Chapter 67

The knock on the door would have woken up Song, if she were asleep.

Instead she was sitting in the dark in her uniform, a treatise on Izcalli titles lying open in front of her – ‘tetehcutin’, it read, is the highest semi-hereditary rank under the Calendar Court, ruling the broad equivalent to a Lierganen coun- in a silent reproach, the page unchanged for the last hour. Song’s eyes burned with exhaustion but she could not sleep. There was another knock, soft but urgent. Toc toc toc. Shaking out her empty-eyed trance she rose to her feet, leg knocking against the writing desk, and made for the door.

She wrenched it open, hoping for Maryam or Angharad or even Tristan. Instead what she found was a nervous-looking Someshwari with a plain face decorated by brass spectacles.

“Adarsh Hebbar,” she said.

“Bait,” he retorted. “Let me in before someone sees.”

Too surprised to argue, she moved aside and he hurried in as if some angry hound might nip at his heels out in the hall. Song closed the door, and after a moment of the man looking lost remembered it was complete darkness in here for someone without her eyes. She moved to light one of the lamps, striking the match. Hebbar looked relieved by the light, arms loosening their grip around the packet he was clutching like a buoy.

“Bait,” she said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

He passed her the packet, cloth tied up by rope, and her wrist dipped under the weight. Heavy. Piles of paper, by the feel of it.

“There,” Adarsh Hebbar said. “All our reports, along with Alejandra’s tracings of the symbols in the temple and the drawings I made of the layout. You have two hours at most before I have to put them back or Tupoc will surely notice.”

Song’s brow rose.

“And what brings on this bout of generosity?”

“Tupoc’s going to refuse your deal in the morning,” Adarsh said. “Said he wants to see if he can make you and Imani squabble first. So here it is.”

Song cocked her head to the side, saw how his fingers were twitching and there was an expectant cast to the angle of his wobbly chin.

“I would praise your sense of duty,” she said. “But I expect that’s not why you are here.”

“Fuck duty,” Bait cursed. “Tell Abrascal that we’re square after this. Slate clean.”

The Someswhari licked his lips.

“You can tell him to stop, right? You’re his captain. Tupoc’s been keeping a closer eye on all of us since the Eleventh tried to play Alejandra, if he notices that I’m being hit up by Abrascal of all of people then…”

“I can,” Song slowly said.

She was slightly more than half sure this was true. Would it stop Tristan from looking into further blackmail on the man now that he had found a weakness in the Fourth? Oh, gods no. But she was confident he would agree to wiping the slate clean of the current chalk. Behind the brass spectacles hopeful brown eyes implored her and she sighed.

“Consider it done,” she said.

The man nodded, sagging with relief, then shuffled awkwardly on his feet.

“Can I, uh, stay here while you read?” Bait asked. “They might notice if I keep coming in and out of rooms.”

Song stared him down. He wilted instantly.

“I’ll be quiet,” he hurried to assure her. “You won’t even notice I’m there.”

After a moment she nodded.

“Feel free to read anything I left out,” Song conceded. “Though do not move any of the markers I left.”

“I would never,” Bait strongly replied, sounding almost offended now of all times.

Ah, right, Adarsh Hebbar was a Savant. She never had been given a clear idea of his area of interest within the Peiling Society, however. Song waved him away and he settled by the lamp after having gone through her pile of books, picking one on the anatomy of lemures. One of her attempts to stay ahead when it came to Teratology. With him occupied, she settled back at her writing desk and cleared the abandoned book off before carefully opening the package.

It irritated but did not surprise her that Tupoc Xical had beautiful handwriting, a genuine pleasure to the eye. Even worse his reports to his patron and the Obscure Committee were clear, concise and structured in a rather intuitive way. It might actually be better than the template she used, which had her gritting her teeth. No, copying the pattern would be letting him win. She would need to come up with something better. Righteous anger aside, Song skimmed through the lines quickly to get at what she wanted.

There it was, the itinerary taken by the Fourth. Once they’d made shore on the eastern third of Asphodel they had quickly gone northeast through the lands of House Florin, Chontos, Florin again and then the major stretch in the lands of House Arkol. It had been Arkol troops that shadowed the Fourth Brigade on their hunt, eventually being dispersed by the Ladonite dragon. Song had held her suspicions, but it was good to have it confirmed.

It meant the hidden temple was somewhere near Arkol lands and that Lord Phaedros Arkol, a social acquaintance of Angharad’s, could potentially be approached to obtain information on it. Lords might not concern themselves with old country legends, not courtiers like Lord Phaedros at least, but there would be someone in that household who would know something.

