Year of the Boar, Thirteenth Month, Day 19. Postscript.

 It has occurred to me since I wrote to Aoki, that I could also go and talk to Kaede and be frank with her about what is going on. I could simply tell her everything. At least then, she would not feel the need to retain the veneer of ignorance when she speaks with me about intel. 

I have not done so, yet. I thought perhaps writing about it might help me decide one way or the other what I should do. Somehow, I must get myself out of this mess. I do not wish to lose Kaede's friendship but if she does know about everything then perhaps I have already lost that; she is certainly too gracious and polite to chastise me openly and she would never ask me to leave the House when she has promised that I may stay.. well... not unless I did something so heinous that she had no choice but is spying on other Houses and paying their own staff to tell me what is going on inside them not heinous...? I think it may be...

What has never really occurred to me before is to wonder why no one else has a similar network. Or do they? It seems unfathomable to assume that the likes of Laughing Spider, whose very foundations were built on deceit and trickery, would not have anyone spying for them... White Lake and Fallen Sakura also known for their attempts to take Lands and indeed Houses from other Families... how would they have planned their incursions without intel...? And knowing the proclivities of those Houses for underhand behaviour, would it not stand to reason that the other Houses would want to know what they were up to...? Then how is it, that until Rani arrived, the only person who seemed to be spying on anyone else, was me.

It just does not make sense. Is it possible that some of my agents are double or even triple agents? Is it possible that everyone is just so good at it that they have managed to remain secret? These thoughts have been coursing round and around in my head and they will not stop. The only way to make it stop is to find out once and for all where my birds have gone and why.