I KNEW FROM THE maps that at the center of the city sat what was called the Trifecta: the offices of the Legion, Iudex, and Engineering Iyalets, around which the other offices gathered like a small constellation. Our Legion driver piloted us toward it, navigating the churning traffic running about the fretvine towers. It was hard to catch the nature of the city from within the carriage, but it felt an improvised place: slapdash fernpaper houses fluttering about us like flocks of fragile moths, with fernpaper signs on leaning poles denoting smithies, boardinghouses, sotbars. The only permanent thing seemed to be the roads and foundations, wrought of stone and brick. All else was impermanent and haphazard. A sketch or a doodle of civilization, perhaps, hastily done on a canvas of soaking stone.

Finally the Trifecta came into view: three tall, conical fretvine towers, each sealed with mossclay and arrayed with the black, blue, or red colors of their Iyalet.

“Keep your eyes open,” Ana said to me. She wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Trying to take it all in as best I can, ma’am.”

“Bother less with the sights,” she said, “and more with the people. You’re going to be with a lot of elite officers soon, Din. They won’t ask you to talk much, but you need to watch them. Watch what they look at, what disturbs them, and get it all for me. I want to know who we’re working with.”

“Is it vialworthy, ma’am?” I said, grabbing my engraver’s satchel.

“Of course! Pick a glass and stick it up your damn nose quick!”

We rumbled into the courtyard of the Trifecta. A small group of people were gathering in wait for us before the Iudex building, no more than a half-dozen Engineers, Apoths, and officers in Iudex dark blue.

I studied the Iudex officers most as we pulled up. There were two of them: one a tall, thin, gray-faced man whose breast bore the two bars signifying he was the investigator; and there, beside that heraldry, the eye within a box, indicating he was an engraver, like me. Next to him was a grizzled brick of a man with enormous shoulders, six span tall and six span wide, squinting at us as we pulled up. This man had evidently been altered for strength, so much so he could quite likely cleave a person in two. Upon his breast I spied a twinkle: the bar and the flower, indicating he was an assistant investigator.

I stared at him. This scarred, broad, blunt instrument of a human being was my Talagray equivalent. Even though I was nearly a span taller than him, I had never felt so young and so small in all my life.

When the carriage came to a stop I opened the door, clambered out, and helped Ana climb down. Though the crowd was small, I felt every eye upon me like they were a leaden weight.

The Talagray investigator—the tall, thin man—approached and bowed. “Ana,” he said. “It’s an honor to see you once more.”

“Tuwey Uhad!” Ana said cheerily, grinning like a sharkfish. “By Sanctum, it’s been years. Or decades, perhaps?”

“Just years,” said Uhad. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” His face was gaunt, and he looked weary—he probably hadn’t slept in days—but he allowed a small smile. He was a reedy, gloomy fellow who looked more like an advocate who argued cases before the magistries of the Iudex than a soldier. But then, I realized, that was probably what most investigators actually looked like.

Uhad’s eyes fluttered slightly as he looked upon Ana: a trembling in his pupils, a twitching in his cheek. An engraver indeed, then. “Commander-Prificto Vashta sends her apologies,” he said. “She wished to be here, but she has been appointed seneschal of the canton. A grave formality—but a necessary one.”

I nodded, for I’d heard of this procedure. In the event of a breach, Talagray anointed one Legion officer as seneschal—essentially a dictator of all domestic matters—until the breach was resolved. This meant that the tall, exhausted-looking woman I’d met in Ana’s shack back in Daretana was now judge, jury, and executioner of the canton, and we now operated completely under her purview. If we saw her again, I reckoned, it’d be because things had either gone very right, or very wrong.

“Don’t let the size of the group here discourage you, Ana,” Uhad continued. “It’s far easier to keep a smaller force discreet.”

“I’ve no goddamned idea how big or small it is,” said Ana, grinning under her blindfold. “But I appreciate the notice.”

He gestured to the broad, grizzled man beside him, and said, “First—this is my assistant investigator, Captain Tazi Miljin.”

The broad man bowed deeply to us, but as he rose his eyes lingered on me. He looked every inch the soldier, his shoulders huge, his gray skin sun-darkened and puckered here and there with white scars. His thick white hair fell in a messy mop down to his ears. Nose broad and bent and broken. Beard cut in a manner that made it hard to tell if he was constantly frowning or not. From the look in his eyes, I suspected he was.

