I SAW ANA VERY little for the next two days, for I and all the other minor officers were tasked with restoring the city to order. The panic and stampede had been almost as damaging as a leviathan’s wrath, which frustrated and flummoxed many; for after all, the Legion had been quite clear that the titan was approaching. “People are often damned fools about what’s before them,” a Legion princeps commented as we tried to figure out how to move a slain horse from the streets. “And not much smarter regarding what’s behind them, at that. It’s amazing we ever get anything done.”

At the end of the second day, an Iudex militis came calling for me, and I followed his summons to an office in the Legion tower.

I entered to find Vashta seated behind a long black desk with Ana and Uhad before her, listening as she spoke. “…seized all of their holdings here in the canton of Talagray,” she was saying. “Fayazi and her entourage are being held for the time being. But greater progress will require greater labors…” Her hard, dark gaze flicked up to me. “Ah. Kol. Please come in.”

I did so, taking a station behind Ana and hoping I did not stink too heavily of horse.

“I suppose we ought to catch you up on what has happened, Signum,” said Vashta. “But being as events are still happening, that may prove difficult. Scribe-hawks have been sent out across Khanum, reporting on both our victory over the leviathan and the sealing of the breach—and your investigation.”

“The holdings of the Haza family have been seized in the third ring,” Uhad explained to me. He was positively beaming. It was the first time I’d ever seen him smile so. “And work has begun on seizing their holdings in the second. I have delayed my retirement in order to assist in these noble labors.”

“But this will take time, and will involve many legal and political battles,” sighed Vashta. “But for now, it is very possible that all the elder sons of the Haza clan may find themselves dispossessed…and in reward for her cooperation, Fayazi Haza might take their place.”

“Fayazi?” I said, surprised. “She’ll be taking over for the Hazas?”

Vashta shrugged grimly. “She has given us all the communications her elders sent her, proving their guilt. And the Haza lands are invaluable. Someone must manage them. It might as well be someone we own. Time shall tell how all this goes. Needless to say, our victory at the breach has now changed to a much more protracted affair. A pity that we never found out who stole the real dappleglass cure. With it as proof, we could bring our enemies down all the faster. We shall look for it, but I am not optimistic.”

“Yet there are rumblings from the emperor’s Sanctum,” said Uhad. “Signs he shall revoke some of the blessings and privileges bestowed to the Hazas—as well as possibly all the gentry.”

I glanced at Ana. I noticed she had not spoken yet, but sat crooked in her chair, head bowed, face inscrutable.

“The institution of patronage shall be tricky to kill,” said Vashta, “but kill it we shall, I think. There may be many more officers like Blas among us. As a sign of the emperor’s devotion, I’m told an Iudexii conzulate will arrive in the canton shortly. It is the first time such a being has blessed the canton in nearly half a century. He has issued no orders yet, but the suggestion is that he intends to discover exactly how entrenched the Hazas were in the Iyalets.”

I could not hide my surprise. Conzulates were akin to gods in the Empire: as Fayazi had said to me, they never aged, but kept growing, until many were almost the size of giants, though their size made them incapable of movement. Some were hundreds of years old. The idea that one might be nearby was stupefying to me.

“You have done great works for the Empire, Kol,” said Vashta. “As such, I declare your apprenticeship over. You may now formally consider yourself Assistant Investigator. You may bear your blade and heralds proudly, and your dispensation will be altered accordingly. Congratulations.”

The enormity of it all was almost too much. I wondered how to react and settled on a bow. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Vashta sighed. “Yes. Though I am unsure when you’ll be able to return to your home, Signum, given that your immunis thinks there is still some third poisoner about. Unless you’ve changed your mind about that, Dolabra?”

“I have not, ma’am,” said Ana.

“And I don’t suppose you’ve had any revelations during all that chaos that could help us rest easier.”

“Well…” Ana grinned. “Not during. But, rather, slightly before, ma’am.”

There was a confused beat.

“What do you mean?” demanded Vashta.

“I have known the true identity of the dappleglass poisoner since Nusis’s murder,” said Ana mildly. “I know who it truly was who plotted and planned all the horrors of the past weeks.”

“You…you aren’t proposing that it was not Jolgalgan?” asked Vashta.

