Spy Classroom - Volume 7 - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Glint 3

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Monika. I’m here from Serpent to bring you a flawless little slice of despair.”

When the strange girl appeared out of nowhere, Monika acted fast. She squeezed her pistol’s trigger and began firing with no questions asked. It was odd that girl had gone out of her way to introduce herself, but Monika had no interest in figuring out what her intentions were. The name she’d given had immediately identified her as a foe. Those people had become Lamplight’s sworn enemies the moment they plunged the Din Republic into chaos.

Monika needed to defeat her. Then, once she rendered the girl incapable of fighting back, she could force her to give up information through merciless interrogation. That was the only way Lamplight was interested in interacting with Serpent.

“Gee, wow.”

Green Butterfly’s moves were deft. Double-action revolvers were designed for quick-draw firing, yet she dodged the bullets Monika shot at her shoulders with just the smallest of movements. She didn’t do anything bold or flashy; she just twisted her body a little, and the bullets soared on past her.

“No! Quarter! Given! Those are the vibes we’re working with, huh?” Green Butterfly said with a confident grin. “Ah-ha-ha, so assertive. But like, would it kill you to have some common courtesy?”

“You people don’t deserve courtesy.”

Monika had no intention of letting the exchange drag on any longer than it needed to. Everything about Green Butterfly’s behavior seemed designed to rile her up, and she didn’t care for it one bit. She wanted out of this conversation, pronto.

Monika recognized that Green Butterfly was just going to keep on dodging her shots if she stayed at that range, so she decided to close in on her. Keeping a close eye on her foe’s reaction, she shifted her right foot forward.

“Hey, Monika.”

Right as she was about to charge, Green Butterfly gave her a mocking smile.

“You’re in love, aren’t you?”

Monika froze in place. She gave Green Butterfly a look, trying desperately to conceal her panic. “What’re you talking about…?”

“I know it’s true, y’know. We’ve got a guy on our team who’s supergood at making nasty little guesses like that.” Green Butterfly began slowly twirling her arms. It was almost like she was dancing. With her long, slender limbs, she certainly had the physique for it. “He loves weakness more than strength, he prefers flaws to virtues, and his life is chaotic rather than ordered. He’s got the worst personality around. He’s a coward. He’s a loser. And on top of all that, he’s got no taste. You’ll never meet anyone less impressive.”

“………”

With her finger still fast on the trigger, Monika decided to listen to what Green Butterfly was saying. If her opponent was so cocky she was willing to give up intel on Serpent of her own volition, Monika certainly wasn’t about to stop her.

When she heard the next thing that came out of Green Butterfly’s mouth, though, she realized she’d made a grave mistake.

“It’s ‘Flower Garden’ Lily you’re in love with, right?”

By the time Monika came to her senses, she’d already pulled the trigger.

However, the bullet she’d fired straight at Green Butterfly’s skull got intercepted by an unexpected third party. All of a sudden, a man came in from the side with something resembling a shield and blocked it. Monika switched to her knife so she could go in for a follow-up attack, but a group of men and women rushed in and planted themselves between her and Green Butterfly.

“Ooh, perfect,” Green Butterfly said behind her new bodyguards. “Gee-hee-hee, that reaction! I love it. Makes me feel like I totally hit the nail on the head, huh?”

Her six protectors were dressed in black, and Monika could tell just from looking at them that they were no amateurs. Their bodies had been well trained. The one thing they all had in common were their lifeless, lightless eyes.

Seeing them reminded her of something. “Wait, are those—?!”

“They’re Worker Ants—mercenaries, courtesy of Purple Ant. But this isn’t your first time tangling with them, is it?”

Monika knew all too well how much of a threat Worker Ants could be. In order to faithfully carry out their king’s orders, they trained around the clock and immediately killed themselves when they lost. They were soldiers that Purple Ant—one of Serpent’s members—created through psychological domination. Apparently, there were still Worker Ants under his control and serving Serpent across the world.

“Just so you know, we captured your king,” Monika told them.

