Chapter 58

While Song’s insistence that the matters with the Nineteenth and the Ivory Library were not best resolved with stacked corpses was a mite puzzling, she had made a request for help and Angharad was honorbound to follow through with it.

She was, after all, the only member of the Thirteenth who could do this.

Captain Domingo Santos was a Master of the Akelarre Guild, and as a brigadier’s personal Navigator he ranked his own rooms. Since Captain Domingo might also be a member of the Ivory Library the Thirteenth had an interest in looking through that room, but a Navigator’s private affairs were not something easily pried into. Certainly not without them noticing.

Unless, of course the investigation was done purely through a vision within Angharad’s own mind.

Limping past the man’s room on the way to breakfast, Angharad breathed in and mere heartbeats later breathed out.

She looked down at her hand and the steel prying bar she had brought with her. Apparently forcing the door open was a good way to get both the bar and half her fingers devoured by black mist, so perhaps another approach was required.

And a letter to Tristan, who might have advice on the subject of breaking into somewhere.

—

On the twenty-second day of the Thirteenth’s stay on Asphodel, Song was forced to admit she had run out of excuses to avoid the palace.

It had been three days since the meeting with the Yellow Earth turned into a bout of extortion, and though her black eye was headed nowhere the worst of the other bruising had faded. Hopefully the swift use of a cold compress on her eye meant the swelling would not last for too long, and there were certainly signs in that direction. Yet they were street signs, pointing at a direction and not an arrival, which meant she spent a significant part of her morning sitting in front of a mirror with Angharad’s help.

“It is as hidden as it can be,” said noblewoman informed her.

Song grimaced at the vanity mirror but did not contradict her. There was only so much that concealing face paint could do, and for lack of her own she had been forced to use the kind common on Asphodel – which had so much fat in it she wondered if they crammed an entire pig’s worth into every pot. Adding blush to her cheeks would have helped distract from it, but also sent entirely the wrong message to the Lord Rector.

They had at least added some shadow to her eyes, which Angharad had surprisingly proved only middlingly competent at applying.

“Did a maid perchance apply most your cosmetics, back in Peredur?” Song asked.

“I rarely wore much even on society evenings,” Angharad replied, idly putting Song’s hair in order. “It is considered in poor taste to bear both elaborate cosmetics and the duelist’s strap, as they have contrary implications.”

Song half-turned to look up at Angharad Tredegar, who stood on the upper end of five foot ten with a perfectly proportioned body that somehow managed both curves and muscle. A regular’s uniform that she knew for a fact was untouched somehow looked flatteringly tailored. That she didn’t even have to work for it was, truly, the most insulting part.

“You are enemy to all womankind,” Song informed her.

“I pluck my eyebrows,” Angharad defensively replied.

A beat passed.

“Most of womankind,” Song conceded.

The Pereduri muttered something along the lines of ‘so much for all under Heaven’ under her breath, setting Song’s lips to twitching. She rose and made sure to thank the other woman for her help, regardless of the unfairness dealt unto them by the vagaries of the Circle Perpetual.

“Are you certain you do not want me to accompany you?” Angharad asked for the second time.

She nodded in return, adjusting her formal clothes for the second time.

“It would draw too much attention for us to be seen together,” she said.

Maryam’s comings and goings to the palace had been explained away by Lord Rector Evander’s supposed interest in writing a commonplace on the Izvorica and the Song was well aware of the assumptions regarding her own visits, but for both her and the debutante Angharad Tredegar to be seen together socially was certain to tip off anyone watching that something was afoot.

There was a reason they had been in the same palace room only a handful of times since that first audience with Evander.

“Captain Wen, then,” Angharad tried.

Song cocked an eyebrow.

“Wen Duan cannot be disguised,” she flatly said. “At best he can be differently decorated.”

The other woman coughed into her fist, shuffling, which was Pereduri for agreeing without speaking the words and thus stating them to be the truth. It took a second for Song to catch on as to why Angharad would suggest it at all.

“You believe I need a chaperone,” she said.

“I have been called a whore for lacking one in presence of a man I have no interest in, not even a week ago,” Angharad delicately replied.