With that lead unearthed Song moved on to the part second most of interest, the temple itself. Tupoc theorized in his report that it had been as much a mausoleum as a place of worship, as the structure was built to emphasize of a ring of large stone caskets buried around the shrine to the unnamed god. He also added that while he had earlier in his report mentioned his belief that the temple had recently been visited by grave-robbers, there were also signs of the temple having been forcefully shut down some time ago. At least decades prior but potentially much longer.

He noted that while some symbols remained carved into the walls near the altar, what appeared to have once been names and scripture had been rendered forcefully unreadable in the rest of the complex. Tupoc identified several broken chunks of stone he believed had been the bottom of steles and there were signs of mosaics having been ripped out and colors scrubbed. He added that considering the symbols found…

There Song set aside the report to refer to Alejandra’s tracings of said symbols. The first traced was a stone casket, like those described in the report. Some sort of ritual reference? The second had her eyes narrowing, though, for it was a sickle. She returned to Tupoc’s writing, where he wrote he believed the artifact taken from the shrine would have been a sickle going by the iconography and dust pattern on the altar. That, Song grimly thought, did not strike her as a coincidence.

The sacred sickle of a faded death god went missing, then a leashed remnant bearing such a sickle began appearing in Tratheke committing murders? Whether or not it had been grave-robbers who first found that temple, the sickle had since fallen into the hands of someone with greater ambitions than turning a profit.

The rest of Tupoc’s report on the temple was a methodical description, paired with Adarsh Hebbar’s fine drawing of it. She glanced at the Someshwari, finding him engrossed in his book, and revised her opinion of his talent upwards. It led into Tupoc’s formal recommendation that the Watch take custody of the temple since it had likely been used for human sacrifice in its heyday.

He based that recommendation on the outer graves, which were long rectangular stone pits filled with earth but some of which had lain empty. Unlike the caskets, which he proposed had been reserved for priests since there were ashes inside but no bones, the pits had been used for mass burials and the skeletons the Fourth unearthed had all been killed the same way: a single blade wound through the back of the neck. A familiar description to Song, that.

It was the same way the leashed remnant killing in the city took its victims.

Song set the papers down, leaning forward to set her elbows on the table and close her eyes as she rested her chin on folded hands. Another piece of the puzzle. She could now be mostly certain of what the killer the Nineteenth was pursuing truly was: the remnant of the nameless sickle god, leashed by means of a sacred artifact. But who held the leash, and why?

The Nineteenth had been convinced the killings were arbitrary but Song doubted it. The sickle alone would not be enough to set a remnant loose, there would have to be some attendant ritual – potentially a pricey one. Not the sort of thing one used to cause random deaths. Unless the randomness is the point. It creates fear in Tratheke, fear that the ambitious can exploit. But if that was the case, why not use the knife slightly more discriminately when causing that chaos? No, something was still missing.

But she was closer to solving the mystery now, she could feel it. On the very edge. Now what she needed was a look at Imani Langa’s own reports, the ones about the sinister rituals out in Tratheke Valley, and for Tristan to return with the secrets he’d gathered. Someone out there knew about the remnant, because they’d warned the man Tristan had saved – a certain ‘Temenos’ – that he might be a target. What did that person know, and how did they know it? That was the thread in need of pulling to unravel this entire conspiracy.

Song itched to wake Maryam and Angharad, to shake answers out of them and force them to look at all this, but both had returned late to Black House and gone to bed instead of seeking her out. Those late returns were half the reason she’d been unable to sleep, considering Maryam was set on a dangerous ritual that might well kill her and Angharad had been infiltrating the cult – successfully, one presumed, given that she had not returned until the small hours of morning.

But now she was spinning again, clawing at the walls of her own mind. They needed their sleep, the same rest she should be taking if she had any sense. She had what she needed from the report, time to end this.

“I am finished,” Song said.

Bait nearly leaped out of his skin at her words, having entirely forgot where he was. His spectacles almost fell off his face and he fumbled catching the brass frame, which would have hit the floor if not for getting caught on a belt ornamentation. He hastily shoved them back on and rose to his feet, which made the book still on his knees fall, and when he just as hastily bent to pick it up his spectacles almost fell again. Song watched the entire debacle from beginning to end with what she could only call morbid fascination.

“Right on,” Adarsh Hebbar forced out, coughing into his fist. “Nothing left to read?”