Most interesting was the sword at his side: it bore a plain crossguard, yet the handle and the scabbard were uniquely designed, locked together with some complex brass machinery, almost like the clock at the Legion’s Iyalet building back in Daretana. Its black leather scabbard was worn but carefully polished and cleaned. However strange the weapon looked, it seemed a beloved thing to him.

I glanced up, and saw he was still watching me. Gaze as cool as the underside of a river rock. No dancing to his pupils. I wondered what alterations he was sporting.

“We’re assisted here by representatives from the Apoths and Engineering, naturally,” said Uhad. “Immunis Vasiliki Kalista…”

A short woman stepped forward and bowed, donned in Engineering purple. She was Tala, like me, thickset and glamorous, with clever, dark eyes and her shiny black hair expertly tied up in an elegant bun. Glittering oysterdust applied to the undersides of her eyes, bronze and ceramic hairsticks winking from the bun on her head. Someone who lived to be seen first and see things second, I felt. “An honor to serve with you,” she said.

“And Immunis Itonia Nusis,” said Uhad, gesturing to the other. “From the Apoths…”

A small, neat, handsome Kurmini woman with short, curly black hair stepped up, pushed back her Apoth red coat with a flourish, and gave a pert bow. “An honor to serve with you, ma’am.” She popped up, grinning cheerily. Every piece of her felt cleaned and pressed flat, all angles so adjusted and sharp she felt like a quilt carefully put together piece by piece. Her skin was dark gray, but her eyelids were slightly purpled, the sign of significant grafts. This wasn’t unusual for Apoths: being masters at shaping flesh, many of them augmented their own. It was likely the woman could see in the dark better than a jungle cat.

I studied the three immuni, each proud and preening and draped in the colors and heralds of their Iyalets. I suddenly thought of them as birds: Uhad was a blue stork, tall, wavering, watchful, and still; Kalista was a purple courtesan dove, all glamour and gleaming plumage; and Nusis was a little red flicker-thrush, cheerily chirruping and darting from branch to branch. How ostentatious they seemed next to Ana, bent and blindfolded, yet coiled like a predator about to strike.

Ana tapped my chest with a knuckle. “This is Din. My assistant investigator.”

All eyes moved to me, then flicked up and down, taking in my height.

“He’s new,” said Ana, “and big, and I think he lost his sense of humor in some tragic accident. But he helped me solve the Blas issue quick enough.” Then, simply, “He is good.”

I bowed, but I recognized that, short as it was, that was the highest compliment Ana had paid me yet.

“Ordinarily I’d give you both time to rest and freshen up, Ana,” said Uhad, “but given the situation, I thought it’d be best to get to work.”

“Absolutely,” said Ana. She gripped my arm tight. “Lead the way.”

---

—

OUR DESTINATION WAS an old Iudex Magistry chamber, one that was normally used for arbitration but had been overtaken by Uhad’s investigation. The most striking thing was the sheer filth of the place: the piles of parchments on the big round table, the pots brimming with pipe ash. Every stitch of fabric stank of smoke and sweat and stale clar-tea. It was without a doubt a room people had been holed up in for several days, sleepless and stewing.

Uhad walked up to the round table, eyes fluttering, and plucked out a handful of parchments with his gloved hands—the engraver’s gift for remembering where you’d laid things. He stacked them up and placed them before Ana as I helped her into the one clear spot at the table, and she seized upon them like a starving hillcat upon a mouse.

“It goes without saying that all that we show you and all we discuss is of the highest secrecy,” Uhad said. “Any who share what we say or review outside of this room will be subject to punishment by the Imperial Legion as an actor of malicious discontent.” He gestured as the others settled into their chairs. “The rest of the crew has heard this, too, of course…”

Uhad’s place at the table, naturally, had no notes or papers, as it was all in his head. Nusis sat on his left, and Kalista on his right, and it was hard to think of two more different people: Nusis nodded pertly before her towers of papers, whereas Kalista lounged and smoked her pipe as she dug through her scattered parchments, like a dozing gentrywoman seeking a piece of jewelry lost in her bedsheets. I sat behind Ana, as per my station. Miljin, however, took a seat beside Uhad, slouching in his chair, the tip of his long scabbard scraping over the floor. He looked more like a gentryman’s bodyguard than an investigator, someone whose contributions were strength of arms rather than the cerebral. He crossed his arms and shot a sour eye at the whole crew.

