TALAGRAY ERUPTED AS DAWN fell across the city, the streets and lanes and corridors swarming with foot traffic like ants tumbling out of a broken anthill. The tides of people were tinted by the various Iyalet colors as they scurried to their duties, rainbows of muddy reds and purples and blacks. The great machinery that made the Empire work was coming to life.

Through this swarming mass of people strode Captain Miljin, stomping along with his long scabbard swinging at his side as I followed behind him, my huge pack rattling on my back. I couldn’t see any rhyme nor reason to the movements of the crowds, but somehow the press of flesh always parted for Miljin: the rivers of folk would pause, an arm or two flicking out to hold the rest back; and then came a volley of salutes, the hands of all these strangers rising up to tap their breastbones respectfully as he passed before them. Even the towering cracklers stopped for him, bowing low enough that their chins nearly touched the caps of the people before them.

Miljin, however, took no notice. He just stumped on, yawning occasionally as he discussed the day’s tasks, indifferent to the stares and the salutes. “Almost all the poor bastards your master’s asked us to press today are in the Forward Engineering Quarters,” he said. “Closer to the walls. That’s where they prepare their materials and scaffoldry all year long. Shorter haul to the shore.”

“Exactly how close to the walls, sir?” I asked.

“Not as close as you’re likely worrying. Don’t fret. It’s a dull shithole of a place. Ugly as hell.” He yawned again. “Most of the people we’re to chat with are injured. Got hurt during the breach. Which means it’ll be easy to find them, I guess. Can’t run, or can’t run far. Did you get your immunities?”

“I did, sir,” I said. “I’ve also packed water, a set of knives, flint and steel, a cook kit, and several graft cures for any wounds, or stings or poisonings from any insects or vermin we encounter along the way.”

Miljin stopped, his eye falling upon the pack on my back. “Ahh…did you.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I…believe it’s the standard recommendation when entering the Plains of the Path?”

“That may be,” he said. “But we’re going to be sticking to the road. Which ain’t exactly teeming with wild dangers these days. Are you horse friendly, boy?”

“I’ve ridden before, sir.”

“Well, that’s something, at least,” he grunted. “We’ll have to go mounted to get there and back in time.” He nodded forward through the rush of soldiers. “Stables are ahead. Won’t take a moment.”

We were at the eastern edge of the city now, the fernpaper houses clinging to the shallow hills about us like wildflowers. Yet there’d been a change as we’d moved: the fernpaper had grown in quality, shifting from the muddy brown of poor reeds to a luminous white; there was more ornamentation to the buildings—a bronze handle here, an elaborately carved front door there; and there was smoke on the moist air, and steam, and the aroma of oils—a bathing house, or many of them, somewhere nearby. We were in rich country now.

Yet the most striking indication of this area’s wealth were the people on the balconies, looking down at us as we walked by. They were all suffused folk, tall and thin and statuesque, gray-skinned with wide, dark eyes and fine, sculpted faces. Eyes dashed with oysterdust. Lips painted purple, cheeks lined with blue. Many more were obscured to me, faces hidden behind rippling veils wrought of silvery fabric, as if their beauty would be tarnished if one such as I beheld them.

Gentryfolk, I realized. I had never seen a member of the gentry before. I asked Miljin about it.

“Ah,” he said. He grinned wickedly. “These fine folk have come here to make friends.”

“Friends, sir?”

“Yes. It’s all politics. Ancient rules and rites. To be eligible for a seat in the Senate of the Sanctum, you’ve got to serve at least two terms on watch at the sea walls. Can’t manage the Empire if you’ve never faced what it exists to fight.” He waved a hand at the motley throngs of soldiers. “Somewhere among these miserable bastards are future governors and senators and Sanctum knows what else. Tax assessors. Some bullshit like that.”

“And the gentryfolk…”

“Want to get in early. Distribute favor and patronage, spy rising stars and ply them with treats. Better lodgings, armor, horses, food. Maybe the odd suffusion. This neighborhood isn’t even the fanciest bit, they got estates west of the city where the truly nice houses are, owned by the Mishtas, the Kurafs, the Hazas…”

My pace slowed slightly as I heard that last name.