“I am finished,” Song repeated. “Thank you for your help, Bait.”

He cleared his throat.

“And Abrascal…”

“Consider the matter he used against you permanently buried,” she said. “You will hear no more of it.”

The naked relief on his face almost made her feel bad about the precise phrasing of that sentence. How very Malani of her.

“I’ll take care of the wrapping,” he said, “there’s a trick to it, to avoid someone not of our brigade doing exactly what I did. It was a pleasure doing business with you, Captain Ren.”

“And you,” Song replied, inclining her head.

She did not sleep well, after he left, but she did sleep. It was better than nothing.

—

Refraining from ambushing her cabalists in their own room the moment they woke took a great deal of self-control, but Song mastered herself. Hand on the chisel. She went down to breakfast with them, seating herself by Captain Imani Langa just in time for Tupoc to stroll in and theatrically announce that he must decline their bargain, wary of his secrets being spread too broadly, but that he might accept sharing with one of them.

Song painted anger over her face, noticing the satisfaction on the Izcalli’s, but the moment he was out of earshot she turned to Imani.

“I will cede you the right to his information for a favor,” she offered.

Imani studied her.

“You don’t have much use for the information,” she said.

Song knew the beginning of a negotiation when she saw it, though, and got to work. It was fairly straightforward to accomplish, given that Imani had relatively little leverage and Tupoc was the one forcing the choice so the Thirteenth couldn’t be accused of being the problem. Song used the opportunity to secure the trade of their own reports, too, just after breakfast.

Though it would not be immediately read, considering she had higher priorities. Her eyes drifted to Maryam and Angharad, who sat on the opposite side of the table and had watched the negotiation with all the interest of someone who might begin to care when they had finished their morning tea but not a moment sooner. Maryam, in particular, looked like she might collapse at any moment.

But she wasn’t speaking in tongues, so at least her ritual had not taken a turn for the very worst. It shouldn’t have, when she said that last night was a trap and tonight would be the murder, but with Gloam there was no certainty save harm.

“After breakfast,” Song began, “you are to join me in my room for a-”

“Captain Song Ren?”

She turned, frowning, to see one of the liveried servants smiling at her apologetically. She smoothed the displeasure off her face. They had done nothing to earn it.

“Yes?”

“A guest requests your presence, ma’am,” the young man said. “You and Warrant Officer Maryam Khaimov.”

She blinked.

“And this cannot wait until we are done eating?”

“He said no, ma’am,” the servant said. “And he’s an officer, ma’am. Captain Traore.”

Song stilled. That was the name Colonel Adamos of Stheno’s Peak had given for the Savant he was sending to the capital to debrief them. She gulped down the last of her almost-scalding tea, then gestured for Maryam to follow.

“About your letter,” she explained when given a quizzical look.

“Ah,” Maryam muttered, slowly rising. “My own fault then.”

Angharad raised expectant brows, but Song shook her head. This was not to be the kind of conversation where one went without summons and Angharad had not been named. Likely if Maryam had not sent a letter of her own to Stheno’s Peak she would not be attending either.

“In my quarters after breakfast,” Song simply said.

After a beat of hesitation, Angharad nodded. The noblewoman had begun avoiding her like the plague again, since their confrontation, but she did not refuse direct orders. Even when angry she tended to her duty with care. Maryam shambled up to Song’s side and after one last look Song nodded at the servant to guide them. They followed him into the depths of Black House, the silver-eyed woman slowing her steps so she could address Maryam without being overheard.

“Will you be fit for conversation?”

“Of course,” Maryam said, wrinkling her nose.

Under Song’s steady, unblinking stare that false confidence began to wane.

“I’m not at my best,” the signifier conceded, “but I am capable.”

Song hummed.

“Your health?”

“Fine, Song,” Maryam snapped.

“Captain Ren,” Song coldly corrected, “if rank is what it takes to get an honest reply. Answer, Warrant Officer Khaimov. You undertook a dangerous Gloam ritual against my recommendations last night. How is your health?”

Blue eyes hardened, and Song saw the sharp reply on the tip of her tongue. Whatever it was that Maryam found on her face, though, it gave her pause.

“It would be best if I slept in a Meadow soon,” she conceded.

“Then you will be sleeping on the roof this afternoon,” Song ordered. “At least three hours.”

“I was going to anyway,” Maryam muttered.