“I am not a noblewoman, Angharad,” she said. “My reputation in those circles is of little import.”

“There are other circles that might look ill on your association with Evander Palliades,” the dark-skinned woman flatly replied.

It was an effort not to clench her jaw, which might mar the face paint. The Yellow Earth, yes. Ai had not accused her of fucking a king, at least, but she had implied affections. Arguably that was even more damning. The urges of one’s body were a surface matter, while sentiment was one of the soul.

“They want me to pass information to them,” she said, avoiding mentioning a name. “I cannot obtain said information without heading to the palace.”

Angharad eyed her for a moment, then sighed and let it drop. They both knew the excuse was a weak one, for the Yellow Earth wanted reports as to what Lord Rector’s preparations against the coup were but Evander had yet to even learn of said coup. He would not until Maryam returned, and there were still another five days before that.

A fact that had allowed Song to push back the decision about what she must do for a little longer despite Angharad’s delicate inquiries on the matter. She did not know whether it was noble manners or a natural predisposition to privacy that had the Pereduri unwilling to push the matter, but she was grateful for it whatever the source. It was doing her sleep no favors to gnaw at the decision like a bone, but the thought of actually deciding either way had her sick in the stomach.

Neither Maryam nor Tristan would have let her deliberate for so long without pushing, so Angharad’s patience and discretion were appreciated thrice over.

“I will see you tonight,” Song breathed out, straightening. “Are you still headed to the Collegium?”

Angharad nodded.

“It is good for my reputation to be seen spending coin publicly,” she said.

One of the ways they had settled on to gild back Angharad’s reputation in Tratheke society was a pretense she had come into an inheritance, which could be feigned with brigade funds. The claim would be that much of the gold was still held up in Malan, providing an excuse to avoid truly expensive sprees, but Angharad would still be living it up on the Thirteenth’s coin for a time.

Thankfully, Colonel Cao had taught all Stripe students the right forms to request reimbursement for ‘inevitable expenses in the fulfilling of a contract undertaken on behalf of the Watch’. Song even intended to have it classified as urgent, which would see it forwarded to the nearest commanding officer: Brigadier Chilaca. The man was likely to sign off on a better return than a third of the funds spent she could expect from Stheno’s Peak, as much to keep her sweet as because agreeing would let him get into the diplomatic discretionary fund and skim some of the funds for himself.

As Chunhua Cao had told them: if you couldn’t get around the corruption, you had best find a way to make it work for you.

On practical level, Angharad spending that coin in the Collegium district would both ensure rumors and allow her an excuse to pass and collect messages from the Chimerical while she was in that part of the city. Tristan needed to be informed of the latest developments – the weapons and the workshop, the likely traitors in the Trade Assembly, Maryam’s shipyard trip – as well as kept abreast of the Nineteenth’s actions. His latest reports had him estimating that within two weeks at the utmost he would be done with the Kassa infiltration, which Song was still somewhat surprised to find a relief.

As the hour was running late, she soon parted ways with Angharad and took the carriage to the Collegium. Within moments of emerging from the lift into the palace, however, she knew there would be trouble. Majordomo Timon was not leading her towards the general or even the private archives, whose books were the reason she had come today.

She was instead being led towards one of the private reading rooms, and Song knew exactly who would be waiting for her there. Unsurprisingly, Evander Palliades was already seated at the table inside, besides a pot of Jigong black leaf coincidentally accompanied by two cups. He was freshly shaved, simply dressed – though every part of his clothes, from the collared burgundy shirt under a pale grey doublet to the matching hose flattering his calves, were expensive and perfectly tailored – and his spectacles were polished to a gleam.

“Ah, Captain Song,” he smiled. “I had been expecting you.”

“Had you?” Song drily replied. “I could not tell.”

He had an excuse ready for everything, she found. Why were they not in the archives?

“Among the books you mentioned there are some in both, it is simpler to send for them as necessary,” he smiled, pouring her a cup.

He even poured it correctly, with his right hand on his handle and his left on the lid. Song smelled treachery in the ranks. Maryam, you double-crossing snake. She tried to bring this back on track by reminding him that breaking a cipher could take hours and the Lord Rector of Asphodel must surely have duties more pressing.