Green Butterfly smiled. “Gee, nice try. But if you think that’d be enough to break Purple Ant’s control, think again.”

Sure enough, the Worker Ants’ expressions were just as hopeless as before. They were never going to believe a word that came out of Monika’s mouth.

Monika steadied her breathing. At least now she knew that Serpent was involved in the current situation. That allowed her to make a number of deductions. “So you people were the ones who got Avian taken out,” she said. “That pretty much lines up with what I figured. You manipulated Belias from behind the scenes to crush Avian, and now you’re lurking around their base to keep an eye on our investigation.”

Green Butterfly smiled just the way she had when she exposed Monika’s love. “Gee, you figured that out fast. You really are good at this!”

It pained Monika to discover that she’d been none the wiser to Serpent’s surveillance, but it made sense. Most people couldn’t sense the very presence of others the way Klaus could. If Serpent had been staying away from Klaus and only observing the girls, then it was no wonder that they’d gone undetected. Plus, she now knew that Serpent had someone whose ability to sniff out the subtleties of people’s emotions was on par with Klaus’s.

Green Butterfly ordered her Worker Ants to stand down for a moment, then took a step forward. “We got down to thinking, and we realized that, gee, Bonfire’s a real problem. He’s just going to keep getting in our way. But there’s something else we figured out—that we’ve got no shot at killing him.”

“Hey, it takes a big person to admit that.” Monika was surprised she seemed to be taking it so well, and Green Butterfly nodded amicably.

“Yeah, well, the facts are the facts. I mean, the guy beat Purple Ant. It takes an absurdly good spy to do that. Ha-ha, it’s kind of messed up, if you think about it. There were leagues of spies on that mission for half a year, and he went and finished it in a couple days. And it’s the same deal here. It barely took him any time at all to figure out that Belias were the ones who took out Avian.”

“………”

“But the thing is, he isn’t omnipotent.” Green Butterfly’s expression grew sterner. “The key thing is that some missions take him a couple days to finish. If we hit him with multiple of those at once and make things so chaotic that no one can tell what’ll happen next, we can slow him down as much as we like.”

“…How’re you planning on doing that?”

Green Butterfly laid one of her long fingers atop her lips. “Tonight, Prince Darryn is going to be assassinated.”

“_____!!”

“We gotta keep the initiative. By the time Bonfire beats Belias, we’ll have made a whole new problem for him to deal with.”

That was deranged. Monika couldn’t for the life of her figure out what Serpent was thinking. If they went and murdered a member of the Fend royalty, they would have no way of controlling the madness that ensued.

“Why…?” Monika gasped.

“Ooh, can’t tell you that. But what I’ll say is that there’s a reason why someone would want the prince to get shot. When Bonfire starts digging into it, he’ll fall even further behind us.”

“No, that’s not the part I’m asking about!” Monika shouted. There was a bad feeling stirring inside her. Her instincts were sending out warning signs so loud she couldn’t help but raise her voice. “What are you telling me for?”

“………”

“If some foreign royal dies, it’s no skin off my back. But if you go through with this, you’ll cause a war between Fend and Galgad. You seriously want to see your nation get crushed into dust?”

Monika was at odds with the Empire’s spies, but that didn’t mean she saw its entire citizenry as her enemies, too. She had no desire to see war break out, not even between two foreign countries. Din might end up getting caught up in the conflict as well, but more importantly, there was no moral framework she could get behind that allowed her to derive joy from the death of innocent civilians.

Green Butterfly let out an unconcerned laugh. “It’s fine. It’s like, gee, that’s not even a problem. We’ll just pin the assassination on a spy from Din. No one’ll ever believe that Galgad had anything to do with it.”

“…You’re gonna make Avian take the fall, huh?” Monika bit her lip. “I get it. That’s why the CIM had Belias attack—”

“Naaaah.”

“Huh?”

“We’re not pinning Prince Darryn’s assassination on Avian. That was the original plan, sure, but then we decided to move on to a new scapegoat.”

Green Butterfly tilted her head.