But she did not argue. By the stiff way the servant ahead of them was now walking he’d overheard some of that but Song was too tired to be embarrassed. They were soon brought to what she realized after a moment of uncertainty was the very same room where yesterday she had watched Captain Santos strike deal with the traitor Ledwaba. It was exactly the same inside when they were bid in, down to the water carafe on the buffet.

“Good, you did not waste time. Sit.”

Captain Traore, who must be the man who’d just addressed them, would have been one of the shortest Malani she ever saw were he Malani at all. He was not, for though very dark of skin he had a lilting accent and elaborate earrings inscribed with a prayer pattern. He was Jahamai, like Commander Salimata back on Tolomontera. Would Maryam know the difference, though? By the stiff look on her face, she did not.

They both sat as instructed and since the small, almost fragile-looking man offered no refreshments Song cleared her throat.

“A pleasure to meet you, sir,” she said. “I only received the letter from Colonel Adamos yesterday, it was delayed by an encounter with Cordyles ships.”

“The roads through the valley were no better,” Captain Traore told her. “Lemures are wandering the paths and there’s even been talk of them attacking farms. Whatever has them stirred up, it is only getting worse.”

“There have been rituals in the hills,” Song carefully said. “The Eleventh Brigade is investigating this.”

The captain waved that away.

“The colonel sent one of our cabals to look into it as well,” he said. “Whatever it is, our Skiritai will have it shot full of silver and salt soon enough. Much more dangerous is what your brigade has been up to.”

“Pardon?” Maryam said, her first word since the talk began.

Were she less tired, Song thought, she would better hide the general antipathy she felt towards any Malani holding authority over her. But she was exactly tired enough not to. Lucky for them, Traore either did not notice or did not care.

“Not you,” the man dismissed. “In particular at least. Though the letter you sent about the Asphodel crowns and their effect on the local aether has our own Akelarre in a frenzy.”

Maryam blinked in surprise.

“Was it not a documented phenomenon? I reached out to consult their records of it.”

“It wasn’t a phenomenon at all, as of last year,” Captain Traore flatly said. “It still isn’t on the northern edges of the valley, but the closer to the capital a signifier approaches the fuller the phenomenon becomes. We had it tested, it fully coalesces about a week from Tratheke by horse.”

Song shared a look with Maryam, sensing gravity but not exactly what it meant.

“I am a Stripe, and largely untrained in such matters,” Song tried. “Could you explain for my sake?”

The man shrugged.

“We do not know what it means, exactly,” he admitted. “At the very least, such a large-scale disturbance in the aether means that something concerning the emanations related to those flowers is undergoing a significant change.”

“Those flowers are a symbol of Asphodel,” Maryam quietly said, “but also of the god Oduromai. Do you think…”

“Our leading theory is that the god’s association to the ruler of Asphodel in particular is the cause of the disturbance,” Captain Traore said. “That the local aether is reacting because the first steps of a civil war for the throne have been taken, yet unseen.”

Song was rather beginning to wish she had taken Angharad’s report last night regardless of the Skiritai’s inclination to wait until morning. She kept that thought off her face.

“Which would be why the phenomenon centers on Tratheke,” Maryam muttered. “The throne is here and it’s happening here.”

Captain Traore inclined his head in agreement.

“Has the question been answered to your satisfaction, Warrant Officer Khaimov?” he asked.

Maryam nodded, saying no more.

“Good,” the small man said, then his face turned harsh. “Now, I must ask you – what in Caged Hell went through your minds when you committed the epithet of a god under aether seal to paper?”

Song cleared her throat.

“Maryam had nothing to do with that.”

“I saw your brigade roster,” Captain Traore replied, unimpressed. “You have a sneak and swordarm filling the other seats, did you truly not think to consult your sole reliable source of lore on such a matter before writing to Stheno’s Peak?”

“Given that she had recently been harmed by contact with the aether seal, yes,” Song flatly replied.

The older man shook his head.

“Then you are a fool,” he said. “You are now under formal order of the commanding officer of the Asphodel garrison to never again mention the Hated One until granted authorization by said officer or the Conclave.”

Song frowned at him.

“A colonel does not have that authority,” she said. “Unless…”

“Unless the whole matter was put under seal by the Conclave’s own order in the first place, yes,” Captain Traore said. “You are allowed to file a petition to access the appropriate file, though I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

Neither would Song. Getting the petition to the Rookery might take weeks, but actually getting it in front of the Conclave would take even longer and have no guarantee of success.

“The matter concerns our contract with the throne,” Song said. “Surely the Lord Rector at least-”

“The colonel has decided that if House Palliades lost that knowledge, it’s on them,” Captain Traore said. “All the better for the work.”