“I will be working late tonight instead,” Evander replied, brushing his back his stupid pretty hair. “As this is former rectoral correspondence, I cannot entrust the knowledge therein to any but a member of House Palliades.”

That was both dutiful of him and manipulative, which Song must reluctantly concede was more attractive paired than standalone. She was thus subjected to the indignity of sitting next to the Lord Rector of Asphodel with their elbows almost touching, in a room with flattering soft lighting as traditional Mazu tea treats were trotted out on platters and every book cited in the correspondence was brough to them by servants.

Who then left the room the moment, as if they had been strictly instructed to do so. Song squinted at the Lord Rector, who innocently smiled back. A boy of fifteen, she reminded herself. The body found in the canal. It had been easier to believe the Yellow Earth, she found, before the local sect’s second choked her halfway to death in an empty alley. That did not mean, however, that she disbelieved what she had been told.

There must be enough truth to it had been a lie worth telling.

She forced herself to focus on the work instead, digging into the books that the correspondence quoted and doing her best to ignore the fact that she was essentially reading explicit letters between a Lord Rector and his mistress while brushing elbows with the current man holding that title. It only got worse when she complimented him for the ink, only to learn he had ground it himself earlier. As practice for his recent forays into calligraphy.

She was going to drown Maryam. What was next, dipping the man in honey?

Ferociously looking down at the papers and pushing out all distractions, she methodically set about picking open the cipher. Progress was slow and they took a short break an hour in, but when they returned to the table it was with fresh energy – and an insight, when they realized that every single book quote had an author of noble birth. Meaning a first name and a surname.

Honesty compelled Song to admit that she was not, strictly speaking, the one who broke the cypher. While she honed in on the quotes being the keystone to it all, it was Evander who figured out that the quote itself was the message. The rest of the letter was exactly what it appeared to be, correspondence between Hector Lissenos and his mistress.

It was a transposition cypher, of a sort: the first letter of the name and surname of the author were to be removed from the quote, the remaining text serving as a message. This worked with varying degrees of legibility, and not infrequently there were ‘garbage’ words in the text that they both agreed on must be ignored for the messages to make sense.

The messages revealed, though bare bones, were telling.

“So ‘C. E.’ was a commander of the Watch,” Evander Palliades said, leaning back into his seat as nimble fingers tapped the plush arms of the chair. “Most likely the leading officer for all the blackcloaks of Asphodel.”

“She must have had backing from the Conclave,” Song said, folding her arms to keep them occupied. “No Watch presence on the island ever had the resources to create something like an aether seal, it would require aid from the Rookery.”

“So would building this ‘prison’ they keeping mentioning,” Evander said. “I made inquiries and ‘brackstone’ is not something quarried on Asphodel. That means imports and likely Watch tinkers. I don’t expect your average mason is well versed in the art of imprisoning gods.”

The crux of the correspondence was the Lord Rector and C. E. discussing the building of a prison for the Hated One, as well as the crafting of the aether seal to smother it to death. Inferred from context, the Hated One had been responsible for the worst of the Ataxia and Hector Lissenos was willing to pour gold like water to be rid of it for good. Though the letters were not dated, they appeared to be spread out over several years and the prison’s construction must have lasted at least that long.

“Then the Hated One’s prison is now breached,” Song grimly said. “What else could that sphere of salt my Navigator found be? There is certainly no mention of anything like that harpoon in the correspondence.”

“I would not expect it to have arrived there by accident either,” Evander conceded.

His expression was dark, befitting of someone who had been told a rampant god had begun to escape its prison, but there was a tinge of the personal to it she had not expected.

“You seem more disappointed than worried,” Song ventured.

He turned a weary look on her.

“I must now go begging for the help of the very Watch trying to strongarm me over my shipyard,” Evander said. “My bargaining position has become more of a bargaining rout.”

It was already weaker than you knew, Song thought with a pang of guilt. And besides, while his worries were not unfounded he overestimated how much leverage the Watch could truly exercise there. It would be a taint on the reputation of the order should it get out the rooks had been so busy trying to extort Asphodel they’d let an old god rampage through Tratheke.