“I’ll start with the dead,” said Uhad to Ana. “That work?”

“Certainly,” said Ana. She cocked her blindfolded head, listening.

I slipped out a new vial—this one scented of grass—and sniffed at it to ensure I captured the whole of the moment.

Uhad’s pupils danced until they were a blur. Then he said in a low, solemn voice: “Princeps Atha Lapfir. Signum Misik Jilki. Princeps Keste Pisak. Captain Atos Koris. Captain Kilem Terez. Princeps Donelek Sandik. Princeps Kise Sira. Princeps Alaus Vanduo. Signum Suo Akmuo. And finally, Signum Ginklas Loveh.” His eyes stopped fluttering and he looked to Ana. “These are the ten officers whose deaths are confirmed to be attributed to the dappleglass contagion. I have also provided you with all information on their sleeping quarters and movements in the two days before the incident. That is what we’ve managed to amass thus far.”

Ana rocked back and forth in her seat, her hands flittering over the parchments before her like dancers on a stage. “You say these deaths are confirmed to be attributed to the dappleglass contagion, Uhad,” she said, “because we’re unsure if there could be more?”

“Potentially,” said Uhad. “It’s possible some individuals underwent a similar infestation unnoticed, and then were lost during the breach.”

“The term,” said Nusis chipperly, “is bloom. A dappleglass bloom.”

Uhad extended a hand to her. “A bloom, then. Nusis here is something of an expert on the matter. She cut her teeth during Oypat, assisting the Apoths trying to manage the situation there.”

“Really?” said Ana. “How intriguing! It must be quite something to bear witness to the death of an entire canton, yes?”

An awkward pause.

Nusis cringed. “Ahh. I suppose, yes?”

Kalista cleared her throat. “I don’t think more than these ten succumbed to the bloom, though,” she drawled. A lone tangle of pipe smoke slid up her cheek with the final syllable. “Engineers do not work on the walls unaccompanied for this very reason. If someone was harmed and needed help, it wouldn’t do to be alone. We keep a very thorough accounting of our dead and injured. I think the list ends with the ten.”

“Four of the deceased Engineers died within the sea walls,” said Uhad. “Specifically, what is known as the Peak of Khanum. It is one of the thickest and most fortified portions of the entire sea wall, given that it sits close to the mouth of the Titan’s Path, leading inland.”

“And the other deaths?” asked Ana.

“Two perished while traveling to Talagray from the walls,” said Uhad. His eyes danced again as he summoned up his memories. An ugly sight. I couldn’t help wonder—did it look so unsettling when I did it? “One died in bed, having retired after a long shift. Another while taking a meal at a mess tent. Another while waiting for a carriage to take her west from Talagray to the third-ring walls. And the final victim died atop a horse while reviewing fortifications. All perished in the same way. A malignant bloom of dappleglass growth within the torso, resulting in an eighteen- to twenty-span growth of shoots over the course of five minutes, weakening whatever was above and below it. Gruesome, really.”

Ana’s fingers paused as she found some curious phrase in the text, like a tangle in a loom. “But…these manifestations were slightly different from Blas’s.”

“All shoots emerged from the torso,” said Uhad, “but we did notice these tended to emerge lower. From the middle of the back rather than the top near the neck, as with Commander Blas. We’re not sure why. Nusis is working on it.”

Nusis nodded cheerily, as if examining why plants might burst from someone’s back and not their neck was the most exciting thing in the world.

“They didn’t die at the exact same time, either,” said Uhad. “We’re working off of witness reports here, but there appears to have been a nine- or ten-hour window between the first death and the last.”

“This would suggest,” said Nusis, “that they were infected with the dappleglass spores at different times.”

“Do we know much about their movements the day before they died?” asked Ana.

“We know enough to know they haven’t been all in the same place,” said Kalista lazily. “No overlap in station duty, patrols, projects…It all makes tracing the point of contagion damned hard.”

Ana flipped a page over and moved on to the next, reading it with her fingers. “Do we have lists of their known associates?”

“Not yet,” drawled Kalista.

“Have we interviewed any friends or comrades?”

“Not yet,” said Kalista. “We haven’t interviewed anyone at all. Most of the work we’ve done in Engineering is to try to predict and stop the next attack.”

Ana’s brow furrowed. “Next attack?”