“It’s ‘Flower Garden’ Lily. She’ll take the blame for Prince Darryn’s death.”

It took Monika a good long while to comprehend what she’d just heard. How was a girl with such shoddy skills supposed to have committed a crime that grave?

“…That’s absurd.”

“That’s how it’s going to be. Remember how our false intel got the CIM to hunt down Avian?”

She wasn’t lying. Lamplight’s investigation had made it clear that the CIM unit Belias were the ones who’d attacked Avian, a team that had had no intentions whatsoever of causing the Commonwealth any harm.

If Green Butterfly wanted to, she might well be able to do it—both assassinate Prince Darryn, heir to the Fend Commonwealth throne, and pin the crime of the century on “Flower Garden” Lily.

Monika began sweating from every pore. She wanted desperately to kill the girl standing across from her as quickly as she possibly could, but that wasn’t feasible. There was no guarantee that Green Butterfly was the only Serpent member in the region.

“Even if you pull it off…,” she said, scraping together a rebuttal, “…Klaus’ll protect her.”

Giving that answer was akin to abandoning her pride and putting everything on Klaus’s shoulders. She clenched her fists in shame, but the fact of the matter was that she was confident he could overcome any challenge. When things got ugly, relying on him was the ultimate tool Lamplight had in their arsenal.

“That’s pretty sad,” Green Butterfly replied. She shook her head as though to say she hadn’t expected any better. “Look, Monika, I know you’re freaking out, but you gotta reeeally think things through. This whole time, Bonfire’s been working his butt off to avoid having to duke it out with the CIM. Why is that, huh? If he wanted to, he could rip through every last Belias member like it was nothing. Gee, I wonder why he doesn’t just do that?”

She had a point. Klaus had been actively avoiding picking a fight with the full CIM. That was why Lamplight was specifically prepping to capture the entirety of Belias without letting any of the other CIM teams realize what had happened.

Green Butterfly smiled. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s because in a fight between the Din Republic’s and Fend Commonwealth’s intelligence agencies, the Republic would get annihilated.”

“………”

The theory held water. The Fend Commonwealth had controlled countries around the world and possessed the second-largest economy in the globe, whereas the Din Republic was tiny and rural. The gap in their national strengths and the amount of personnel and resources they could devote to their intelligence organizations were too great for even Klaus to overcome on his own. As such, Lamplight had been forced to do everything in their power to avoid sparking an all-out conflict with the CIM.

“Bonfire’s a dyed-in-the-wool patriot, you know. The guy loved Inferno like family, and the Republic’s a symbol of what that family fought to protect. He feels like he’s got a duty to inherit their mission,” Green Butterfly said. “He can’t save his subordinate, not when it puts tens of millions of his countrymen at risk.”

The words weighed heavy on Monika. It was all too easy to imagine that horrible future coming to pass.

What would happen if the Fend Commonwealth ordered the Din Republic to hand “Flower Garden” Lily over to them?

What would happen if C, Klaus’s boss at the Foreign Intelligence Office, ordered Klaus to give Lily up?

What if refusing to do so ran the risk of starting a war between the two nations?

Monika didn’t know. She had no idea if Klaus would still protect Lily, even in the face of all that. As a spy, the man had a cold, unfeeling side. He needed it in order to protect his country.

“…I’ll ask you again,” she said feebly. “……Why are you telling me all this?”

“Oh, gee, I think you’ve probably figured it out.”

Green Butterfly extended her hand and spoke in a voice so deep it lingered in Monika’s ears.

“If you join Serpent, we can guarantee ‘Flower Garden’ Lily’s life.”

Monika had no immediate response to that. She couldn’t agree, nor could she refuse. All she could do was stand there with her lips sealed tight and groan in agony at the trap she’d been caught in.

Green Butterfly went on to tell her a few other things, each and every one of them more than sufficient to send yet another shock through Monika’s heart. By the time she was finished, her voice rang with delight. “I’ve got one last special present for you. Wanna see something cool?”