“I expect our diplomats are aware that negotiation down the barrel of a gun does not lead to lasting accords,” Song told him.

Not unless you kept the barrel there, and the Watch was in no position for that. The god would either be dealt with or not. Evander glanced at her through his spectacles, then sighed.

“Let us speak no more of it,” he said. “I would prefer not to put you in that position.”

The use of the word position, after some of the letters they had read, was not poor in meanings. Song narrowed her eyes at him, looking for an implication to take offence to, but all those to be found were something of a reach. She let it pass. A moment of silence stretched out between them until he straightened in his chair.

“Still, those letters really were quite explicit,” Evander noted. “I expect they were genuinely lovers, for there would have been other excuses for correspondence.”

Song cleared her throat uncomfortably at the implication of a Watch officer and the Lord Rector of Asphodel having once shared a bed. The hall around them was large, but they sat mere feet apart and she had never felt more aware of how alone they were in here. Not another soul to be found.

“It could have been to discourage looking for the cipher,” she tried. “Raciness might make readers too uncomfortable to delve deeply.”

It was a weak argument, and from the twitch of his lips he knew it just as well as she. His visible amusement caused a flash of irritation.

“Is it true,” she began, unwisely, then shut her mouth.

He cocked his brow.

“Forget I said anything,” Song said.

“I will not,” Evander calmly replied. “I may not answer, but I will not lie. Ask.”

The way the last word had the faintest echo of a command had Song considering walking out, and also squirming in her seat a bit. She did not dislike authority.

“A shoe-shiner,” she said. “Fifteen. Found dead in a canal.”

He cocked his head to the side.

“The Yellow Earth spy,” he said. “What of him?”

Someone, Song thought, sought to make a fool of her. Do not trust too much, she then reminded herself. Which one, another voice softly asked.

“A spy,” she slowly said.

“Caught past two guarded halls with an ear against a door,” Evander said. “I cannot prove he was Yellow Earth, of course, but he was determined enough to chew most of the way through his own tongue.”

He met her eyes squarely through his spectacles.

“He died on the rack,” the Lord Rector bluntly acknowledged, “and while I did not ask about the body they are often disposed of through the canals.”

A good liar, Song thought, would add exactly that kind of detail. Something unflattering so it would not seem like he was trying to duck a bullet. In truth, even if she followed the trails she had been told the odds were she would never learn the whole of the affair. Perfect clarity was the realm of gods of madmen.

It came down, in the end, to trust.

The Yellow Earth had struck her. Threatened her. But wasn’t the Lord Rector, in a way, trying to buy her? No good kings, she prayed. But then Hao Yu had his table, speaking measuredly, and Ai in the alley – had they been good? Bad souls could serve good causes, but then it must be that the reverse was equally true. And it was not causes she was being asked to trust here, was it?

Song abruptly rose to her feet, knees almost hitting the edge of the table.

“I must report this to my superiors,” she evenly said, “and immediately send a letter to Stheno’s Peak, requesting information on this commander. It may well be that the knowledge we sought has been tucked away in a seal Watch vault all this time.”

Evander awkwardly coughed, rising to his feet.

“Of course,” he said. “Though it is later, and service will no doubt be done by the time of your return to Black House. I can have arranged a meal for-”

“No,” Song blurted out, and he looked crestfallen for a heartbeat before it was gone.

But you want to, the voice from earlier said. But you need the door to stay open to get the information, another part of her whispered.

“No tonight,” she said, looking away.

But not before seeing his eyes light up, and that made her feel almost as sick as the knowledge that she was running out of time to delay making her choice.

—

Helping keep Temenos alive had paid off in droves: overnight Tristan had become the man’s savior and thus deeply trusted, currency he wasted no time in spending. For all that this talk of revolutionaries intrigued – and Temenos, while swearing to bring him along to the ‘meet’, had remained frustratingly vague on who these revolutionaries might be – that thread was not the one he had first come to the Kassa workshop to pull.

Having the old man vouch for him opened doors, quite literally in this case. After a week and change of being a traveling man, a mere day after that god nearly taking his head off Tristan finally got to walk through the same door the Brass Chariot had supposedly seen the assassin walk through.

