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.