She snapped her fingers. The noise rang out crisp and clear.

All of a sudden, gunshots sounded out from all directions.

The cacophony surrounded them as the shots echoed out into the night. Countless bullets, far more than just ten or twenty, all flew up into the air at once. Screams rose from across the city.

Even for a show of force, there was no need for Green Butterfly to have gone that far. With that many shots fired, the cops and the CIM would begin investigating at once. For a spy, there was all downside and no upside.

However, Green Butterfly was as calm as ever. “There’s nothing for me to be scared of. None of them can touch me. Not Fend’s police, or its CIM, or its government. I can hide my followers all across the city and command them freely with just a twitch of my finger.” She let out a sadistic laugh. “I can do anything—and there isn’t a person out there who can catch me.”

After Green Butterfly left, a torrential rain began falling and made it hard to see. Monika decided to put lookout duty on hold and head back to the base. Lamplight had rented out two units in a Hurough apartment building, and the girls took turns using it as a crash pad.

When Monika returned, she found Erna and Lan there.

“Welcome back,” Erna said from the kitchen with a smile. “I was just about to make some food.”

Over in the living room, Lan gave her a wave. “Thou didst well to endure in such rain, Dame Monika.”

Lan offered her a towel, and Monika dried off her hair and took a seat on the opposite sofa. After she gave her report about what had been going on inside the Belias base, Lan’s eyebrows softened in contrition. “I feel as though I should apologize, the way I’ve been leaving all the work to Lamplight.”

“Having you operating out in the open would cause more problems than it’s worth.”

“True that. I spent today taking a nice long nap.” Lan crossed her arms, looking strangely proud of the fact.

Monika couldn’t bring herself to snap at her. She looked up at the ceiling and said nothing.

“Hmm? Dame Monika?” Lan tilted her head. “I daresay thou seemest out of sorts. I had expected you to cry Quit lazing about! and level a punch at my stomach.”

“………”

She must have been very worn down for Lan to see through her that easily. The offer Green Butterfly made was really eating away at her.

Monika buried her face in her hands and spent a few seconds deep in thought. It wasn’t like she could just tell them what was going on—not with the bug Green Butterfly had planted on her.

The bug was attached to her collar, and it meant that Green Butterfly could hear everything that was going on. If the feed ever cut out, or if Monika’s voice so much as cracked, Green Butterfly had made it clear that she would immediately give the false intel on Lily to the CIM. She had reservations about communicating with them in writing, too. If Erna or Lan made the slightest misstep, that would be that.

For now, she had no choice but to play it off.

“Just worrying about something unimportant, that’s all.”

Lan peered over at her in fascination. “Goodness, how unlike you.”

“By the way, you ever resent us?” Monika asked.

“Hmm?”

“If Klaus had become Avian’s boss, Avian might’ve survived. You ever think about that?”

“………”

The thought had been on Monika’s mind a lot. Avian had once fought with Lamplight in an attempt to install Klaus as their boss, and at the end of their showdown, Avian had emerged victorious. However, they’d recognized Lamplight’s talents and relinquished their right to take Klaus from them.

Had that really been the right call?

If Klaus had become Avian’s boss, the whole tragedy might have been averted.

Lan had been smiling through the rest of the conversation, but on hearing that, her expression darkened. “Prithee, do not insult me.” Her voice brimmed with anger. “When we chose not to take Sir Klaus, ’twas a decision borne of conviction. The call we made was to have Avian and Lamplight protect our nation on two fronts. I bear no regrets.”

“…Got it.”

“’Tis not a matter of fault or blame. Post-hoc thinking is naught but folly.”

Lan waved her hand to say that the conversation was over, then leaned back and placed her weight on the sofa’s backrest. There was no bravado or false courage in her expression. She hadn’t gotten over losing Avian, not completely, but she’d at least gotten her feelings in order.

There was nothing Monika could say to that.

…But, Lan, would you be able to stay that unfazed if you knew the truth?

She hung her head so as to avoid letting Lan see her bite down on her lip.

