"The difference between a good servant and a great spy is plausible deniability. Lyra had both in spades."
The afternoon found me at my desk in Room 247, the small window letting in bars of golden light that fell across stacks of papers and open textbooks.
To any casual observer, it would have looked like scholarly chaos.
They would have been wrong. Every paper was exactly where I needed it to be.
I was reviewing the latest batch of intelligence reports that Lyra had compiled over the past three days. Her neat handwriting filled page after page with observations, schedules, and analysis that would have done credit to a professional spy network with decades of experience.
The servant network she'd infiltrated was proving remarkably effective. Far beyond even my optimistic projections.