It didn’t lead to the workshop proper, he learned, but to a pair of narrow side rooms. One was full of cleaning supplies, including a fearsomely pungent amount of vinegar jars, while the other was small bedroom with two cots and a lantern. There was a door leading to the workshop but it was in the hall, not in either room.

“We usually keep two watchmen here at night,” Nikias told him. “Old Chloris wants it so there’s always souls right next to the workshop in case someone tries to break in.”

All that’d been needed for the mustachioed man to show him in was expressing a passing curiosity as to what lay behind the door. Nikias had been all too eager to show him, still most comfortable being in the position of the man showing Ferrando how things worked around the workshop. Now that Tristan’s repute was rising, it had been easy to predict he would seize on a opportunity to reinforce that he was an old hand around here should it be dangled as bait in front of him.

“Do we have to take shifts as well?” Tristan asked, feigning concern.

“No, none of that,” Nikias assured him. “The watchmen are old Kassa men from the fleet, sailors that know their way around a fight but are getting long in the tooth.”

Trusted men long in the company’s service, Tristan translated, who answer directly to Chloris and Stavros Kassa. Probably more Stravros, if the talk about the old lady passing the reins to her son were true. Meaning that the assassin who’d almost killed the Lord Rector of Asphodel was involved with the Kassa, because Nikias was implying the watchmen in there rotated. The assassin couldn’t have made a deal with that night’s specific watchmen in advance.

What in the gods were the Kassa up to? Stevros Kassa knew about what was almost certainly the ‘killer’ hunted by the Nineteenth, enough to warn Temenos in advance about it. Meanwhile the family was hosting in their own workshop another assassin, that one a would-be regicide that despite Tianxi origins appeared to be working on behalf of the Council of Ministers.

His best guess was that the Kassa had switched sides and gone over to the Ministers, more specifically the cult of the Golden Ram – who were using some kind of bound lesser god to get rid of any obstacle to their coup. It was true Temenos could have been a real thorn in the sides of the Kassa, if he refused to back their ambitions and mobilized their own workers against them. Either dead or scared, he’d be forced to get on their side.

Yet Tristan couldn’t help but feel as if were missing something, like he was not unveiling the truth so much as fitting the parts of it he’d uncovered like mostly matching puzzle pieces.

“Anyhow, they’re not even using it for that nowadays,” Nikias continued.

“Oh?” Tristan encouraged.

“They kept some guest in there for a few days and left it empty since,” the mustachioed man told him. “The old lady never would have signed off on it, but Stavros does as he likes.”

And just like that his evening plans had taken shape. If she’d merely stayed there a night he would have investigated the watchmen, but if the assassin used it as a safehouse for a few days? Odds were she would have left a stash in there, something to help if she returned from the assassination wounded or in need of fund to get out of the capital.

Tristan eased out of the situation, though he took the time to discreetly check the locks on both doors before letting Nikias lead him away and back to work. The outer lock was quality, a rim lock of local make, but inside would be easier: that was a Gongmin on the door, an old friend returned to beckon him inside. Ah, Tianxi workshop locks. The gift that kept on giving.

He came back after dark with his lockpicks.

That rim lock proved tricky, there was a ward inside to prevent skeleton keys like his own from working. Good metal, intricate craftsmanship: this was not the work of some blacksmith hammering a box together. A dedicated locksmith had built it with an eye to keeping out thieves.

Not Tristan Abrascal’s caliber of thief, of course, but it still took him a little over three minutes before he had it sliding open.

He closed it behind him and crept past the cleaning storage with his hooded lantern in hand. He put his ear to the door of the watchmen room, checking if there was anyone inside, but he heard nothing and there was no sign of light under the door. The Gongmin lock was done in a minute and then he was inside. The room had not changed since he was last there, still bare wood with two cots and an unlit lantern. He lifted the hood off his own, rolling his shoulder.

Now, if he were an assassin, where would he put his supply stash?

Beneath the cots first, but there was no trace of hidden compartment in the wooden floor. He checked corners for dust that’d been moved, but all it taught him was that at some point a large pot had been placed in the left corner. A chamber pot for when the assassin had laid low here, if he had to guess. With the cots back in place he checked the walls, knocking for hollow spots, but he found none.