“But we, at least, are owed an explanation,” Maryam pressed.

“Enough of one to fulfill your obligations,” the man conceded. “What I can tell you is that after the Ataxia, Lord Rector Hector Lissenos hired the Watch to build a prison and an aether seal over the entity now known as the Hated One.”

“So it was the same god that drove the Ataxia,” Song pressed.

He nodded.

“The entity is a manner of thanatophage, a death-eater, so the protracted civil war paired with entrenched worship made it effectively impossible to kill at the time,” Captain Traore said. “The Watch deployed twenty cabals under Commander Estefania Estay to trap it in a massive Antediluvian cavern beneath the capital long enough to imprison it inside an artificial layer.”

Meaning Hector Lissenons had reigned for a few years with the Hated One trapped under his capital. No wonder he had been willing to spend a fortune to import brackstone and the machinery necessary for an aether seal. There was a mad god dwelling beneath his feet. And now Song finally had a name: Commander Estafania Estay, who must be the ‘C.E.’ from the letters with Hector Lissenos. Maryam suddenly stirred.

“That cavern,” she said. “Was it brass or stone?”

The man frowned, as if looking for a reason to refuse information, but seemed to decide there was none.

“Stone,” he said. “Though given the sheer height of the ceiling it can only have been dug by the First Empire.”

“And it’s accessible by the palace lift,” Maryam continued.

The captain leaned back into his seat. For the first time that morning, Song found surprise on his face.

“And how would you know that, exactly?” he asked.

“I was part of the delegation that went to the shipyard,” Maryam said. “To feign us being on the road, the Lord Rector’s men had us going around in rings in a massive room. One that wasn’t brass. It must have been the same one.”

Captain Traore hummed.

“Interesting,” he said. “Our knowledge of that cavern’s existence is why we dismissed the possibility of the shipyards being directly beneath the capital. We had not considered what proved to be the truth, that the facility was in a deeper layer.”

Most likely, Song thought, because the rulers of Asphodel had not known about it either. Some predecessor of Evander’s must have discovered it by happenstance and begun the work of restoring the shipyard.

“Yet the god is no longer physically in that cavern,” Song said. “It is in the prison layer, and under an aether seal besides.”

“Should the layer break, that is the most likely location for the entity to emerge into the Material again,” Captain Traore said. “But despite your report of some local agitators having stumbled onto a way to traverse that layer, we don’t believe it at risk of being breached. The entity has been starved for over two centuries and is still under seal, it is thoroughly contained.”

“Water always gets out,” Maryam retorted.

“Don’t quote Totec the Feathered at me, girl, I’ve read his books too,” Captain Traore grunted in amusement.

By the befuddled look on Maryam’s face, she had read no such thing.

“The colonel dispatched a cabal to check on the prison layer and sent word to the regional headquarters in Lucierna asking for the Akelarre Guild to send a team of specialists for a full inspection. That harpoon you mentioned was deemed worrying, we’re looking to extract it.”

He paused.

“What we do not believe is that a theistic leak is in any sense imminent,” he took pains to make clear. “A god held under such conditions for centuries will not simply spring out at the first opportunity, it is very much a salted slug: even should there still be life in it, it would take watering for it to even wake up. Nothing so simple as a few sacrificed beggars, either.”

They then went through the song and dance of trying to ask more about the Hated One – well, Song did at least, Maryam looked two thirds dead and acted half – only to be reassured that the situation was being handled. It became clear after several rounds of this that she would not be getting any more information out of Captain Traore. The officer then presented papers for them to sign, little more than an acknowledgement that they had received Colonel Adamos’ orders on the matter of the Hated One.

Song extracted in return a signed acknowledgement that the Thirteenth Brigade was allowed to mention the entity’s existence as part of its obligated contract duties, including reports. The captain must have assumed she only meant her reports to Wen and the Obscure Committee, but she had in practice secured an exemption to pass some knowledge of the Hated One to the Lord Rector should she wish it.

Not that she was sure if she did wish it, or to see him again at all.

She was to meet the Yellow Earth at noon, besides, and did not want to answer Evander’s letter before she had heard what the revolutionaries wanted of her. She doubted it would be anything pleasant.

“I will be at Black House for another day or two,” Captain Traore said. “Should you have any concerns over this matter, you may send for me.”

“Thank you, captain,” Song replied, inclining her head.

Maryam jolted out of her half-sleep to imitate her. He inclined it back.