Green Butterfly told me. About the traitor in Avian’s ranks.

The fact was, Green Butterfly had made contact with Avian, too. Serpent had carefully observed them and taken full advantage of their weakness.

Moments earlier, when Green Butterfly was proposing that Monika betray her team, she gave her an all-knowing laugh. “Gee, I wonder if I can guess what you’re thinking right now?” She grinned like she could see right through Monika. “You’re planning on pretending to turn traitor for a bit, then gathering intel on Serpent from within.”

She was right on the money. It was your standard double agent scenario—a tactic so basic that there had been whole lectures on it back at Monika’s academy. The idea was that you made it look like you’d switched sides by passing along some unimportant information to curry favor with the other side. When Green Butterfly made her offer to Monika, that was the very first idea that had passed through Monika’s head.

“Ha-ha, you smart spies all think the same way. It’s so stupid.” Green Butterfly slumped her shoulders in annoyance. “There was an idiot like that on Avian, too—‘Glide’ Qulle.”

Monika gulped when she heard the familiar name. That was Avian’s strategist, a girl with glasses and a jade green ponytail.

“I made her a similar offer, and at first, I got her on board. She had these biiig old tears in her eyes, and her little fists were trembling in frustration when she agreed to betray her country. She was the one who told me your names and what you all looked like.”

Now that was unexpected. Qulle had the pride of an elite spy. She should have dutifully carried out her mission. Monika wouldn’t have taken her for a traitor.

She asked Green Butterfly what she’d offered her.

“I promised to spare all of Avian.” A noble request. “She was a clever one. She figured out faster than anyone that the Commonwealth was rotten to the core, and she knew that submitting to Serpent was the only way for them to survive. Gee, what a great girl. I was going to use her until she broke in my quest to kill Bonfire.” Green Butterfly let out a melancholy sigh before spitting out her next words. “But at the eleventh hour, she was stupid enough to turn on us.”

Monika thought back to the photos she’d seen of Avian’s corpses. Qulle had died having the back of her neck hacked up by some strange bladed instrument. Rather than getting killed by Belias, she’d had her life personally taken by one of Serpent’s members.

Not even one of her generation’s most elite members had been able to escape Green Butterfly’s trap.

“She really underestimated me, and Avian got wiped out because of it. She died without achieving a single one of her goals.”

The moral of the story was, going for any sort of half-cocked betrayal was a bad move. Mere moments ago, Green Butterfly had given Monika a glimpse of her power. She had countless resources stationed around Fend, and Monika had no way of knowing where her stooges might be lurking.

“Don’t go disappointing me, now, Monika.”

It was uncanny, being able to feel her options narrow in real time.

As she thought back to her conversation with Green Butterfly, she heard her name. “Big Sis Monika?”

Erna came over to her, still holding a potato, and peered at Monika with worry swimming in her eyes.

“You really don’t seem like yourself right now. I think you should get some rest in the other room.”

“…Yeah, maybe I’ll do that.”

“The plan is, Teach is going to be here in about an hour. You can go ahead and sleep until then.”

“………”

What Erna told her next sent a wave of alarm through her. Erna had just gotten word via the wireless that it wouldn’t be long before Klaus and Sybilla got back from their op with Belias. Once they did, there was going to be a team meeting, and Monika was naturally going to be expected to attend.

…That’s gonna put me face-to-face with Klaus.

She felt a stifling tightness in her chest. She couldn’t even keep Erna and Lan from noticing how shaken up she was.

Lan did a big, delighted stretch. “I see. Then perhaps I’d best bathe while the opportunity yet remains,” she declared before heading off to the bathroom.

“Yeah, I’m gonna go get some sleep,” Monika said, slowly rising to her feet.

“You know,” Erna said kindly, “I was just in the middle of making some soup. Would you like some once it’s done?”

Monika’s reply was curt. “I’m good.”

“You must really be tired. If things are too hard on you, you could always talk to Teach about—”

“Oh, shut up. Get off my back already!”