But standing on the cots he could reach the ceiling, and there he found a trail: above the second bed there was a hollow part in the ceiling. It could have been merely part of the construction, and certainly nothing slid off easily. But one of the planks seemed just a little too well-defined, and when he took his largest pick and put his whole weight behind pushing the plank it budged.

Ah, their assassin had put weight over the plank so it wouldn’t move easily. Enough to trick most who did not know about such tricks.

“Treasure?” Fortuna asked.

He almost jumped, swallowing a curse. He delicately moved the ceiling plank, discovering some sort of trick with a tied stone was the reason for the weight. That was a problem – he didn’t know how to replicate it. There would be no putting everything perfectly back in place when he was done.

“Supplies, I expect,” he murmured back.

Since he was not fool enough to blindly go groping around an assassin’s belongings, he instead reached into his bag and pulled out a long, slender piece of wood to use that instead. Lightly tapping around he got empty space, until suddenly there was a hard snap. He drew back the stick and found it had been snapped clean through and the sides were somewhat eaten at. Some sort of poison?

“As always,” the Lady of Long Odds proudly said, “we are one step ahead.”

Tristan squinted at her for a long moment. He then climbed down the cot, got into his bag and pulled out a second piece of wood before reaching inside again.

Snap.

“Two steps ahead,” Fortuna crowed.

“Remember that, next time you tell me to take your advice,” he said.

“I won’t,” she honestly replied.

At least she was admitting it, he mentally praised.

As Tristan was now out of sticks, he had to make to with using a bit of rope. The lack of a snap had him, warily, wrapping his hand in cloth and even one of the bedsheets before reaching inside. He pulled out a small leather satchel, the length of three fists and about as broad as one, decorated with what he could only call steel mousetraps with teeth and – he took a sniff – some kind of jellied acid? That must be expensive.

He covered his mouth with a scarf and used the broken sticks to open the satchel buckle, just in case, but it seemed that was to be it for the traps. Inside was a knife, two bandage rolls, a pair of unmarked vials and what looked like three small rubies. A real fortune, that. But most important of all was a single sheathed scroll, laid over the rest. Taking all due precautions, he got the scroll out of the sheath and unrolled it.

Lucky him, it was in Antigua.

And what an interesting reading it made, neat handwriting filling row after row in the lantern light. His lips twitched: it seemed an old friend had come to visit, because he was looking at a contract between the Obsidian Order and someone known only as H. A. for the death of Evander Palliades. The Izcalli assassins weren’t after Angharad this time, which was somewhat amusing, as was the staggering sum H. A. was paying the cultists of the Skeletal Butterfly for: thirty-thousand arboles.

A kingly sum, as befitting the purchase of a king’s head. And that was telling, because how many people on Asphodel could afford to pay such a massive sum? Precious few, he’d wager, and should he follow that trail to its conclusion a most useful name was bound to be waiting.

“Who is H. A. ?” Fortuna asked, leaning over his shoulder.

“I’ve no idea,” Tristan admitted. “But then I have been out of contact for some time. I expect those letters are best passed to Song and Angharad, who will have a fresher list of suspects.”

Alas the initials did not match Apollonia Floros, even reversed, which would have rather simplified the whole thing. While he was of the opinion that the Obsidian Order would only insist on such a contract to insulate themselves from the possible backlash of discovered regicide – if the Grasshopper King got accused of assassinating kings in the Trebian Sea, he would no doubt throw the Order under the carriage wheels without hesitation – and that meant he name should be true, there were no certainties.

He hesitated for a moment before deciding there would be no hiding he’d been through the satchel, pocketing the sheathed scroll and the rubies. After a moment he pocketed the vials as well, Hage might know something useful about their contents. While he could see the liquid inside and it was translucent, the vials themselves were of cheap brown glass so he could not learn more without opening them.

It was not the time or place, and better left to experts besides. The rest of the pillaged stash he put back in the ceiling, then wedged the plank in place without bothering to attempt the rock trick again. It seemed like the kind of thing it took quite a bit to learn, and he could afford to stay here too long. Just because the room here was deserted did not mean that the workshop itself was.

