“You don’t even have the decency to look ashamed,” Grandmother V said.
“I’m not,” Wax said. “Hate me if you must, Grandmother, but coming to live with you changed my life, just as you always promised it would. I’m not going to be ashamed that the transformation wasn’t the one you expected.”
“Just … try to bring her back, Asinthew. She’s not a killer. She’s confused.”
“They all are,” Wax said, stepping out of the hut. The three men from before stood outside, glaring at him with displeasure. Wax tipped his hat to them, dropped a coin, then launched himself into the air between two trees, passing their canopies and seeking the sky.
*
Each time Marasi entered the precinct offices, she got a little thrill.
It was the thrill of bucked expectations, of a future denied. Even though this room didn’t look like she’d imagined—as the clerical and organizational center for the octant’s constables, it felt more like a business office than anything else—the mere fact that she was here excited her.
This wasn’t supposed to have been her life. She’d grown up reading stories of the Roughs, of lawmen and villains. She’d dreamed of six-guns and stagecoaches. She’d even taken up horseback riding and rifle shooting. And then, real life had intervened.
She’d been born into privilege. Yes, she was illegitimate, but the generous stipend from her father had set her and her mother up in a fine home. Money for an education had been guaranteed for her. With that kind of promise—and with her mother’s determination that Marasi should enter society and prove herself to her father—one did not choose a profession so lowly as that of a constable.
Yet here she was. It was wonderful.
She passed through the room full of people at desks. Though a jail was attached to the building, it had its own entrance, and she rarely visited it. Many of the constables she passed on her way through the main chamber were the type who spent most of their days at a desk. Her own spot was a comfortable nook near Captain Aradel’s office. His room felt like a closet inside, and Aradel rarely spent time there. Instead, he stalked through the main chamber like a prowling lion, always in motion.
Marasi set her handbag on her desk next to a stack of last year’s crime reports—in her spare time, she was trying to judge to what extent petty crimes in a region foretold greater ones. Better that than reading the politely angry letters from her mother, which lay underneath. She peeked into the captain’s office and found his waistcoat thrown across his desk, right beside the pile of expense reports he was supposed to be initialing. She smiled and shook her head, dug his pocket watch out of his waistcoat, then went hunting.
The offices were busy, but they didn’t have the bustle of the prosecutor’s offices. During her internship there beneath Daius, everyone had always seemed so frantic. People worked all hours, and when a new case was posted, every junior solicitor in the room rushed over in a flurry of papers, coats, and skirts, craning to see who had posted the case and how many assistants they would be taking.
The opportunities for prestige, and even wealth, had been bountiful. And yet she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that nobody was actually doing anything. Cases that could make a difference languished because they weren’t high-profile enough, while anything under the patronage of a prominent lord or lady was seen to immediately. The rush had been less about fixing the city’s problems, and more about making certain the senior solicitors saw how much more eager you were than your colleagues.
She’d probably still be there, if she hadn’t met Waxillium. She’d have done as her mother wanted, seeking validation through her child. Proof, perhaps, that she could have married Lord Harms, if it had been in the cards, despite her low birth. Marasi shook her head. She loved her mother, but the woman simply had too much time on her hands.
The constables’ offices were so different from the solicitors’. Here, there was a true sense of purpose, but it was measured, even thoughtful. Constables leaned back in chairs and described evidence to other officers, looking for help on a case. Junior corporals moved through the room, delivering cups of tea, fetching files, or running some other errand. The competition she’d felt among the solicitors barely existed here. Perhaps that was because there was little prestige, and even less wealth, to go around.
She found Aradel with sleeves rolled up, one foot on a chair, bothering Lieutenant Caberel. “No, no,” Aradel said. “I’m telling you, we need more men on the streets. Near the pubs, at nights, where the foundry workers congregate after the strike line breaks up. Don’t bother guarding them during the day.”