Before she knew it, she was raising her voice. When she turned around, she saw that Erna’s eyes were wide and pained. Erna’s breath was caught in her throat, and she was shrinking back as though in terror.

“…Sorry, I’m just exhausted.” Monika averted her gaze. “But don’t tell Klaus about this. I can still work just fine. I don’t want him getting worried over nothing.”

“O-okay,” Erna replied, then gave her a quick bow and scurried back to the kitchen in fright.

Monika realized how awful what she’d just done was, but she didn’t have the capacity to worry about that right now.

The coming meeting with Klaus was going to determine her very destiny.

“I can’t.”

Monika replied to Green Butterfly’s repeated threats with the honest truth.

“It’s not an issue of being willing or unwilling. Me turning traitor literally won’t work.”

“Gee, why’s that?”

“Because sooner or later, Lamplight’s gonna have a meeting. If I don’t show up, it’ll look suspicious, and if I do, I’ll run into Klaus. As soon as we’re in the same room, he’ll see that something’s up with me.”

Monika knew all too well how difficult fooling Klaus was, and at the moment, she was pretty darn shaken. There was no way she could possibly get through a twenty-odd-minute meeting without him catching wind of that fact. He was going to sense that something was up, and once he pressed her, she would be forced to tell him everything.

“Are you really going to force me to decide if I’m going to turn traitor here and now, even in the face of that?”

“And if I did, hypothetically, what would you say?”

“I’d say no, obviously. You’ve got nothing to back up anything you’ve told me. Hell, I’m beginning to wonder if Prince Darryn is even really gonna die.”

“Oh, what fragile hopes you cling to. Eh, I guess you’ll understand soon enough.” Green Butterfly gave her a breezy wave, then shook her head in annoyance. “Go ahead and attend that meeting. And once you’re there, I guess I’ll just need you to bring your A game.”

Monika had no idea how to respond to Green Butterfly’s flagrant carelessness. It made her want to explain how good Klaus’s intuition was, but it wasn’t as though she could just go leaking intel to the enemy.

“Make sure you fool him,” Green Butterfly said menacingly. “Unless you want ‘Flower Garden’ Lily to die, that is.”

There was a coldness to her voice, and that alone pierced Monika clean through.

After stepping away from Erna and Lan, Monika headed to the vanity and worked on her face.

It took her far longer than ever before to get her expression under control. She worked to loosen up her facial muscles over and over, making sure she looked the same as ever. None of her feigned emotions could appear off.

She hadn’t made up her mind about turning traitor yet, but for the moment, she had little choice but to do as Green Butterfly said. She took her emotional turbulence and hid it deep down inside.

A short while later, she heard the telltale sounds of Sybilla getting back. After tightening up her expression one last time, she put some pep in her step and headed back over to the room from earlier. Lan was being obnoxious again, so Monika gave her an ax kick and a cry of “Can it!” to make a show of how chipper she was.

Once she was finished, she got Sybilla to share her latest intel so she could assess the situation. That was how she learned that the CIM was going after Avian as suspects in a failed assassination attempt on Prince Darryn, and how just then, someone had shot the crown prince and taken his life.

She didn’t let it show on her face, but a wave of despair crashed over her.

…That settles it, then. Green Butterfly wasn’t bluffing.

All of a sudden, the rest of Green Butterfly’s threats seemed dramatically more credible.

“By the way, where’s Lily?” she asked, making sure to keep her tone 100 percent business.

“Huh? She’s keepin’ hidden in Heron Manor. Why?” Sybilla replied like it was no big deal.

Sure enough, Lily was staying out of sight at the dance hall, just the way they’d drawn it up. The plan had been to have her poison one of the Belias aides from under a table so that Grete could swap places with them. That part had already gone off without a hitch, but apparently, she was still down there.

“And she was under the table when Prince Darryn got killed, too?”

“Well yeah, duh.”

“Makes sense,” Monika replied cheerfully. She had to suppress the urge to curse under her breath.

