It’s a lie. All of it is a lie. Everything we’ve ever learned is a lie.
She ties up the paper with new string, replaces the papers in the white suitcase, and shuts the case.
I sing and caper
Dance and twirl
And many a merry pattern I weave
But cross me not, children
For there is no burning coal in all the fires of Bulikov
No raging storm in all the South Seas
No element on this earth or in this world
That could match my fury.
My name is Jukov
And I do not forget.
—The Jukoshtava, Book Six
The Divine City
The days tumble by.
Appointments, appointments. Shara is no longer a person: she is a personage, the physical representation of an office. Yet ironically, being such a thing renders her powerless. She is shuffled from meeting room to meeting room, listening to the pleas of Bulikov, the pleas of the Continent, the pleas of taxpayers, merchants, the wealthy, the impoverished. … She lives on a diet of agendas, each stuffed in her hand as she walks through the door, and a parade of bland and vapid names: “Today is the Legislative Co-Action Association of the Kivrey Quarters” someone tells her, or, “Now is the Cultural Charities of Promise Committee” or, “After this is the Urban Planning and Redistricting Task Force of Central Bulikov.”
There is no crueler hells than committee work, she decides, and Vinya must have taken great pleasure in knowing this. Shara now sits on committees that decide who shall be nominated to be committee chairs for other committees; then, after these meetings, she sits on committee meetings to formulate agendas for future meetings; and after these, she attends committee meetings deciding who shall be appointed to appoint appointments to committees.
Shara smiles through these, which she thinks is quite the feat: for inside she is filled with boiling, thrashing, groaning secrets. She feels at times as if the city is filled with ticking bombs that could go off at any moment, and only she is aware of them, yet she cannot open her mouth to warn anyone. Every morning she awakes in a sweat and dashes to check the papers, sure to discover some lethal plot unfolding only blocks away.
But the world is quiet, and still. Saypuri cranes reconstruct the Solda Bridge, segment by segment. Vohannes has not contacted her since their clumsy night together, and Shara has not yet decided if this is damning evidence or not—even if she didn’t suspect he was the one who blew her cover, she still isn’t sure she’d be able to look him in the eye. Ernst Wiclov’s leave of absence grows longer and longer and longer. Mulaghesh has, after receiving some biting telegrams from the regional governor’s office, reluctantly returned to her regular duties. Shara does not have to look hard to see Auntie Vinya’s hand in that.
But in Shara’s head, the pages of Pangyui’s journal flit in and out of her thoughts, and she must force a smile on her face as she listens to the worries of Bulikov and the Continent, thinking all the while: These are lies. This is all a lie. Everything these people believe, everything Saypur believes, is built upon lies. And I am the only person alive in this world who knows it.
And, most frustrating at all, she is still no closer to solving Pangyui’s murder than before. After all the transgressions and betrayals and horrific discoveries, the very thing that brought her to Bulikov in the first place continues to elude her.
Press on, press on—sit on your leads until they crack. …
She has not seen Sigrud for more than a week. But this is actually good—she has assigned him to watch all of Wiclov’s loomworks. The man himself might have disappeared, but he can’t take whole factories with him, and the loomworks form one leg of the Restorationists’ trifecta—the other two legs being the steel, and whatever was stolen from the Warehouse. And Vinya might have warned Shara against attempting any sort of covert work, but standing in a street and watching a building isn’t inherently covert, is it?
So for now, she watches, and she waits.
Specifically, she waits for nightfall. Because tonight she can actually get some real work done.
*
Sigrud looks up from where he kneels in the alley. It’s so dark out it’s hard to see which eye of his is missing. “You’re late,” he says.
“Shut up,” snaps Shara as she jogs up. “I’ve been trying to escape all evening. These meetings, they’re like thieves—they follow you around, wait until you’re not looking, then pounce.” She stops and leans against the wall, breathing hard. Just beyond Sigrud, on the floor of the alley, is a single line of chalk—the same chalk line Shara herself drew weeks ago, when she first tried to deduce exactly how someone could vanish in the middle of a city. “Did you bring them?”
Sigrud holds up a canvas bag. It tinkles slightly. “Wasn’t cheap.”