Jarvis and Ardaic don’t know Annunziata’s plan for tonight. But they do know about certain pre-existing plans involving Annunziata, and they know Annunziata is likely to keep doing and saying things, in general, that will justify those plans. That’s the long and short of it.

(Writing this chapter, we figured out those plans first, but we knew it’d be too straightforward if we didn’t give Annunziata himself something to do. So then we came up with bringing back Embraisch’Nj for this purpose. Hopefully, he keeps this plot lively and not too predictable.)

Self-Evaluation’s Eve, like many things about Gastonian government, seems like a genuinely good idea that’s just been pecked away at by people and their pettiness and their power ploys.