Lily had no alibi. Her whole job had been to make sure nobody from Belias knew she was there, and that meant she had no one but her Lamplight teammates to vouch for her whereabouts. Monika felt a pang of regret. When Green Butterfly had told her to turn traitor, one of the first things she’d considered was rushing straight over to rescue Lily. However, there hadn’t been enough time.

Then there was a knock on the door, and in came Klaus. “I’m back,” he said succinctly as he came in alongside Thea.

It was time for Monika to renew her resolve. She couldn’t let him catch on to her, no matter what. If Klaus found out about the bug hidden in her collar, Green Butterfly would discard her without a second’s thought, and Lily’s life would be in grave danger.

She needed to devote her full efforts into fooling Klaus. She had no other options, and she put everything she had, all her talent as a spy, into making sure her agitation didn’t show. She couldn’t let the mask slip, not even for a moment.

Before too long, the meeting got started. There were six of them: Klaus, Monika, Thea, Erna, Sybilla, and Lan. Klaus began by laying out what he’d gathered by working alongside Belias as well as the intel Thea had managed to extract while in captivity. All the while, Monika remained composed. Luckily for her, Klaus showed no signs of noticing that anything was wrong with her.

But like…

An emotion stirred from deep, deep inside her heart, crying out in a voice too quiet to manifest in her actions.

She turned her gaze over to Klaus. He wore a stern expression as he described how they were going to approach Belias going forward.

…I want him to notice.

It was a contradictory wish, but as soon as she became aware of it, it began surging within her. She continued putting her all into her performance, but she couldn’t make those pathetic feelings go away.

What the hell. Klaus is supposed to be able to see everything; that’s his whole deal!

She wanted him to see her. She wanted him to rescue her. She was being swallowed up by something vast and unfathomable, and she wanted him to free her.

It was the impossibly optimistic wish of a coddled little girl, yet it refused to go away. Even as she devoted all her attention to keeping up her deceptive act, there was still a part of her that was praying for Klaus to see right through her and save her from Green Butterfly. There was no one else for her to rely on.

Every second Klaus spent talking about the plan, she wanted to shout at him that it wasn’t what mattered right now.

Why don’t you notice? Why can’t you hear me?!

The feeling echoed, loud and intense.

Why?! All this time, you’ve been able to see through every lie I told you, no matter how much I put into selling it!

The meeting came and went, and she spent its whole duration having to fight back the violent screams raging in her heart. In the end, Klaus never sensed her anguish. All he did was comfort her teammates and spur them on with promises of revenge. Not once did he cast any special looks her way.

As soon as the meeting ended, Monika immediately left.

Not even the mighty Klaus could see everything. It was obvious, in retrospect, and it was hardly his fault. If anything, it had been asking too much for him to keep tabs on each and every one of his agents’ mental states in a mission as messy and protracted as theirs. At the end of the day, Klaus was no god.

Throughout the whole meeting, he’d intimated how important it was for them to avoid an all-out conflict against the CIM. Sure enough, not even he wanted to go to war with them.

Klaus was just a man, and realizing that broke something precious in Monika.

From atop the roof, Monika quietly looked down at the sleeping city.

The battle against Belias had ended without fuss or fanfare. Belias had fallen for Grete’s scheme hook, line, and sinker, and all the traps Lamplight had set around Sybilla had worked like a charm. They’d successfully captured all the Belias members up at the construction site in the mountains.

The time limit Green Butterfly had given her was up.

Klaus was about to get the truth out of Belias and make his next move, and Green Butterfly needed to throw the situation into chaos before that happened. Her goal was to prevent Klaus from ever getting his feet under him.

Monika waited atop the building next to the Kashard Doll Workshop, and before she knew it, Green Butterfly was standing behind her.

“You want to know why I wanted you as my partner?” Her voice came out of nowhere. “It’s ’cause we have so much in common.”

Monika offered her no reply, and Green Butterfly went on.