As if the gods were setting out to prove him right he heard the muted sound of voices. Time to leave. Before this got complicated. He grabbed his affairs and closed the door behind him, pausing only when he recognized the timber of a particular voice through the door leading into the alley. Temenos. What was the old man doing here? There was the sound of a key being used, Tristan tensing for one heartbeat before realizing that Temenos was headed into the workshop.

And speaking with at least two more people, by the sound of the voices.

Tristan bit the inside of his cheek, hesitating, but in the end Temenos was now his most important lead: he must eavesdrop if he could. His lockpicks came back out and he put his ear to the door leading into the workshop from the hall. Three others with Temenos, he discerned. Two women and a man. Waiting until the voices headed deeper into the workshop, he got to work.

A minute later the lock popped open and, hand on the door, he cracked it the slightest it open after smothering his lantern. A lamp had been lit in the workshop, near the front, but those inside were speaking quietly enough he was not able to hear much but noise from where he hid.

He’d have to head in.

Immediately on the other side of the door was a small balcony overlooking the workshop proper, with a solid wooden railing, so it was just a matter of waiting until the noise of conversation would cover his movement and slip into the workshop. He asked Fortuna to check when they were all looking the right way, and when she gave the signal through the wall he slipped in.

Tristan closed the door, pressed against the railing, and slowly crept down the stairs. He could hear much better from down here, and-

“Describe it for us, if you would,” Captain Tozi Poloko ordered. “As many details as you remember.”

Oh, you utter fool, he cursed himself. Of course the Nineteenth would come to investigate the first botched killing by their mystery assassin, he should have seen that coming a mile away. He was lucky it was Temenos they’d sought and not him, though it was true Tristan had worked to keep his name away of it at least in a formal manner.

The traveling man had dismissed going to the lictors about the matter in the first place, and been all to understanding of Tristan’s request to be kept out of the matter when it was kicked up to authorities – an implication that the way he had reached Asphodel might cause him trouble had been enough to earn an understanding pat on the back.

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“It looked like a broken god,” Temenos said. “Craggy and unkempt, reeking of salt and blood. Its eye sockets were empty and precious stones dangled off them.”

A curious noise.

“Like in the tale of King Oduromai, when he plucked out his eyes and replaced them with the treasures of two kings,” Cressida Barboza said.

“I suppose,” Temenos shrugged. “It wore an iron helmet, with scars, and I think a breastplate of the same. It wielded a sickle.”

“A sickle,” Izel Coyac mused. “Can you describe it?”

Tozi, Cressida, Izel. Better than if Kiran was there, the Skiritai would eat him for breakfast, but Tristan suspected that the tinker was likely the worst fighter of the three and was still uncertain how such a fight would go. One against three, it was a sure thing. And not in his favor.

“Bronze,” Temenos said. “It looked sharp.”

“It looked sharp,” Cressida muttered, disbelieving, and he could almost hear her roll her eyes.

Stock. What did he have? A knife, his pistol, thief tools. Not his blackjack, which as uncommon enough a tool in these parts he’d now wanted to risk sticking out by being seen using one.

“No strange lights, no symbols carved on the blade?” Izel pressed.

“Didn’t see none,” Temenos grunted.

“We were told of another witness,” Captain Tozi said. “Did they see more?”

Tristan’s stomach clenched. It seemed he might have to disappear before finding out about these revolutionaries after all.

“She wasn’t in the room when the thing came,” Temenos lied without batting an eye. “Just came up to help me after.”

His stomach unclenched. There were, it seemed, advantages to a man like Temenos believing he owed you his life.

“And the wound on your leg?” Cressida mildly asked.

“Work accident,” Temenos shrugged. “Does it look like a stabbing wound to you?”

There was a heartbeat, as if the Nineteenth were looking at the wound, then Tozi hummed in agreement.

“The angle’s off,” she conceded. “It barely went in.”

Tristan decided not to look that gift horse in the mouth, even if the horse was being a mite insulting about his knife-throwing skills. He’d not been aiming at Temenos in the first place!