“Oh, Jolgalgan was guilty as sin, but she did not act alone,” said Ana. “That’s been obvious from the start. To begin with, she possessed an awareness of Commander Blas’s movements that far surpassed anything a captain in the Apoths should have had. And then there is the more logistical issue of the blackperch mushrooms. Which I have already shared with you, ma’am.”

“Yes…” said Vashta. “You told me you thought there had been another person at the Hazas’ party—someone who had tossed the mushrooms into the fire, causing a distraction.”

“Correct,” said Ana. “I have felt for some time that there was a third person involved. But as the investigation has continued, I’ve begun to feel that this third person possessed a startling insight into Iyalet information. Then an attempt was made on my own life, in my own rooms, and I realized the third person had to be someone here in the Trifecta. A senior Iyalet officer.”

“Is this true?” said Vashta, horrified. “Do you really think we have such a conspirator?”

“I do,” said Ana. “And I think they are sitting directly next to me.” She turned to Uhad. “For it was you, wasn’t it, Tuwey Uhad? It’s been you all along.”

---

—

VASHTA AND I turned to stare at Immunis Uhad, who wasn’t beaming anymore. Instead he gazed ahead with a curiously closed, serene expression on his face.

He cleared his throat and said, “I don’t know what you mean, Ana.”

“Don’t be coy,” said Ana. “I’ve known since Nusis’s death. Her safe, as you know, is extremely complicated to open. Yet Din himself realized during that day he took his immunities from her…”

I felt my heart grow cold in my chest. “I told her I shouldn’t watch,” I said softly. “Because an engraver could memorize how to open it.”

“Yes,” said Ana. “Only an engraver could memorize how to manipulate her safe. And you told me yourself, Uhad, that you went to Nusis’s offices frequently for grafts to manage your headaches. You had plenty of chances to watch and learn.” She cocked her head. “And then there is the comment you made to Din at the banquet…that he and I should enjoy a cup of tea. Which would involve using my teapot. Which was, by then, poisoned.”

I felt faintly ill. To realize that Immunis Uhad had tried not only to kill Ana, but me as well, was too gruesome for words.

“Why would I need the cure for dappleglass?” Uhad asked, his voice still calm and serene. “Even if I was this poisoner you’ve dreamed up.”

“Because you aren’t done,” said Ana. “You’re still retiring, yes? To the first ring. And who lives in the first ring? Why, the rest of the Haza clan, of course. You hate them, don’t you? They’ve been flouting the law here in Talagray for nearly a century. Sabotage, corruption, blackmail, none of which you could ever do anything about. But then…you heard something from someone. A whisper about a greater crime. I’m guessing from Jolgalgan, yes?”

Uhad was silent.

“She became one of Kaygi Haza’s chosen ones,” said Ana. “And I’m guessing that during some party with him, she overheard him say…something. Maybe a comment about the cure. Some tossed-off remark that made her start digging in her Iyalet, asking questions, until she slowly put the pieces together. And then, well—she came to you. A crime had been committed, after all, and you’re an Iyalet officer. But…what could you do about it? Nothing. If you tried to bring a case about this, you’d likely get sidelined by the Hazas, or worse. But by then, Uhad, you were old. Beset with afflictions. Your days were short. How better to spend them than by eliminating the villains you’d watch carouse and kill and corrupt in your own canton?

“You plotted how to do it. You planned with Jolgalgan and recruited Ditelus—another Oypati. It was inconvenient that Jolgalgan insisted on a most poetic justice, killing them with the same contagion that killed Oypat, but…you made do. You used your sources and resources to track Blas, and you guided Jolgalgan into killing him. Kaygi Haza was trickier, of course, but you helped there, didn’t you? On the day of the party, you attended very briefly—just long enough to toss a blackperch mushroom into the fire and give Jolgalgan the cover she needed to slip inside and poison his bath.”

Ana grinned madly. “But then came the breach. And the ten dead Engineers. And you realized something had gone terribly wrong with your little plot. But then a stroke of mad luck—for you were appointed head of the investigation into your own crimes! How easy it was to send it looking anywhere except at you. Plots to breach the walls, to assassinate Engineers…anything that didn’t lead to the halls of the Hazas, and your brief moment there.”

Uhad exhaled very slightly. “But…but then you came,” he whispered.

