By Ice and Shadow Bound
Eighteenth Day of the Seventh Month 293 AC
Feigning shock at the sight of your own blood, you send a thought flying through the ether to Varys, less than a word yet still understood in full and accepted with savage glee:
"Hunt!"
Hunt she does indeed, moving smoothly from a playful loop to a dive in deadly earnest, as a hawk with the eye on a rat perhaps. The edge of her wing touches you and through that brief contact you invest within her a
spell of frost, to lock the killer's joints and trap him in place that he might lead you back to whoever had placed gold in his blood-stained hands.
Alas that the flash of pale light and breath of freezing wind is not quite enough to see the task done, allowing the assassin to clamber painfully onto the windowsill even as he swings his envenomed dagger at Varys. She dodges the wild motion contemptuously, though her mind voice is still focused as any dragon's on the hunt.
"I doubt my poison will do much to one such as this."
This time a tail flicks in your direction and again you silently pour the magic through it for your familiar to use. This time the spell catches hold fully, the killer well and truly snared as he crashes through the branches of the tree.
"Not how he imagined making his exit I imagine," you say, careful to add a slight tremble to the bravado.
"I should hope not," the magister replies, even as guards pour into the chamber. Too late to have done their master any good in the fight proper and unfortunately all the more zealous for it.
Persuading all present to neither kill the assassin at once nor put him to the question proves almost more difficult than winning Lord Araesos' aid to begin with. Thankfully your connections to the Conclave of Twelve allow you to transfer him to a safe holding cell where you could interrogate him at length. The chamber is narrow and windowless, lit only by the pale glow of witchlights and at least for the next short while thoroughly warded against eavesdropping
Compelled by his own
bespelled shadow the Sorrowful Man reveals what at first seems an unexpected foe, Braavosi, specifically a cabal of Keyholders brought together by their opposition to the shifts in power structures in the Secret City following the great good fortune of your friends and allies.
"The Sealord did say Braavos will see the rise of such factions," Garin reminds you. "He was counting on that to ensure the removal of some of his more virulent opponents."
"I did not think they would be sending assassins to the other end of the Narrow Sea to meddle in my plans." With a laugh you add: "Perhaps I should have, though, and count myself lucky I did not encounter another Faceless Man under less cordial circumstances." Still the question of how precisely the assassin had been moving about does prove to have a meaningful answer. Your compulsion had not been the first bit of umbramancy that he had ever seen.
"Bloody fey," Wyla curses in disgust.
"Being fair, the Orphne did not know who they were transporting, only that they were well paid," Garin interjects.
"And being less fair they do not seem to have cared either," your mother says. She had taken news of the attempted assassination with a mix of what you privately find excessive concern for your wellbeing and cold anger at those responsible, starting with the assassin and his order but definitely not ending there.
Unfortunately before you can get any further in interrogating the assassin news from Lys arrives my way of far-speech. Aedon had been primed to try his coup, but Azema worries to to whether he can manage it even with his superiority in sheer military might.
What do you do?
[] Follow the Braavosi lead further
-[] Write in
[] Travel to Lys to help plan the coup against the Spicers
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: The one disadvantage of running multiple intrigues is that they tend to have simultaneous calls on your time, though you can of course delegate. 