Miljin shot a glare at one of the gentryfolk above. “It’s like a horse race, boy. They’re all here to make their bets. And if they bet right, they can win a lifetime of fortune. Sounds unfair, maybe, but I’m not so sure.” He snorted and spat. “Might be the only way the gentry learns what fear is, to live in the shadow of the sea walls.”

---

—

WE RODE EAST as the sun fought to clear the horizon, wearing straw cone hats to protect us from the sun and rain. The road was rumbling with wagons and carts and cohorts of soldiers all moving out to take their stations in the fortifications. I eyed the fields about me, the legendary Plains of the Titan’s Path, aware we now crossed land that was both sacred and profane: for here countless generations of imperials had fought and bled and died to hold back the titans; including the first imperial race, the blessed Khanum, before they had died out.

The way ahead was shrouded with fog, but I kept my sight fixed on the east as we trotted along the muddy path. I wondered what I might spy there, or what I would do if the horizon suddenly lit up with yellow or red flares, warning us of a coming titan. My gaze was only broken when Miljin laughed and swatted my arm.

“You won’t be able to see it, lad,” he said, chiding me.

“See what, sir?” I asked.

“Anything,” he said. “The walls, the dead leviathan. The mist will cling until midmorn. The walls trap it. Sun has to get high for it to burn off. The most dangerous things out here, why…” He nodded toward a ditch. “They’ll be skulking alongside the roads.”

He watched, pleased, as I puzzled over this, before finally explaining, “Mutineers. Deserters. Imperials shook by the breach, who want out. To them, the sight of a young thing like you atop a healthy horse…Well. There’s a reason why we still carry these.” He patted his mechanical sword hilt. “A sword don’t do shit against a titan. But for those who make it harder to fight the titans, why, a blade has many uses.”

We trotted along in silence after that, my own sword feeling heavier at my side—largely because I did not wish to tell the captain my blade was wood and lead.

---

—

ON HORSEBACK WE got to the Forward Engineering Quarters within two hours. It was perhaps the ugliest place I’d seen since Daretana, all cranes and ropes and muddy construction yards, or foundries belching vast rivers of smoke into the sky.

Miljin pulled a face as the air filled up with stinking fumes. “Fuck’s sakes,” he growled. “Makes you wonder why the leviathans even want to come ashore here anymore…” He nodded ahead. “There’s the medikkers’ wing. How many are we here to question?”

I’d told him this already, of course, but it seemed wise not to mention that. “Eleven people, sir,” I said.

“Eleven…And they’re all, ah, intimates with the dead?”

“Most are. Or were. Or rather, my master suspects they were, sir.”

“And we’re to wring all the stories out of these folk, and try to line them all up to figure out where the hell our ten dead Engineers went that got their guts all full of dappleglass.”

“Seems to be the shape of it, sir.”

“Best to divvy it up, then. I’ll take the last five, you take the top six. Then we compare notes.”

After we stabled our horses and entered the medikkers’ wing, I gave Miljin his five people to question. He squinted in the light of the lantern at the door, scribbling down the names on a strip of parchment with a length of ashpen. He had me repeat them a few times, then repeat which of the dead people they were associated with. I had never worked directly alongside someone in an investigation before, and Miljin certainly seemed to have a hefty reputation, but the sight of him muttering and shuffling through his papers filled me with unease.

“Are you sure you want to split up the list, sir?” I asked. “Would it be wiser to work together, maybe?”

“I know what I’m doing!” he snapped. Yet another sheaf of parchment slipped out of his hands, and he stooped to grab it. “Or are you suggesting I don’t?”

I watched as he shook the mud off his dropped parchment. “ ’Course not, sir.”

“Then let’s get this over with.”

---

—

MY FIRST INTERVIEW was Princeps Anath Topirak, a medikker with the Apoth Iyalet. I stopped an attendant and asked about her whereabouts and the state of her injuries.

“Hurt in the collapse, sir,” the attendant said. “Rather serious. She’s recuperating down the hall, last room on the right.”

I went to the room and knocked on the closed door. No answer. I turned the knob, walked in—and stopped short.

I’d never been in a true medikkers’ bay before. As such, I was unprepared for what I found.

A single mai-lantern glimmered over a large, metal bathing cauldron situated in the center of the dark fretvine room. The cauldron was filled with a curious, whitish fluid that smelled strongly of old milk. Lying in the fluid was a tall Kurmini woman, her head resting back on the lip of the cauldron, her eyes shut, face pale and sweating. Though I couldn’t see far into the milky substance in the tub, she was surely naked beneath it.