“The operating theory,” explained Uhad, “is that Engineering officers are being targeted. Perhaps in hopes that their inevitable bloom might damage our fortifications, causing another breach, but…after some analysis, we think this somewhat unlikely.”

“I assume,” said Ana, turning to Nusis, “because planning when dappleglass blooms inside someone is utterly fucking mad?”

Nusis’s cheery smile dimmed. She glanced at Uhad, who gave the slightest shake of his head—Ignore it.

“Ah…correct,” said Nusis. “It would be impossible to time a bloom with any accuracy. The nature of a body, the person’s diet, movement, activity, not to mention the number of spores inhaled…these all would affect the growth rate of the dappleglass.”

“And the dead didn’t all work on the walls,” sighed Uhad. “So the idea that someone poisoned ten random Engineers in hopes that some would work in the area where this strut was located—and then, on top of that, that the dappleglass within them would bloom at the exact right time to damage this one exact strut…Well, the idea’s a little preposterous.”

“But they were all Engineers,” said Kalista. “And all lower officers—princeps and signums and captains. That’s who spends most of their time inside the walls.”

“Yet no commanders, like Blas was,” said Ana.

“No,” said Uhad. “But there seems to be a targeting here, a selection. We just can’t see the sense of it yet. Blas was murdered with great intent. We must assume the same for these ten.”

Ana was rocking back and forth in her chair very fast now, flipping over page after page of parchment with her fingers, until she came to the very last one. Her face was tight, expressionless. I was reminded of a barge pilot trying to navigate a narrow canal.

“I would like a list of all witnesses to the deaths,” she said finally.

“That can be done,” said Uhad.

“And I want a list of all the living assignments of the dead going back one year,” said Ana. “As well as a list of who was residing in the same facilities at those times.”

Kalista snuck a wary glance at Uhad. “That’s a tremendous amount of information,” she said.

“But you Engineers have it, don’t you?” said Ana. “The Empire simply loves to write shit down, and I’d assume the living arrangements of the Iyalets here in Talagray would be well recorded.”

“I can get it,” said Kalista reluctantly. “But…it’s a lot. And, as you can expect, the Engineers are overtaxed right now. Might I ask why you need it?”

“To save us all some goddamned time,” said Ana, grinning. “We want to talk to everyone who could know something, yes? Seems wise to start with who’s been physically around the victims for weeks and months.” Then she casually added: “As well as who they might have been fucking. Living arrangements often reveal such relationships—who’s followed who, month after month. Tricky to slip into someone’s bedroom through a window. Better to be in the same building. And lovers, of course, are vital sources of information.”

Kalista, stunned, removed her pipe from her mouth, leaving a faint indentation in her lip. Nusis’s smile was very strained now. I stared fixedly into the back of Ana’s chair.

“We’ll get you that,” said Uhad grimly. “Before the end of the day—yes, Immunis?”

“Certainly,” said Kalista. She watched Ana from behind a veil of smoke. “However…I did think the nature of this relationship was reciprocal, yes? We’d like to get some information from you, too, Immunis, about the previous incident.”

“Yes…” said Ana. “But I had a question for you all first. Did any of you know Commander Blas? Personally?”

The whole room exchanged uncomfortable glances—all except Captain Miljin, who just slouched grumpily in his chair.

“We all did,” said Uhad. “He was one of the most prominent Engineers of the Empire. Architect of some of our greatest defensive artifices. Though I, I admit, probably knew him the least, and only cordially at that…”

“I never served under him,” said Kalista. “But I knew him. I’d met him frequently. Yet that wasn’t unusual. He wasn’t the type to bottle himself up before a drafting board. He had a way of making himself known.”

“I knew him through his activity on the Preservationist Councils,” said Nusis.

Ana’s head swiveled to her. “Tell me more about that, please.”

“Well, ah…he was a liaison to many cantons’ Preservationist evaluations,” Nusis said hesitantly. “Examining whether a new suffusion or alteration, or a new construction project, could impact the natural state of any nearby canton.”

“Say more,” demanded Ana.

“W-well…say you want to apply a suffusion to a riverweed,” said Nusis. She was rattled now, a gleam of sweat on her brow. “To make it grow less in a river. But you find the alteration also causes mold in the river to grow more, and the mold then turns highly acidic when it washes up on a dam downstream, slowly weakening it, imperiling a town below…that kind of thing. These changes have to be well thought out. The slightest alteration threatens enormous effects. Apothetikals and Engineers are the most frequent liaisons on these evaluations, and Blas was very active with us.”