“Craggy, you said,” Cressida brought up. “In what sense?”

But it was not the continuing interrogation Tristan pricked his ear for, but something altogether subtler. Soft, aimless. Steps getting closer. Shit. The thief reached for his knife. His pistol would be a sure kill, striking from surprise, but also ensure he was chased. He’d probably make it out into the street, but from there? The way they were deserted at this hour would work against him, at least at first.

He still set it down next to him, loaded.

Whoever was walking around – not Tozi, she was still talking – they had no clear destination in mind. But they were getting closer, step by step. Knife in hand, Tristan settled into a crouch. If he struck the throat quick enough, he could drag the wanderer behind cover and make his escape before the others realized what was happening. One step, another and now he could hear the breath. A hand atop the railing – it had to be Izel, the footsteps were too loud for Cressida – and when the other man turned the corner he sprung into action.

Tristan caught a glimpse of widening eyes and that nearly-shaved head before his knife hand darted towards Izel’s throat, but the Izcalli hastily leaned back. And, before he could rise into another blow, caught Tristan’s wrist and wrestled it down. It knocked against the railing and he swallowed a pained curse, Izel urgently straightening instead of calling out for help.

“Izel?” Captain Tozi called out.

“Slipped on the stairs,” the Izcalli said, sheepish. “Sorry.”

“Stop wandering around, would you?” Cressida said.

“Soon,” he said, meeting Tristan’s eyes as he did.

The thief’s gaze narrowed. What was Coyac up to?

“You need to get out of here,” Izel whispered from the corner of his mouth. “Is the door unlocked?”

Tristan slowly nodded. The Izcalli casually went up the stairs, past the thief, and opened the door. He did not so much as touch the loaded pistol, though he could have.

The door opening drew the attention of the others.

“It isn’t locked,” Izel called out. “I’ll check the hall.”

Below the cover of the railing he gestured for Tristan to go into the hall. The thief did with the pistol now in hand, still on edge but failing to see what the Izcalli had to gain by letting him out. If they wanted to grab him, three on one with a single witness to silence was as good a deal as they were likely to get. Tristan grabbed his bag and lantern, knife sheathed but gun still in hand, and in the shadow of the hall found the other man’s eyes.

“Don’t let us see you in the city,” Izel whispered. “Danger.”

Which Tristan well knew. The surprise was that he was being told.

“Why?” he probed.

“Go,” Izel harshly replied. “I can only do so much.”

And Tristan debated pushing, but he did not like the weight of those dice. No, Izel Coyac was proving to be more interesting than he had thought but here was not the time and place. Pull a string too tight and it’d break. So instead he nodded, and as Izel returned to the workshop the Mask disappeared into the street.

It looked like tonight he had learned not one but two useful things.

—

Early in the twenty-third day of her stay on Asphodel, Angharad collected Tristan’s latest report and his answer to her inquiries about getting into Captain Domingo’s room. She rather wished it was not necessary to buy a coffee from the devil every time, but he insisted it was formal Mask policy and she was not certain enough of him lying to call him a liar.

Use a ten-foot pole. The moment you touch anything you’re on a clock, they have alarm Signs. If you take something it can be marked, put it out in direct Glare at least three hours.

Angharad made the conscious decision not to consider too deeply why Tristan would know of that last detail, then silently cursed him for his general unhelpfulness. Admittedly, his having survived so long as a thief might have something to do with avoiding robbing Navigators. It was a sensible, if unfortunate, bit of logic.

Still, she might have a solution of sorts.

Returning to Black House, Angharad headed directly to the library and looked into a particular set of Watch rules. Specifically those about those what was allowed in pursuit of an investigation of suspected treason among fellow watchmen. The underlying thread was ‘report it to the Krypteia’, but she did get some usable answers. Harming or detaining another rook was not allowed, but accessing one’s possession was more of a grey area.

One with considerable latency as to the means of, say, entry into a locked room.

That afternoon Angharad politely asked one of the servants to unlock the armory for her, then limped inside and used her contract. A few moments later she winced, thanked the servant and went to find Song in the library, where she was reading on the great spirits of Asphodel. The captain cocked a quizzical eyebrow.