“You are dismissed.”

She took her leave, tugging Maryam along. The earlier burst of energy at the mention of the cavern had long faded, leaving Song in the company of a moderately mobile corpse. She stopped her halfway to the room, in an empty corridor, and sighed.

“You are in no state for a debrief,” Song said.

“M’fine,” Maryam grunted, but the protest was weak.

Song knew that Maryam’s stubbornness was the only reason she had made it this far. She only wished it was not so likely to be the reason she stumbled having gotten here.

“What happened up in the palace?” Song asked.

“I got what I needed,” Maryam said. “Tonight I finish it.”

Song gritted her teeth. Recklessness upon recklessness.

“Look at the state of you right now,” she said. “You are not fit for anything strenuous. Won’t you at least wait a day to-”

“Will that be all, Captain Ren?” Maryam evenly asked.

Song looked into those blue eyes, wondering how many before had seen what she did: determination like bedrock, as likely to move as the mountains. Maryam was set.

“Fine,” she bit out. “You are to have at least three hours of sleep on the roof garden, then seek me out for a debrief should I be back.”

“Back from where?” Maryam blinked.

“That will be all, Warrant Officer Khaimov,” Song pettily replied.

The satisfaction was like a struck match, there long enough to burn but not to warm. So be it.

There was work to do.

—

They sat in Song’s room for the debrief, with tea and cakes, but when Angharad ceased talking her first thought was that she should have sent for something stronger than tea.

“Four days,” Song said. “We have only four days until the coup.”

“That is what Lady Doukas claimed,” Angharad confirmed.

Song closed her eyes to blot out distractions. It had all been important information, or close enough, but beyond the timeline what was the crux here? Lord Gule confessed to being one of the five heads of the cult, she decided. That confession and the nature of the ceremony that Angharad had witnessed should be enough for the Watch to commit to the risk of arresting an ambassador of Malan. Bleeding a god was not forbidden under the Iscariot Accords, but buying murders off one like plums at the market most certainly was.

If the Kingdom of Malan was given solid enough evidence, they would let Gule disappear quietly rather than taint their reputation around the Trebian Sea by letting it come out their ambassador had been up to his neck in a coup and a murder cult.

Lady Doukas? Even easier, as she did not have the Queen Perpetual standing at her back. The Watch could pick her up within the hour, if Song asked, but was that the right call? She was not sure. Silver eyes opened, finding Angharad sitting patiently with her hands folded in her lap. That face might as well be blank, Song thought. The pleasantness there was just the badge of office Angharad Tredegar felt she owed life to wear, as a black cloak for what the noblewoman thought she owed Vesper.

They’d been closer than that, on the Dominion. Before Song pulled the trigger and lied about it. Before she dug a second grave for that friendship trying to fill the first one.

“Once more, your success is worthy of praise,” Song said.

Angharad shrugged.

“I did my duty,” she replied.

“Anyone dutiful can do that,” Song replied, unwilling to let her wiggle out of it. “It takes skill to do it well.”

The dark-skinned noblewoman coughed into her fist, seemingly embarrassed.

“My thanks, captain,” she got out.

Captain. That would be it how it was between them until Angharad found another brigade. Unless Song did something about it. She had been chewing on that decision all night, but she felt no closer to making it. To knowing what was the right choice to make.

“That said,” she made herself continue, “Captain Wen and Brigadier Chilaca must immediately be informed that we have a day for the coup.”

She gave it even odds that the Thirteenth would get chewed out for having waited until morning as it was. Angharad cocked her head to the side.

“I expected as much.”

“Which will mean explaining how you won Lord Gule’s trust,” Song elaborated. “I can no longer delay the report mentioning the infernal forge, no matter your reasons.”

Angharad’s face went entirely blank. Song studied her, looking for anything at all, but whoever had taught the Pereduri had taught her well. Angharad was not a guarded person by nature, but when her guard was up it was nigh impenetrable.

“Of course,” Angharad simply said.

Was that relief in her eyes, in the way her fingers loosened, or was Song misreading her? She must be, for what was there to be relieved about? If the Lefthand House was able to grab the forge under the Watch’s nose because the Thirteenth had delayed in telling the blackcloaks about it the blame would fall on all of them but on Angharad most of all.

“We have enough to begin acting,” Song continued, “but now we must consider how.”

A fine brow rose.

“Should Maryam not be here for this, captain?”