“But what the hell did he do, exactly?” asked Ana, frustrated.

“Well…he reviewed artifices, infrastructures, and constructions that could either be vulnerable to or might enable the escape of contagion from Talagray,” she said. “This is not terribly unusual work, mind…”

“Hm. I see…” Ana said, now sounding bored. “And Captain Miljin? Did you know Blas?”

Miljin shook his head. “Saw him at a distance, ma’am,” he said. His voice was deep and raspy, like his throat was lined with smoking oil. “But never so much as heard the man’s voice.”

“Fine,” said Ana. “So…would those who had met him please tell me more about the nature of the man? I’ve heard precious little about that aspect.”

Uhad shrugged. “He was the image of professionalism. Polite. Studious.”

“Very well admired,” agreed Kalista. “Especially within my Iyalet. He had no enemies that I was aware of.”

“He spoke wisely, and when he spoke, he was listened to,” said Nusis.

“I see…” said Ana. She flapped a hand at me. “Thank you. Now—Din. Do the thing.”

I’d tried to make myself inconspicuous thus far, and didn’t much like having so many superior officers look at me. I stood up, bowed, but paused. “Ah—what exactly would you like me to tell them, ma’am?” I asked.

“All of it,” she said. Another flap of her hand. “The full vomit, boy!”

“Right…” I said. “Well. Hold on, then.” Again, I took out the vial of lye-scent, sniffed it, let the memories come pouring into the backs of my eyes, and started talking.

---

—

I GAVE THEM the exact same description of the events as I had to Commander-Prificto Vashta. I left nothing out. When I finished, there was a long, lingering silence. I sat back down, replaced the lye vial, and sniffed at the grass one to make sure I captured the rest of the present moment accurately.

“So…” said Uhad slowly. “The groundskeeper met the assassin. But…their face was swollen?”

“Such was his testimony,” said Ana. “I believe there are many disfiguring grafts one could apply, with varying levels of permanence…”

Captain Miljin rumbled to life, clearing his throat rather extensively. “This is so,” he said. “Dernpaste is the preferred one. Swells the areas you apply it to, makes it so your own mother wouldn’t know you. Skin tone’s harder to alter, but…Well. They have stuff for that, too.”

“And I suppose if you all had seen some shadowy figure with a swollen face,” said Ana, “skulking around Blas here with a piece of dappleglass in their hand, you’d have mentioned it by now.”

“Of course,” said Uhad. “But Blas was very active. He moved around a great deal. Many people knew him.”

“What investigatory steps have you taken for him here?” asked Ana.

“With the wet season approaching,” said Uhad, “we’ve only been able to do the minimum, unfortunately. The Apoths reviewed Blas’s offices and living quarters. They found nothing of note.”

“All right…” Then Ana paused. She seemed to be waiting for something. Her smile slowly retracted, and she swiveled her blindfolded face about the table. “Is that all? No one has anything else to say on the matter?”

An uneasy silence followed. Kalista watched Ana, her dark eyes heavily lidded. Nusis stared at the floor, like Ana had just made some embarrassing blunder in etiquette. Uhad watched nobody, his pupils dancing as memories flooded his mind. And Miljin, to my surprise, watched me, arms crossed, his gaze inscrutable.

“Unfortunately,” drawled Kalista, “nothing comes to mind.”

“I see…” said Ana. “Well then. One critical takeaway is that the perpetrator had to be operating here, in Talagray, for weeks if not months. This is the only way they could have known Blas’s movements.”

“That doesn’t necessarily narrow it down,” said Uhad. “There’s a lot of movement here in the months before the wet season.”

“Of course,” said Ana. “But there’s been one distinct signal that dappleglass gives off. One that even Din here, who’d never heard of it before, noticed right away.”

They all looked at me.

“Fernpaper,” I said. “It stains it.”

“Correct,” said Ana. “And I saw quite a lot of fernpaper out there in the city. Lots of quakes here, after all. Has any been found stained? For that would likely lead us directly to the killer—or the site of the poisoning.”

Uhad gestured to Captain Miljin. “If you please, Miljin,” he said, sighing.