This was startling enough, but more startling still was the contraption of rope and wires hanging overhead, which suspended her right arm above the waters—yet her arm lacked a hand. In its place was a pale pink stump, and clinging to the stump like barnacles on the hull of a ship were dozens of tiny black snails, greedily sucking away at her open wound.

I stared at the snails, horrified. Then I felt a fluttering in the backs of my eyes, and I remembered something my old dueling teacher Trof had once said in jest: And if any of you lose an arm or an ear by accident, don’t fret, children—the medikkers will slap sangri-snails on the wound until they can grow you a new one.

Well, I thought. I guess that’s what those look like, then. Another memory I’d never be able to get out of my head. I reminded myself to stay controlled and contained.

I opened my engraver’s pack, slid out a vial, and smelled it. This one was redolent of smoke and ash. I grimaced, walked to the foot of the tub, and cleared my throat.

Topirak didn’t move.

“Princeps?” I said.

Her brow creased ever so faintly. A clean face, handsome and even. Bruises all on one side, now turned the color of old tea. Her skin was gray, much like mine, but her nose was clearly the focus of her alterations: it was purpled and slightly larger than normal, with many veins behind the nostrils. A common grafting in the Apoths, I knew: the ability to smell a concoction or a wound and identify its state was critical in their Iyalet.

“Princeps?” I said, louder.

With a snort and a moan, Topirak awoke. “Wh…wha?” She opened her swollen eyes. Their whites were utterly bloodshot. When she saw me, her eyes went even wider and she cried out in alarm, shouting, “Who the hell are you?”

“Ahh,” I said, bewildered. I looked behind myself, wondering if someone was standing behind me. “I…I’m Signum Dinios Kol of the Iudex, Princeps. What’s wrong?”

She stared at me for a moment, then sighed in relief. “Oh, thank Sanctum…Do you know, when I saw you standing there over me, all dressed in darks and glowering down at me…” She laughed wearily. “I thought you were Death himself come for me, sir.”

I paused, wondering what to say. I’d been called all kinds of names during my short career with the Iyalets, but no one had ever mistaken me for the Harvester.

“It’s the bath, sir,” she explained. “There’s stuff in these waters that does stuff to your head.” She sniffed it. “Murgrass, mostly. A type of algae. Its feces offers many healing properties. That’s what makes the water white, you see…” She sniffed it again. “Also ceterophins, a sleeping reagent…And altias oils. For constipation. Don’t want me shitting in here.”

“Impressive skill,” I said.

She smiled weakly. “Blessed Atir of the Khanum, they say, had altered herself so she could awake and sniff the air, and know the placement of every bird and beast and flower about her for a mile…Though I doubt if she ever wound up in a bath like this. I sleep so much…I don’t even know what day it is anymore.”

“It’s the eighteenth of the month of Kyuz,” I said, “and I’m not from the deadlands, but the Iudex. I’m hoping you can help me with a few questions about the breach.”

“Why’s the Iudex investigating a breach, sir?” she croaked.

I ignored the question, took a chair from the corner, and sat down beside her. “I need to ask you about Signum Misik Jilki,” I said.

A shadow of sorrow crossed her face. “M-Misik’s dead, sir,” she whispered.

“I know that, Princeps. Did you know her well?”

She shifted in the milky fluid, her expression pained. The white tide sloshed about her torso, revealing a luminous curve of a breast, blackened with storm clouds of bruises. “Yes.”

“Very well?”

She glared at me. She was waking up now. “We were lovers, sir. But that’s not against policy, being as we’re from different Iyalets, is it?”

“I see,” I said. I was learning to stop being surprised when Ana’s hunches turned out to be right. “How long were you involved with her?”

A slow, sluggish blink as she did the math. “God…three years now.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, and…” I resisted the urge to look down at her missing hand. “…and for what happened to you. I’m trying to learn a little more about how Jilki died.”

“Why?”

Again, I ignored her question. “Would you have seen her the day before her death?”

Topirak shook her head.

“No?”

“No, sir. She was at the walls,” she murmured. “Stayed there overnight, sir.”

“She was there all day?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. And the two days before that.”

“And she went nowhere besides the walls?”

