"You aren't likely to get much opposition, despite Matthew's warnings to the contrary. Not that anyone's concerns are wrong, but it's safely academic and not a priority. Even if you were going so far as to poke holes in Solomon's Seal, it's an abstract harm that few practitioners would put themselves at risk about."

"I expect any holes still there would have been poked already and shored up by tradition, no?"

"And the practitioners smoothed over and forgotten, yes."

"Yeah, from what I know of this new Seal's mastermind they wouldn't have bet on it if they thought that was a productive avenue of investment."

"They wouldn't have bet on their own success?"

"If they had a surer way to achieve their current goals? No."

"There aren't many people who'd take a course where failing to achieve anything is the best plausible outcome, even without surer options."

"I should perhaps change the subject lest I reveal too much about them. Tell me, who's the Queen?"

"Elizabeth.

The title is because I serve a spirit of patriotism. I'm Paul if you prefer an actual name, Paul Chandler. There are a lot of pseudonyms going around, but the Sisters are the only ones to even play at trying to stay anonymous."

"And who are they?"

"Sisters of the Torch. You met their Elder today. They're a college group, though obviously also more than that, and they make actual use of the practice even less than I do."

"I get the impression making use of it is actually pretty rare. What's their thing?"

"They are mostly a sorority, secondarily pyromancers. The Torch in their name is an intermediate fire elemental that they keep happy in exchange for power when they need it."

"What a peculiar hobby. And they are more influential here than the Behaims?"

"Certainly. The Behaims are barely a presence here. The Sisters are looked down on more than they probably deserve, but they do at least always send a representative to the council."

"How about the Sphinx?"

"Isadora is a professor of ethics at one of the local universities. She recruits promising undergraduates and inducts them into the practice. She's also very powerful—you're extremely lucky she considered you not her problem."

"—ethics. And she eats people."

"She knows ethics very well; she just also has her own."

"That's very much a cop-out."

"It's the obvious defense of her position teaching it.

She's very fair, in the specialized sense that we all know and I take it you disapprove of. I don't think she'd claim to be ethical by contemporary standards."

"I'm not a moral realist but I still sort of take the position that anyone whose morality isn't mine is just wrong about it." He shrugs. "I'd still like to build a paradise where everyone's happy so maybe we could hook her to VR or something in this imaginary far-future utopia where she gets lots of NPCs trying to answer her direct questions."

He cracks a smile. "Think she'd be happy with that?"

"I'm not sure what my position is on utility monsters but I don't think she is one, if this solution manages to save one or more people's lives it's still probably a strict improvement from a global perspective. Maybe some people will like to be eaten."

"Good luck with that one. They'll be in high demand, with all the predators around."