Miljin leaned forward, his chair creaking under his bulk. “We read your letter, ma’am,” he said. “And we did look for stained fernpaper. Spoke to a few Legion chaps and discreetly sent them out about the city, asking if anyone had seen any fernpaper blackened since the breach. Heard nothing. Then they toured the city from end to end, examining all the fernpaper walls and windows and doors. Saw nothing. Seems to me, ma’am, that either the perpetrator found a way to contain the spores—which seems unlikely, given all we’ve learned about it—or the poisoning didn’t take place in Talagray at all. If so, that puts us in a spot. We can’t search the whole of the canton.”

I found this news dispiriting—but Ana was just nodding impatiently. “Yes, yes, yes,” she said. “But we need to broaden our timeline! How can we find out if any fernpaper was stained before the breach? Because apparently some mad fucker was running around the city for a good while with this poison in their pocket, possibly leaving a trail behind!”

Kalista laughed, the sound slightly contemptuous. “Well—we can't! There’s no way to find that out.”

“I’m inclined to agree…” said Uhad.

Ana rubbed her hands together, running her pink fingertips over her knuckles. “Captain Miljin—how many fernpaper millers are there in the city?”

“Dozens, ma’am,” he said. “Most of the common structures are made of it, given the quakes.”

“Can you ask these suppliers if they’d replaced any stained fernpaper panels in the four weeks previous to the breach? Or—better yet—can we get a list of all the orders they delivered in that time?”

Miljin nodded. “We could try that, ma’am. I could ask Captain Strovi of the Legion to help—Vashta’s second. He’s been assigned to provide support, as needed.”

“Then I propose we do so,” said Ana. “If we find an unusually big order of panels, that could indicate either the site of the poisoning, or the site where the poison was stored or developed.” She turned her blindfolded face to Uhad. “Though, of course, it’s not my dance…”

Uhad smiled wearily. “How polite of you. Yes, do so, Miljin. While that’s going on, Ana—when will you have your nominees for interviewing?”

“If I can get the lists from Engineering soon enough,” said Ana, “I should have a good idea of who was intimate with the dead by the morning. Will Miljin do the honors of interviewing? And if so—can Din tag along? He’s my eyes and ears.”

Miljin looked me over like I was a burden for his pack animal and he was trying to estimate my weight. “Well…certainly, ma’am.”

“Good. I mean—I could interrogate you, Miljin. But I’m not sure you have the patience for it, and definitely not the time.”

“And I would save him from the punishment,” said Uhad with the tiniest smile. Then he looked to Immunis Nusis. “Though if the young signum is to accompany Miljin outside the city, I believe he will need to have some additional grafts applied, due to contagion…”

“Oh! Yes,” said Nusis, with no small amount of relish. She turned to me and asked, “You’re from Daretana, correct? So you should have all the immunity alterations for the Outer Rim, yes?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“Then we’ll have to add the Tala canton to them,” she said, sighing. “To protect against any wormrot, or neckworm, or wormbone, or fissure-worm you might encounter out there. As well as cheek-worm, of course.”

I stared at her as I absorbed the expansive variety of worms waiting in the wilds to devour me.

Miljin spoke up with a sadistic smile: “She don’t mean the cheeks on your face, son.”

“How…how might I gain those immunities, ma’am?” I asked.

“Normally you’d make an appointment with the medikkers,” said Nusis. “But as we don’t have time for that, just come by my offices in the Apoth tower once you’re all settled. I’ll get you straightened out.”

“Good,” said Uhad. “Evening falls, I believe. With the canton in a state of emergency, nocturnal passage isn’t permitted in the city for anyone except the Legion. Speaking of which…I doubt if you all know the warning system.”

“I’ve read of it,” said Ana. “But Din likely hasn’t.”

Miljin squinted at me. “You know the flares, Signum?”

I shook my head. “No, sir.”

The captain stuck his thumb eastward. “You see green flares in the eastern skies, that means a leviathan’s been spotted—so, keep watching the skies. You see red ones after that, means it’s come ashore, and is close to the walls, so get ready to evacuate if the worst happens. If yellow flares follow, that means it’s made it past the walls—so run like hell.”

There was a stark silence.

“Blue flares means it’s wandered off or been killed,” he said. He grinned mirthlessly. “Don’t see those too often.”

“On that note…” said Uhad. He stood, wavering slightly. I wondered if his lack of sleep made him light-headed. “I should take you to your quarters, Ana. If I recall correctly, it does take you some time to get acclimated to new environs.”