A funny thing, that the same word in Tristan’s mouth and in Angharad’s could feel so different. A gift in one, a wall in the other. Between that wall and the ice in Maryam’s eye, Song found failure wherever she looked even as the Thirteenth’s time on Asphodel finally neared success.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Maryam is barely fit to walk up stairs at the moment, much less plan,” she replied. “I will consult Captain Wen, naturally, but I would hear your thoughts first.”

Angharad hesitated, then nodded sharply.

“When we strike, we must strike everywhere at once,” she advised. “If Lord Gule is arrested it is not impossible the cult will launch its coup early in fear of his betraying them. The same holds true of Lady Doukas, though she is less public a figure.”

“We are in agreement then,” Song said.

While she remained certain that Hector Anaidon was involved with the cult of – well, the Odyssean as it turned out – the man was in the wind. Doukas and Gule were the targets left to them, and if the ambassador was grabbed the rest of the capital would know before the hour was out. There was no keeping that under wraps. Doukas might be feasible to arrest quietly, but first she would need to be found.

If they were lucky the priestess would be in her manse out in the southeastern ward. If not? Then matters grew tricky, because arresting an ambassador of Malan was open thing but keeping him was another. They would need Lady Doukas to sing if they wanted to finish this.

“We are?” Angharad asked, sounding surprised.

“Delaying too much would be dangerous, but so would striking in haste,” Song said. “I will be sitting with Wen and Chilaca within the hour, if I’ve anything to say about it, and formally request the help of the Garrison forces on Asphodel to deal with the matter. We were hired to unmask a cult, not step into the middle of a civil war.”

The noblewoman nodded in approval, then caught herself and wiped her face clean of her thoughts. She coughed politely.

“If I may make a suggestion…”

“I am listening.”

“This morning, while you and Maryam were speaking with that officer, I was informed that yesterday evening a letter came for me,” she said. “There is to be a concert and banquet at the rector’s palace tonight, which Lord Menander invites me to attend as his guest. Given the implied exclusivity of the guest list, I expect Lord Gule would be in attendance as well.”

“Meaning we could grab him there, possibly even quietly,” Song said. “We just need to find Lady Doukas, unless…”

“I do not know if she is to attend,” Angharad frankly replied. “But though she is a personality of some renown at court, her holdings are not particularly wealthy and she has no title beyond that of her birth.”

A court office, Angharad meant. Evander was known as tight-fisted with these, in large part because the magnates would raise a ruckus if the ministers got privileged access to the Lord Retcor through such appointments – and the ministers would raise the same if someone not nobly born received such a title, however ceremonial. Song hummed.

“Apollonia Floros should be there, however, if it is a banquet for the most influential,” the silver-eyed woman said. “The coup answers to the cult, but she is still the figurehead they aim to put on the throne. Arresting her should make their more opportunistic supporters reconsider taking up arms.”

“Or it could outrage the nobility enough that twice as many rise in her name,” Angharad warned.

Not if she’s tarred with association to a cult outlawed by the Watch, Song thought. But that was not a decision for her to make, or even Brigadier Chilaca – though by dint of his rank and the urgency of the situation he might well end up making it anyway. There was no time to wait for the Conclave’s opinion on this, and Chilaca not only outranked the colonel in Stheno’s Peak he had also been granted a mandate to negotiate with the Lord Rector on behalf of the Watch. It would be stretching the bounds of his authority to make such a bargain, but not outright overstepping.

Not unless the Conclave didn’t like the way the aftermath turned up, anyway. Then they would come down on him like a vengeful storm.

“Either way,” Song finally said, “I must speak with the brigadier urgently.”

She breathed out, sipping at the bottom of her teacup and getting more air than taste for it. Angharad half-rose to her feet, but the Pereduri searched Song’s face and found none of the expected dismissal there. On the contrary, like a fucking child Song was biting her lip and flinching. Again.

“Captain?” Angharad prompted.

“I need a favor,” Song blurted.

The other woman’s face blanked again.

“We are not,” she slowly said, “on terms to be trading these.”

“I know,” Song said. “I have to ask anyway.”

She saw from the way Angharad’s jaw clenched the thought of refusing outright, of closing the book, but either manners or curiosity won out.

“Ask,” Angharad flatly said.

“The Yellow Earth summons me at noon,” Song said. “At a place of their choosing. They have, I expect, finally run out of patience with my silence.”

Or they know something is happening and they want to squeeze what out of me, she thought.

“I can only advise that you do not meet them alone, given their demonstrated willingness to commit violence on you,” Angharad said.

She swallowed.

