Shrug. "Some people want him. Mostly, yeah, no one wants an outsider and there are only so many powerful insiders."

"Isadora likes stability, she wants to keep the status quo, and she might like a chronomancer more than a god's acolyte."

"She might. And maybe I could pass myself off as an up-and-coming nobody instead of a random twenty-five-year-old. The thing you're missing is, I'm really not a big name here. It'd be like suggesting an acolyte of the Torch, or either of you. No offense." (Diana doesn't take any.) "Last time around, Jeremy made a deal with the head of my family to not use the Toronto branch of the family as an excuse to make a play himself. If Isadora wants a chronomancer, he's the one who could take and hold it."

"But Laird is in fact an outsider, and he could back you instead."

"Instead of trying himself? I'm not sure how much that'd even help. It'd be obvious he's the one taking and holding the spot; it'd make me look like his puppet. Possibly accurately."

"Is that so much worse than being a god's puppet?"

"Only in the outsider sense. Dionysius isn't one; Laird is."

"So, imagine we win, depose Conquest, all of that. What do you imagine happens if you then decide to run and we back you, and Isadora's indifferent between you and Jeremy?"

"If l beat Laird to the punch? He's forced to back me up. Everyone knows l'm relying mostly on him, so l'm a disliked candidate, but they do at least have to take the family seriously. Honestly we probably still lose. Toronto's annoyed with me because before all this my faction barely attended council meetings and l'm obviously only running for the in-family name recognition. But l do get that, and at the very least the family probably relaxes the rules where peripheral members are barely practitioners."

"Sounds like a win for you even if you lose," Diana tries.

"Sure," he says noncommittally. "Let's say l'm convinced. What are you asking me to actually do?"

"The scenario I'm thinking here is this: you ask Laird for help ousting Conquest, hinting but not outright stating that he might get Lordship. I don't think we need that help to win, for what it's worth, but it'll make it more of a sure thing. When we do win, you and Laird have helped. Laird predictably tries to go for Lordship, but everyone else is against that and prefers it to be you, saying it's gonna be because he's an outsider, but it's really because they expect you to be easy to beat. He has to back you up and he has to do it in a way that doesn't leave him mad at you.

"I talk to Isadora, see if I can sway her to be neutral and maybe optimistically leaning-towards-you. I talk to the Sisterhood and make promises about you not being Laird's puppet—you don't want to be, after all, and so far we've only discussed hypotheticals, please don't contradict me—and I don't know which side that coin's gonna fall on but it's not obviously Jeremy's, if I'm persuasive enough. The Fells are gonna back me up, though I might need to promise I'm gonna get the heck out of town as soon as all this dust settles.

"So in the end you have helped oust Conquest, you have an impressive show of force, even if you lose you do get in-family name recognition in a way that doesn't undermine your relationship with Laird, and there is in fact a shot that you'll win."

"I don't know about involving Laird. Families have to be conservative, and unseating a Lord is big. There hasn't been enough of a splash yet to make it look like an opportunity.

Counterproposal: I arrest you."

He's unsurprised by Diana's "What?" but doesn't make any moves hostile or otherwise. "Just you, Diana. I don't think it'd do anything for Sam."

"Do explain," she says, crossing her legs.

Diana draws her own conclusions first. "It doesn't work on Sam because there's nothing to arrest him for, while I arguably stole something. He could break in and kill me, but not without directly thwarting his own city..."

"Leaving him no good options," Duncan finishes. "And then I contrive to see his face when he gets served with a subpoena."

"Okay. And why?"

"It's about as safe as any of us can manage. It's not a win for you, but it's a loss for Conquest. It doesn't spend any of the very limited power. And it's not obviously treason on my part."

"I'd have to be the one running astrology and she risks her life. What do you get out of it?"

"A way to help your little rebellion without sticking my neck out. I'd rather not see you get squished if following the letter of the law will prevent it; that money thing you talked about is pretty much the only reason I can do anything real."

She raises an eyebrow. "'Talked about'. Interesting. Anyway, does that mean you won't want to throw your hat in even if you don't help us with Conquest himself? 'Cause my offer to back you is still standing then, the thing I want from you for backing you is not help with Conquest."

Well, it's not like she's admitting to being a Sadde let alone that Sadde.

"Do you mean trying to call in the rest of the family for help? That is me helping with Conquest as far as he or they are concerned."

"No. I have a debt. I owe your family some sixty years. I want to not have to pay that."

"Conditional on me ever being in a position to grant that, you mean?"

"Or arrange for it to be granted, or in any other way make this debt go away. I would normally be okay with paying something like that but the fact that I already unwittingly gave you those sixty years by being frozen in Laird's basement makes me rather miffed, you see."

"Sixty years where?"

"Well, it wasn't Laird's when I got frozen there."

"How'd that happen?" Sam is kind of obviously not sixty, not that that means too much since there was at least one chronomancy shenanigan.