“The problem with being an engraver, Uhad,” said Ana, “is that you can’t pull any of the ‘not sure if I recall’ politeness bullshit, because we all know you can damned well recall perfectly.” She stood, grinning, and said, “Take me up there. Din can follow with my trunks.”

---

—

THE IUDEX TOWER was a grand, circular, curling structure, creaking and wheezing as the wind played with its fretvine walls. Frail leaves bloomed at the edges of the ceilings and balconies, and occasionally one spied the odd flower. Yet it was stable, and safe, and I was glad to be in it and not out in the city.

Uhad had put Ana up in a small office on the east side of the Iudex tower, on the third floor, whereas I was on the fifth. I guessed the more senior you were, the fewer stairs you had to run down while escaping a leviathan. The two of them sat in her chambers talking merrily while I hauled Ana’s trunks up the stairs, delivering them one after another. When I finished hauling up the final trunk—Ana had apparently brought several loads of books, despite my warnings not to—they were chatting like old friends.

“…never could figure how you lasted so long in the inner rings,” Uhad was saying to her as I dragged in the last trunk. He was leaning against a wall and attempting to smile, yet he seemed such a gloomy sort that the effort threatened to sprain something. “Sounded like a viper’s nest.”

“Though Talagray sounds hardly any better,” Ana said. “I wonder how many horrors are trapped in that head of yours, Tuwey.”

“More than my fair share, maybe,” he admitted. “And though my fits are few, I do have them now and again…I have to keep going to Nusis to get grafts to help me manage my headaches.”

I paused in my labors as I heard that. Engravers, I knew, tended to experience mental breakdown the more information they engraved in their minds: depressions, fits of rage, moments of dislocation. As an engraver myself, I wondered if this was a glimpse into my future.

“I’d settle for a station in the third ring of the Empire, frankly,” sighed Uhad. “Some canton where cow thievery is the greatest crime. And yet…the years grow short, yes?”

“Maybe this will be your last parade, Tuwey,” Ana said. “Save the Empire, get sent to greener pastures.”

I shoved Ana’s trunk into the corner, then sat on its top, panting and puffing.

“Maybe,” Uhad said. “But you—you’ll keep chewing through the world like a crackler’s pick-hatchet, yes?”

Ana grinned. “As long as they’ll let me.”

I wiped sweat from my brow, glaring at them as they laughed. With one final goodbye, Immunis Uhad departed. I bowed and shut the door behind him.

Instantly, the grin melted off Ana’s face. “Odd,” she said. “Odd, Din! What the hell was that?”

“Ahh. Pardon, ma’am?” I said.

“I mean…What was your read on that?” asked Ana. “Wasn’t something missing from all that? Or am I mad?”

I silently reviewed her friendly discussion with Uhad. “Did…did you expect your discussion with Immunis Uhad to go…elsewhere, ma’am?”

“What?” she said. “No! Not that! I mean that whole goddamned meeting down there! Didn’t you notice something wrong with that, Din?”

“Besides your consistent use of wildly inappropriate language, ma’am?”

She glared at me from behind her blindfold. “Come, come. Think. Did that meeting feel right to you?”

I thought about it. “No.”

“Good. Now tell me, honestly—what did you see that felt wrong? This is important.”

I thought about it, my eyes fluttering as I summoned each memory of the meeting: each fleeting glance, each gesture, each turn of the head and twist in the seat.

“They were…nervous,” I said finally. “About the breach, yes. But also about…something else.”

“Go on,” said Ana.

“It was something when you asked if they knew Blas,” I said. “They all went quiet. Nusis stared at the floor. Kalista only watched you. Tried to pretend she didn’t care what you were saying, but she very clearly did. Uhad was all up in his own head. Looking at memories, trying to figure out something on his own, probably. And Miljin…Well. He looked mostly at me, ma’am. Not sure why. But the man stuck his eyes on me and didn’t take them off.”

“Good,” she said. “Well seen, well captured. But you still haven’t noticed what was missing. Before your vomit of words, all those people down there testified that Commander Blas was an upstanding, admirable, studious imperial officer. Brilliant and beloved and all that bullshit.” She stabbed the air with her index finger. “But then you, dear Din, stood up and told them how he’d gotten killed during a fun countryside jaunt to a Haza house to get his prick wet in paid quim! And what did they say about that?”

“Oh! Well…nothing, ma’am,” I said.

