"I look immensely forward to it."

"Let me know if you need anything. Including a break; I think I am owed a rematch at Governor."

"Ooh. Tomorrow after lunch?"

"Sounds good."

So tomorrow after lunch: Governor!

She's gotten over the distraction thing. Mostly.

Isabella cheats a moderate amount. Isabella does brilliant things.

Of course she does. Isabella is going to lose anyway.

Is she?

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh yes yes she is she is not getting distracted -

Oh but Isabella isn't getting distracted either and also cheating.

Cheating doesn't help much if she makes a sufficiently intense study of Isabella and conditions all her plans on it.

It helps if it alerts Isabella to the availability of plans that don't get used. She can plagiarize!

That's hardly fair. At least they're plans she thought of and she knows how they go.

Not if Isabella tweaks 'em.

Is that so.

Yes.

She is not going to lose to plans of hers that she didn't run because Isabella blinked a prime number of times.

But they are heavily revised.

Is it actually blinking in particular, Isabella can check if it's blinking.

Not usually, that'd be too obvious. Shifts of weight, movements of her legs, twitching expressions -

That's a little too hard to pick up. Oh well, Isabella will just have to be searingly brilliant.

Yes, yes, she knows.

Isabella feels the need to remind her anyway.

She reminds herself a lot that Isabella isn't doing this to her on purpose.

She is not! This was all Maitimë's idea.

Except that trap Isabella just sprung, that was all her own.