“Not as far as I’m aware, sir.”

“Nowhere with steam, or water, or the like?”

“Don’t…don’t quite know what you’re asking, sir. Has something gone wrong?”

I considered what to say. One of the snails trailed across her severed wrist, leaving a stripe of pink flesh behind.

“When was the last time you saw Jilki, Princeps?” I asked.

“I saw her four days before she died, I think, sir?”

“And what were her movements on that day?”

“She went to the walls in the morning, and came back, sir.”

“And the day before that?” I asked.

“The same.”

I narrowed my eyes as I put this together. “So…just to make sure. For the six days previous to her death, the only places she went were here, at these quarters, and to the walls?”

“Yes, sir.”

I did not like the feel of this. I knew from Uhad’s report that two of the ten dead Engineers had been stationed in Talagray and had not visited either the walls or the Forward Engineering Quarters. Hearing that Jilki had only visited these places before her death would mean there was no commonality among the ten, which would make determining where they’d all been poisoned much harder.

“You’re asking about contagion,” said Topirak. “Aren’t you, sir?”

“What makes you say that?” I asked, perhaps too sharply.

“I’m a medikker, sir. I know the questions. Want to figure out where they’ve been, what they touched, where they got it. Is that the case, sir?”

“Somewhat.”

“I thought Misik had died in the collapse. When the walls fell. Why…why ask about contagion? And why’s the Iudex investigating a contagion, and not the Apoths?”

“We’re just trying to understand more. Is there anything you can think of along those lines, Princeps?”

“N-no,” she said. “When Misik wasn’t at her duties, she was with me.” The weak smile again. “That’s as I liked it.”

She looked to me for sympathy. But I could feel something amiss now, and didn’t give her any.

A drip as Topirak shifted in her bath. Her eyes searched the ceiling, anxious and fretful. She opened her mouth to speak, then stopped. I waited for it to come.

“Did Misik…do something wrong, sir?” she asked.

There it was.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Do you think Jilki did something wrong?”

“No,” she said. She stared up at the ceiling again, her pupils darting about. “But on the eighth night before the breach…”

“Yes?” I said. “What happened then?”

She swallowed. Tears meandered down her cheeks to drop into the white bath. “She…she went back into town, to Talagray. She stayed the night there.”

“What for?” I asked.

“She was…working on some kind of project. Something to do with the quakes. The walls had been destabilized. She…she went back to town for a meeting. Couldn’t tell me what it was about. Wasn’t allowed, she said.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Something about not wanting to start a panic, sir,” she said. “Didn’t want people to know how bad the walls were. It felt very secret.”

“I see,” I said. I let the silence linger, then asked, “Did you believe her?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

I gazed into her face. Eyes wide and fearful, jaw trembling.

“I’m here to prevent other deaths, Princeps,” I said. “Other injuries like yours. If something’s wrong, I need to know.”

“It was just…just a feeling,” she whispered. “When she went to Talagray for these meetings, she was always quiet after. And there was something she said, both times.” She screwed up her face, and said, “The Engineers make the world. Everyone else just lives in it.”

“This wasn’t the first time she went to Talagray for such a meeting?” I asked.

“No. She’d gone once two months before, sir.”

“And any time before that?” I asked.

She thought about it, then shook her head.

“When was this previous meeting?” I asked. “The exact date.”

“The seventh of the month of Egin, I think.”

“And this…this feeling you got, after she returned from these meetings. Can you tell me a little more about it?”

She stared into the milky waters before her. “I was worried she had met someone else,” she said finally. “And there was a smell about her, each time. She’d washed, I could tell, but…but it’s hard to hide things like that from me. Oranje-leaf, and bitters. Like the sotwine they make in the cold countries. It was strange. Strange enough to make me think she was seeing someone else. But I wasn’t sure, so…so I didn’t want to ask. I just wanted to keep her.”

“I see,” I said.

She looked at me pleadingly. “Did she, sir? Do you know? Do you know if she’d been with someone else, sir?”

“I don’t. But I have to keep looking. Would you like me to tell you what I find out, Princeps?”

She thought about it, the dark, bruised side of her face bent to the waters. Then she shook her head. “No. I’ve lost enough. I want to keep the last few days I had with her, at least. I want those to stay mine.” A miserable laugh. “I mean—I’m owed that, at least, aren’t I?”