“Nothing!” she said triumphantly. “None of them seemed shocked, appalled, or even interested! They didn’t say a damn thing, even when I gave them every chance to do so! Just went on discussing the case! Isn’t that terribly strange to you?”

“Yes,” I said. I summoned my memories of the last days of Blas’s case. “And you didn’t include that information in the letter you sent here, so they didn’t already know it.”

“Hell no. I’m not stupid enough to commit accusations of whoring to parchment. So it should have been a revelation.”

“And you don’t think they were trying to focus on the breach, ma’am?”

“You hear a sordid tale like that, you at least say something. But none of them even reacted to it.”

“And what’s the significance of this, ma’am?”

“Ohh…dunno yet,” said Ana. “But nothing good. I shall have to think on it.” The breeze played with her white hair, and she turned to the window in her chamber. “Window’s open, Din. Please shut it, or I’ll never get acclimated to this place.”

I went to the window, then paused, watching as the mai-lanterns of the city winked out one after another, the whole of Talagray growing dark like some rising tide was snuffing it out. Soon all I could see was the curve of the towers and the shimmer of the gleaming jungles to the north and the west. I looked east, toward the sea walls, but could see nothing at all through the mist. I closed the shutters and fastened them.

“We need,” said Ana behind me, “to get ahold of Blas’s secretary. The woman who ran his life for him—Rona Aristan. You remember her address, don’t you, Din?”

I did. I’d read it aloud to myself when I’d gotten her letter, and the words still echoed in my ears. “The woman who claimed she knew nothing about Blas’s trip to Daretana,” I said.

“Yes, but she’s obviously full of shit there,” said Ana. She ripped her blindfold off and massaged her eyes. “I want to get her and squeeze her like a fucking rimefruit. Something’s going on here that no one wants to discuss, and I think she must touch some of it.”

I watched Ana glowering into the floor, her face tight like she’d swallowed a lump of sour porridge.

“You say this, ma’am,” I said, “like this will be some bit of skullduggery.”

“Oh, it is,” said Ana, “because we’re not going to tell Uhad or the rest of them about her.”

“Why not?”

“Because they should have brought her up already,” said Ana. “In fact, they should have already interviewed her! But all of them seem reluctant to look too much into the dead Commander Blas. And I want to find out why.”

A knock at the door. I opened it to find a young Engineering officer, his knees quaking as he held a giant box full of coils of parchments. “Documents for the…the investigator,” he panted.

I thanked him, took the load, and hauled it inside. “Think this is what you asked Immunis Kalista for, ma’am.”

“Good!” She sat down on the floor and dug into them. “Hopefully I can figure out some pattern among all these people and figure out who you need to talk to tomorrow. We have to understand all the locations those dead Engineers visited the days before the breach. Because despite all that we’re lacking here, Din, what we really need is the place the murder happened. These people were all poisoned somewhere—maybe in more than one place, but I’m betting against it. They all passed through one space in creation, one cursed little spot of this earth—and when they left that space, they were dead. They just didn’t know it yet. That’s what you and Miljin must find.”

“Anything I should know about Captain Miljin, ma’am?” I asked. “If I’m going to be working the interviews with him tomorrow, any advice would be welcome.”

“I know he’s a war hero. Fought in one rebellion or another. He’s a bit like the Empire itself, I suppose. Very well thought of, famously tough—and also old. Maybe too old, these days.” A flash of a grin. “He was once rumored to be terribly handsome, if I recall. Tell me—does he still have thick wrists, Din? Thick wrists, and big, square, meaty hands?”

“How is that pertinent, ma’am?”

“Just because I blind myself doesn’t mean I’m not allowed my indulgences, Din.” Her grin grew wider. “Go get your new immunities from Nusis before curfew. Tomorrow, get something good from these interviews—and then, before curfew falls again, get to Blas’s secretary and give her this.” She hurriedly scribbled out another summons, much like the ones she’d made for Gennadios and the Haza servants. “I want her here and talking about Blas. Because I’m starting to get a very unpleasant feeling about this investigation.”

“Beyond what we’ve already talked about, ma’am?”

“Oh, yes.” She pulled open one of the parchments and started reading. “Kalista said Engineers always travel in pairs. That’s why we have so firm an idea of who died during the breach.”

“So…”

“So, the killer’s been in Talagray for a while,” she said. She tossed the page away and started on another. “What if they’ve murdered someone besides Engineers, so no one ever noticed?”