It was early in the morning, a full fourteenday after the death of Delphina and, in the break room in the eaves of the museum, Preece was trying to summon up the will to connect his Sending Stone to that of his wife. It was their custom to speak around this time each evening, but as he already knew where the conversation would go, he wasn't sure he was up for it.

Tentatively, Preece picked up the small white stone and ran it along and over his fingers, looking around the small room for something - anything - to distract him from yet another marital row. Unfortunately, other than Harker's silent, brooding figure sitting against the window, he didn't know any of the others sharing the social space with him. And none of them seemed especially interested in beginning a conversation about the weather.

Out of excuses, he sighed, pushing mana into the Sending Stone, and his wife, Braife, answered almost immediately.

"Any news?"

Preece did his best to keep the sigh out of his voice. "No, nothing else has come out since we last spoke."

"But the Security Services are still there? In the museum?"

"There are a couple of junior officers floating about, but none of them seem too interested in speaking to any of us to tell the truth. I think they're just going through the motions now."

"They'll confirm it was an accident then?"

"In the absence of any other evidence, what else can they do?" he said, trying to restrain the note of irritation he could sense creeping in.

And that was the key question, wasn't it? No matter how much noise that made about Delphina already being dead before the lid of the sarcophagus had crashed down on her, there was simply nothing to back that up. His mind flashed back to the arrival in reception of Inspector Wyst, all blustering energy and loud, booming voice.

He had not taken the situation as presented to him all that well.

"What the fuck do you mean you all wiped your memories!"

Preece assumed his question was directed at Director Nuroon alone, but considering it was delivered at a volume Arkola would have been able to hear at the top of the Celestial Temple, that seemed a somewhat moot point.

"I would ask you to lower your voice, Inspector," Nuroon had replied, putting a hand behind the man's back and trying to shepherd him into the privacy of his office.

Wyst was having none of it, though, shrugging free from the Director's clutches and turning to glare at the assembled crowd. "Are you all trying to be locked up for the obstruction of justice? What on earth possessed you! You don't witness a girl's death and then immediately erase everything you did for the last twenty-four hours! Who the fuck do you think you people think you are! I'll have the lot of you up on charges for this!"

There was an entertaining few minutes of bluster before, eventually, the combined efforts of Nuroon, Culloden, and Kregg calmed the inspector sufficiently for him to be led away to somewhere a little political pressure could be applied. Preece had no idea what was said to him or - perhaps more pertinently - who spoke to him, but when the inspector finally emerged from Nuroon's office a bell later, he showed much less bombastic frustration about the whole thing.

And that really set the tone for the whole investigation. Much to the obvious frustration of Karolen, no one was remotely interested in her tale of 'a sarcophagus that eats people,' nor that she suspected there was a fairly unsubtle cover-up taking place.

Certainly, once Inspector Wyst had lost his mojo, the rest of his team followed suit. The member of the Security Services who had spoken to Preece could not have made it more obvious that they had no interest in pursuing what the museum officially described as "the ravings of a lunatic with an axe to grind."

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"Look, just give me something, mate. I know you can't remember the last twenty-four hours, but you have to know something about the deceased. Anything. I'll take an anecdote at this stage!"

Preece had considered the wording of that question very carefully before answering.

As far as he had been able to tell, he was the only not to have triggered Cleansing the Canvas when the had requested it of them. And he still wasn't sure why. If anything, with all the terrible nightmares he was having of Delphina's hideous last few moments, he felt like he could do with the reprieve of forgetfulness. However, as he had back in the staffroom when making that snap decision, he thought it was important that the death of his . . . well, she wasn't a friend, was she? Perhaps an acquaintance would cover it? Well, whatever. He just felt, on a moral level, that it was important the true nature of her death was remembered correctly.

In any event, it wasn't like he was lying about it, was it? No one had explicitly asked the if they had obeyed the command to wipe the last twenty-four hours from their memories. It said much for the almost cultlike devotion Nuroon inspired in his subordinates that, as far as Preece could tell, he was the only one to have refused the order.

And then, right there, had been his big chance to tell someone what he had seen.

One-on-one in a locked room with a member of the Security Services, and all it would have taken was for him to give a quiet word to confirm that what Karolen had reported was accurate and that there was more to the death of Delphina than a simple workplace accident.

But no. He'd bottled it. He just couldn't risk it getting out that he'd disobeyed an explicit instruction: he enjoyed this job too much. "I'm sorry, I don't really know much about anything. Delphina, Harker, and I were close, but I don't know anything about her that you won't have heard a hundred times over. I wish I could be more help, but I don't know anything."

His interviewer had rolled his eyes, made a few notes, and then excused himself. Preece hadn't seen him again since.

"I just don't understand why you want to continue to work somewhere which is so patently dangerous!" his wife said, her wheedling tone dragging him back to the here and now.

"It's a museum, Bray! It's hardly like I've volunteered to go and lead a Forlorn Hope at the front. Let's keep a little perspective."

"It's a museum where the girl you were fucking died! So don't pretend to me I am making a fuss about nothing!"

A few of the other in the break room darted eyes towards him at that. Preece shrugged and gave the universal sign for 'bitches be crazy', which drew a few snorts of laughter from the now highly attentive audience. Turning his back on them and trying to cushion the sound from the stone with his thumb, he once again did his best to reassure his wife.

"Look, I've told you again and again that nothing was going on between Delphina and me. I mean, just on a purely practical level, when do you think we would have had the time or energy? I've told you how busy the Director keeps us. I'm either here or at home, and I'm fucking knackered either way."

His wife had sniffed at that. "I just think none of this would be an issue if you just went back and worked for Daddy."

Ah, there it was. The spectre hovering above any conversation they'd had for the last few months. If only Preece would stop being so damn stubborn and just play the good little boy, none of this unpleasantness would have happened. So wedded was she to this viewpoint that Preece was pretty sure his wife believed Delphina would still be alive should he still be prostituting his soul for his damned father-in-law's Second Hand Horse business. As if her death was Arkola's personal judgement on him for having ambitions.

Preece ended the conversation shortly after that, promising they would speak at the same time tomorrow. "And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow," he intoned, ignoring the puzzled faces of those around him as he did so.

A buzzing sound indicated that break was over, and the began to file out and back to the Exhibit Hall. Preece waited for them to go, hoping to catch a few words with Harker's still, silent presence. So strange was the young man's behaviour in the last sevenday or so that Preece had assumed he must have also refused the request to blank his memory and was suffering with the same sort of nighttime horrors as he was.

However, in the few conversations they had had since, it was clear something else was bothering his friend. He just had not been able to figure out what it was.

For a moment, Preece thought he would push the issue, try to get it all out into the open and see what could be done about it. However, his 'chat' with Braife had left him in a bad mood, and the words dried up in his throat. Instead, he pressed a comforting hand on Harker's shoulder and left to follow the rest of the .

In the days to come, Harker's pale, sick expression would return to haunt him. He'd wonder how much of the horror to come might have been avoided if they'd spoken.