“Yes,” said Ana. “You tried to slow me down. At first, I thought you were corrupt, you know. I even had Din test you, with the money. But you weren’t corrupt at all. No, you were quite the other thing—righteous zealot, willing to both tolerate and inflict pain to achieve your ends. But still, I made you worried. You felt me getting close. So you went to Jolgalgan’s little hut out in the Plains of the Path. You sabotaged her equipment. Then asked her to create more poison for you. And when she did so, she breathed in a lungful of contagion. You asked Ditelus to check in on her—and he was exposed to the same.”

A fluttering in my eyes. I remembered Ditelus screaming just before he died: You…you Iudex. You say you want justice. You always say that! You always say that!

“You hoped the investigation was done then,” said Ana. “But you were committed now, and your mission wasn’t done. You still had dappleglass taken from Jolgalgan, and the elder Hazas had still escaped justice. All you had to do was get to the first ring and continue your murderous work—but then you heard of the reagents key in Nusis’s safe. You realized what it really was. And you’re no Apoth, like Jolgalgan was. You’re no expert in dappleglass. An accidental infection was very possible. A cure for it would be most useful for your final days. You just had to make sure that I didn’t catch you before you got away. Hence, the teapot.”

Uhad closed his eyes. There was a long, unpleasant silence.

“Would you like to say something for yourself,” said Ana, “or would you prefer to have Din go to your rooms, and find our missing cure, along with all your horrid poisons?”

“He didn’t even try to hide it,” Uhad whispered. “Can you believe that?”

“Who?” said Ana.

“Kaygi Haza. When…when Jolgalgan mentioned she was from Oypat, the old man, drunk, just said flat-out: ‘Ah, Oypat. Well, Blas fucked that up, didn’t he? Fucked it up for everyone, with the cure.’ Then he forgot he ever said it. Because…it didn’t matter to him, what he’d done. But it mattered to Jolgalgan. And it mattered to me.”

There was a tense silence.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like,” Uhad said softly, “to have so many memories in my mind? So many eternal, endless, everlasting memories of…of corruption, of bribery, of exploitation? All while we imperial officers slaved and worked and died to keep horrors from our shores?”

Miljin’s voice echoed in my ears as I gazed at Uhad: Can’t take too many wet seasons, the engravers. They don’t age well.

“I thought the walls kept the titans out,” said Uhad wearily. “But the more I worked, the more I felt like they caged us in, with the gentry. And no one was going to fix it. It was all broken. Nobody cared. Nobody cared, so long as things kept going on as they were.”

“So you tried yourself,” said Ana. She trembled with rage. “You tried to fix it yourself—and you killed hundreds of people doing it!”

“I had to do something!” Uhad snarled. “I couldn’t stand to just sit by and watch! The Empire was doing nothing, nothing! As was the Iudex! And you could do nothing, either, Ana! Hell, you’d tried to stop the Hazas, and you’d gotten banished to Daretana for it!”

At that, Ana stood up and bellowed, “Are you so sure, Tuwey Uhad?”

Uhad stared at her, bewildered. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“Don’t you think it oddly perfect, Uhad,” thundered Ana, “that I of all people was put on the doorstep of the Talagray canton? Don’t you think it very convenient that of all the investigators in all the Iudex, it was me who was placed directly next door to the canton with the most blatant gentry corruption of all?”

“You…you mean…You were sent to Daretana…to watch the Hazas?” he said, stunned.

“And I barely had to wait four months before they landed in my lap,” she hissed. “But it was because of you. Because the Iyalets failed in their duty. Because you failed in your duty!”

“No, that’s…that’s impossible!” said Uhad. “They killed your assistant investigator! I know that! Even the Hazas know that!”

“Have you ever seen the body?” snapped Ana. She was shivering with rage now. “Have you ever considered that it was very convenient to let the Hazas believe that I had been neutralized, so that they could then do something very obvious and stupid? Something that would give the Iudex an excuse to bring them to heel? But then you had to make your play at justice. And countless people are dead because of it! What a fool you are, Uhad. What an utter, utter fool.” She turned to me. “Din, get out your engraver’s bonds. I am ordering you to arrest this man. You wanted justice, Tuwey Uhad, and it shall be given to you—by a rope and a scaffold, surely.”