Ana cleared her throat, tried to wipe the smug grin off her face, and said, “This is the nebulous idea that crept into my mind—that eleven years ago, during the Oypat crisis, Kaygi Haza and Taqtasa Blas had gained knowledge about this cure for dappleglass. And then Blas, well-acquainted with the many Preservation Boards throughout the Empire, had covertly directed his friends and allies to quietly block its use. This was the only thing that could explain the connection between Kaygi Haza and Blas. It explained why Oypatis like Jolgalgan and Ditelus might wish this specific, poetic death upon the two men. And it also explained why Blas’s secretary was traveling among those four cantons with a veritable fortune—making payments to the collaborators, buying their silence. And it would explain why Kaygi Haza had hurried to send scribe-hawks to those four cantons after the death of Commander Blas. He was warning his people there, you see. One member of their conspiracy had been murdered in a fashion that signaled that the murderer knew what sin they had committed. He was telling the others that their secret was known—and that this murderer might soon come for them as well.
“But…why would Blas and Haza do any of this in the first place?” continued Ana. “Why would these two men intentionally allow a whole canton to die? What could they gain from such death and destruction? Except, then I recalled…the Hazas’ wealth comes from one very specific source. And that is land.”
“Land?” echoed Vashta quietly.
“Yes, ma’am. Land,” said Ana. “Land, and all that is grown upon it. All the reagents, all the agriculture, all the crops and feedstocks that spring forth from their earth—this is the source of all their riches.” She sniffed. “So…what would happen to the value of their lands if a great chunk of fertile land they did not own suddenly vanished?”
My head began to spin as I listened to all this. Although I’d begun to suspect many murderous things from the Hazas, it hadn’t yet occurred to me that their involvement in such horrors might be motivated by something so simple, so bland, and so awful.
“They did it for money?” I exclaimed. “All for money, ma’am?”
“Quiet, Din!” snapped Ana. “I told you to watch, not to talk!”
“Yes, but…I echo the boy’s comment,” said Vashta faintly. “You…you’re claiming the Hazas perpetrated this abominable scheme…as some kind of land valuation plot, Dolabra? To gain a little money?”
“Not a little,” said Ana. “A lot. An inconceivable amount. The death of Oypat allowed the Hazas to renegotiate countless contracts with the Empire, vastly increasing their wealth and influence—so much so that their wealth came to rival that of the emperor himself. It is, in its own strange way, the largest single land speculation scheme in memory. But if you would like hard numbers,” she said, smiling like a loon, “I highly recommend Summation of the Transfer of Landed Properties, Qabirga Canton, 1100–1120. That’s just one example. It’s all written down right there, in the open. And it’s fascinating reading, too.”
“Speaking of speculation,” cried the engraver, “this is all theorization and daydreams! We had nothing to do with Oypat, nor the increase in values of our lands! I have yet to hear of any evidence for this grand conspiracy beyond a few scribe-hawks our master had sent before his death! You have no real proof that he had any connection with Blas, or his secretary, or any…any illicit payments made to people in these cantons!”
“But I do have proof,” said Ana mildly.
The whole of the room seemed to freeze.
“You…you what?” said the engraver.
“I do have proof. Because I have in my possession a sample of the cure for dappleglass—the very grafts that the Apoths produced ten years ago to save Oypat. The very one you stole.”
* * *
—
A SILENCE SETTLED over the adjudication chamber. An errant cloud shifted in the sky, allowing a spear of dawn light to stab through the window.
“You have what, Dolabra?” said Vashta.
“Well, Immunis Nusis mentioned that those four cantons had seemed so curiously informed about the cure for dappleglass,” Ana said. “But then she mentioned that the cure itself might never have worked—for though they had made twenty vials of grafts, they found that three had degraded to water. Yet I imagined…What if they hadn’t degraded? What if someone had stolen three of the little vials to study and left simple water in their place? And that was what the Hazas did, you see. They bribed or paid their agents to steal the cure, so Commander Blas and his little gang could examine the sample, derive the reagents, and find a way to prevent the cure from ever being used. The solution was simpler than they’d ever dreamed—they found out where the reagents were grown and went to the Preservation Boards. Ironic, for the Preservation Boards exist to protect the folk of the Empire—but in the hands of the wealthy and knowledgeable, they could easily be used as a weapon.”
