Story:

But one day, Lysandra believed with the whole quiet of her heart, she would do it. One day she would stand across a battlefield from Sera and her old banner—and she would win, and not just the battle—she would win the girl.

Her friend would come home. Lysandra had decided since they were parted and never once un-decided it.

And a plan needed instruments.

So as she walked out into the Alexandrian afternoon, Lysandra's whistle faded into a small, private, entirely ruthless smile, and she began composing, in her head, the list of everything her plan would require—

And at the very top of it, without hesitation, without apology, in her cousin's handwriting as it were, she wrote:

Get No18.

After all, a man that could charm Sera—had once spied ln her, seduced her, and the lie had yet been uncovered—would be exactly what that woman needed, if she intended to keep an eye on a stubborn friend marching around loose in the world, toward a war, wearing the wrong banner.

Lysandra swept out of the ministry gates and turned her steps—whistling again—toward the Grand Marshal's quarters and the very unpleasant conversation she had just been ordered into, and found she was looking forward to every minute of it.