“Maryam, well – before we started arguing, anyway – Maryam said something along those lines and it was good advice,” Song admitted. “So I am.”

She bit her lip.

“Asking not to go alone, I mean.”

Angharad stilled.

“If they coerce you and you accept,” the Pereduri slowly said, “then I will be unable to lie when asked about it. I will, at the very least, likely learn what it is they hold over your head when they threaten you with it.”

“I know,” Song said.

“If they bare blades, I will bare mine as well,” Angharad told her. “Whether or not you give the order.”

“I know,” Song repeated.

There was an angry cast to the dark-skinned woman’s jaw, as if she tasted something sour.

“Why would you trust me with this now?” she challenged. “You never have before. Do you think I will be appeased with a gesture, Song? I am not a child to be distracted from our history by some… tossed bauble.”

Song’s eyes rose to find hers. She swallowed, the roof of her mouth dry.

“I don’t even trust myself, right now,” she admitted. “It is all… I thought I was making it simpler, cutting the knots, but now the ropes are choking me. What I do know is this-”

She squared her shoulders.

“You won’t bend if you think that what’s happening is wrong, Angharad,” Song said. “Not even if it makes my life easier. And I think I might need that more than I do anything else.”

Angharad held her gaze for a long moment, then looked away.

“I have made my own compromises with honor,” she said. “More than you know. I may not be alone in paying the price for them, either, though I have taken measures to ensure otherwise.”

Song’s jaw clenched. She knew – or at least suspected – a lot more than Angharad figured. She was not blind, and the other woman had told her it was the infernal forge that the Lefthand House wanted. Put that together with how she had asked that Song delay the report revealing the forge’s location and the small argument she’d had with her uncle back in Port Allazei? The picture painted itself.

But that path, it was a dead end. She could not shame Angharad into staying by her side, or offer to clean up her mess for… friendship, respect? Admiration, part of her suspected. She wanted someone she believed exceptional to think well of her, to look up to her. It was why it had been so easy to fall into the habit of trying to fix things for Angharad. It let her give something back, protect Angharad from herself.

Accrue a debt that would force her to stay by Song’s side. That was the ugly kernel beneath the dross of justifications. She wanted Angharad – and the others, but Angharad most of all – in her debt. So they would have to stay. Song swallowed again. It went against ever screaming instinct, everything she had been taught, but she made herself say it.

“I wanted you to owe me,” Song said. “It was not the only reason I pulled that trigger, but I think it might be what tipped the scales.”

Angharad’s forehead creased.

“Owe you what?”

“The nature of the debt didn’t matter,” Song said. “Just that I’d be owed. It was…”

She licked dry lips.

“It was the only way I thought it would work, being captain of the Thirteenth,” Song said. “I thought that if you were all indebted to me – because I ignored weaknesses or proved to be the finest leader around or most of all helped tidy over your troubles, then you would all stay in the brigade. Even though my name will be a noose around my neck until the end of my days, a curse in every way.”

Dark eyes studied her, unblinking.

“I did not have to be that way,” Angharad finally said.

“It is what I know,” Song said. “I do not attempt excuse the act, to be clear. I still stand by the decision to kill Isabel Ruesta, if not the decisions that sprang in its wake.”

“I treated you as a friend,” Angharad said, voice tight. “Why would you think it necessary to use me when I freely offered you my hand?”

She sat ramrod straight, a coiled string. Pulled taut.

“I thought better of you,” Angharad said. “That you were unlike all the…”

There she trailed off. All the others seeking to bind her, Song thought she meant. All the charlatans offering a helping hand and a kind word now that she had reached safe harbor, now that she no longer needed either.

“Because you are exceptional,” Song honestly replied.

The Pereduri startled and began to wave away what she would dismiss as compliments but this time Song wouldn’t let her.

“You are, Angharad,” Song cut through. “This is not flattery or exaggeration; it is a fact. You are learned, engaging and clever. You are one of the finest blades I ever met and wield a powerful contract. And even all these aside, you are…”

She paused looking for the right word. Angharad was blushing hard enough it was visible – though the tip of her ears was much pinker than her cheeks – and biting her lip.

“Principled,” Song settled on.

Those principles were not always kind or just, but they always were.

“I looked at you,” she continued, “and saw everything I wanted in a comrade. In someone I would share years, decades with.”

Song exhaled.

“I also knew others would see it when we reached Scholomance,” she said. “Captains whose surname would not be despised by millions, who could offer wealth and comfort and connections. How long did it take, Angharad, before the first offer came?”