Ana wheeled to face Fayazi and her Sublimes. “But that’s where things went awry, didn’t they? For if you deal with corrupt people, inevitably they try to exploit you. And that’s what Commander Blas did—for he kept one of those samples. One of three. A third.”
The word sent lightning up my bones yet again. I remembered what I’d overheard Fayazi Haza saying: A third? Third what? What are they to find? What do they seek?
“Blas kept it as blackmail,” Ana continued, “to ensure that the Haza clan never tried to eliminate him. He used it to extort more funds from you, which he and his secretary smuggled to his co-conspirators abroad. And for so long, it was easier to pay him rather than kill him. But then he was killed—not by you, but by Captain Kiz Jolgalgan, who’d discovered what you’d done. And then it became very, very important to find that sample. For if anyone else found it, and figured out what it truly was, then it would prove what you had done.” She turned to me, smiling. “But despite all your searching, Din stumbled across it and picked it up. Very clever, to disguise it as a reagents key.”
I felt faint, my eyes shimmering as I recalled that day in the empty little house. The feel of the bronze disc, the slosh of the fluid in the vial—to imagine now that it had been the very substance that could have saved thousands of lives…
And yet, I knew the key had been stolen from us. What secret game was Ana playing at now?
She pivoted on her heel to turn to Fayazi, leaning her blindfolded face forward. “You didn’t know much of this, did you, madam,” she said. “You couldn’t have. This was all your father’s doing. His schemes, his plots. And you weren’t allowed knowledge of that. Why, you weren’t even allowed in his rookery.”
Fayazi’s axiom gripped her mistress’s arm again.
“I will say nothing to you,” said Fayazi quietly.
“But when your father died, you had to take over his duties here. You sent word to the other prime sons of the lineage, asking for guidance—and they told you to burn the body and the evidence and suppress all knowledge, fearing anything that might connect your father’s death to Commander Blas would reveal what they had done to Oypat. You did as they asked—and thus, you enabled the breach. And the deaths of all those soldiers and people now lie upon your head.”
“No,” whispered Fayazi.
“And then things got so much more dangerous…For then the clan sent their agent, didn’t they? Someone terrifying to do their dirty work and clean up all this mess you’d made?”
Fayazi trembled under her veil, yet said nothing.
“They sent their twitch, of course,” said Ana. “And all you could do was sit there. Sit there while the twitch went after Blas’s secretary. And then that poor miller you’d hired for all that fernpaper—they killed him and left him to rot in a basement. And then poor Nusis.”
“Dolabra!” said Vashta, alarmed. “What are you talking abou—”
“I wonder how many people your twitch has killed for your clan,” Ana said. “Dozens? Hundreds? But you knew when they came, Madam Haza, that you might be the next one they killed. For you’re distant from the elder sons. Vulnerable. Unimportant. The twitch was here to make sure you didn’t step out of line…and if all their plans here in Talagray fell to pieces, it was you they intended to blame for it all and leave for the loop. Another tidy ending to a horrid little story.”
Fayazi convulsed like she’d been slapped.
“Surely you’ve thought that,” whispered Ana. “Surely you’ve known that’s what they planned. But…why don’t you ask her? Why don’t you go ahead and ask your twitch right now?”
A loud, thundering silence.
“D-Dolabra?” said Vashta. “What are you…what…”
Ana turned her face to the axiom, who stared back at her with her cold, dark eyes.
“For it’s you, isn’t it?” said Ana. “You’re no axiom. You’re the twitch. And it is you who’s here to threaten Madam Haza’s life. And it’s you who killed Immunis Nusis just last night.”
* * *
—
ANOTHER STUNNED SILENCE.