“I’ve seen firsthand just how heartless this world can be, and it made me realize that, gee, I need to make a statement. I need to show those ignorant masses a nightmare they won’t soon forget. That was when I first started going by Green Butterfly. And when I spotted you, I could feel it. You’re just like me. You want to take your feelings and scream them at the top of your lungs.”

There was a strange kindness to her voice. It usually sounded so mocking, but there was none of that now. Instead, it was warm, like she was talking to a friend.

“Y’know, even if you don’t betray Lamplight, ‘Flower Garden’ Lily will probably be fine. This is Bonfire we’re talking about, after all.”

“True.”

“I’d say there’s a fifty or sixty percent chance she makes it.”

Those numbers sounded about right. Knowing Klaus, there was a probability he could actually emerge victorious from a head-on fight with the CIM. The odds weren’t even that bad.

“But that means,” Monika said, “there’s a forty or fifty percent chance she dies.”

She’d played it out in her head more times than she could count—her, going to Klaus and begging him for help. Him, bringing his full talents to bear and saving them like he had so many times before. Him, overcoming any and all obstacles in their path.

However, she had no proof that things would play out that way.

If Monika defied Serpent, there was a fifty-fifty chance Lily would die.

If Monika betrayed Lamplight, Lily would definitely live.

As soon as she laid out the two options, she already had her answer.

“I’ve got three questions,” Monika said.

“Go for it.”

“First, why wasn’t Klaus able to see through my acting?”

Green Butterfly grinned in delight. “Hmm? Gee, maybe it was ’cause you’re just such a good actor.”

“That wouldn’t be enough to fool someone like him. What did you do?”

There were still a lot of mysteries surrounding Serpent, but the one thing she knew for sure was that its members had unimaginably powerful talents. The way Purple Ant had been able to psychologically dominate hundreds of people was evidence of that, as was the mystery individual who’d been able to sniff out Monika’s love. It was safe to assume that Green Butterfly had some sort of special skill, too.

Green Butterfly offered her a shrug and a smirk. “Oh, gee, I don’t think we’re at the point where I can start giving away my personal details just yet.”

“Fair enough. That rules out question two, then.”

She wanted to know what Serpent was trying to accomplish. What could be worth assassinating Prince Darryn and sowing the seeds of war? However, there was no way Green Butterfly was going to tell her that. She needed Monika to demonstrate her conviction first, it seemed.

“Third, what would you have me do?”

“C’mon, I think you’ve figured that out already.”

Monika sucked in a small breath at Green Butterfly’s provocative tone. She knew full well what Green Butterfly wanted from her. There was only one task she could imagine Serpent coming after her for.

Question: How do you kill an invincible spy who’s defeated any enemy he’s come across?

Answer: It’s obvious. You attack him with someone who isn’t his enemy.

Green Butterfly twirled her hair around her fingers, strode over to Monika, and coiled that hair around Monika’s neck as innocently as a little girl playing house. “For starters, though, could you go attack your team for me? I want to see your resolve.” She stepped away, and the hair unwound itself. “Destroy it all—and if, in the end, you get the big one, then ‘Flower Garden’ Lily gets to live.”

Before Monika gave her answer, she closed her eyes.

Memories of her time in Heat Haze Palace floated up in the darkness.

There was her first time meeting Klaus, who marched to the beat of his own drum so adamantly it had filled her with exasperation. There was how surprised she’d been when Erna had been late to their very first meeting. There were the times she’d been jealous of Grete’s romantic earnestness, the times she’d competed with the physically gifted Sybilla, and the times Annette’s eccentricity had left her at a total loss. There were the times she’d tutored Sara, who started out cowardly but gradually grew more ambitious, and there were the times she found herself in contention with Thea over their differing views on espionage.

And then there was Lily, always doing her best to encourage the others no matter how tough things got.

What was she going to choose, and what was she going to cast away? The world wasn’t so kind a place as to let her have everything she wanted.

“Fine.”

She needed to say it, loud and clear.

The path ahead of her was a thorny one, but walking it was the only way to stay true to her ideals.

“I’ll kill ‘Bonfire’ Klaus.”

With that, the tragedy commenced.