple of minutes, then leant back and tapped the base of the pen against my teeth, looking down at what I’d written.
At least one group and probably more had tried to get this focus, in a manner that suggested that it contained important information involving White Rose. There were rumours going around that there was a new technique to break this focus’s encryption. Arachne was convinced that that was impossible.
Put that together with what was happening right now—the indictment against White Rose. Talisid had explained that the reason White Rose had stayed safe for so long was through mutually assured destruction. As long as everyone believed that White Rose’s data was secure, no one would move against them. But if you managed to convince enough people that it wasn’t secure . . . and acted in such a way as to make them believe that the data being released was only a matter of time . . .
“Yes,” I said out loud. It made sense. The only catch I could see was that for the plan to work, you’d need to be able to predict what Levistus would do. But given that all the signs indicated that they had successfully predicted that, that could just mean they had access to information I didn’t know about.
If I was right, then I knew who was behind all this. It was the same person who’d hired Chamois. And the reason they were doing it was . . .
My excitement died as I realised the implications. Yes, I knew who was behind this. But they were on the opposite side to White Rose. I could stop their plan—maybe—but that would mean helping White Rose continue to do what they did.
Levistus had been right after alclass="underline" if I hurt one side, I’d be helping the other. Whatever I did, someone I hated was going to profit from this. Was there a third option, some way I could make both of them lose? I couldn’t think of one. It was too binary—if one side was weakened, the other would profit.
I stared down at the notebook, thinking. I didn’t come up with any solutions, and at last I shook my head. Worrying about which side I wanted to win was a long-term concern—right now what I should be worrying about was staying alive. If I was right, then I didn’t have much time. The indictment with White Rose was going to come to a head soon, and when it did, at least one of the factions involved in this was going to try to neutralise me somehow, probably by killing me.
The problem was, I couldn’t do anything to preempt them. If I attacked them directly then I’d find myself up against the Keepers. I was going to have to figure out their plan and come up with a counter on the fly.
Still, that didn’t mean I had to improvise everything. I could make some preparations of my own. And I had my own allies too. I just needed to figure out how to use them.
I got up and headed for my safe room. I was going to have to think very carefully about what to bring with me.
Chapter 11
I never sleep well the night before a battle. In this case I hadn’t even known for sure if it was going to be a battle, which actually made things worse, since I’d stayed awake for hours trying to plan for all the possible scenarios. I fell asleep late, got up early, and by midmorning I’d finished my preparations, meaning that I spent the hours around noon with nothing very productive to do. I ended up rechecking things I’d checked already, talking to Luna, and trying not to wear myself down. It was a relief when the call finally came.