Five days left to prepare was less time than you’d think. Alchemy occupied each of my mornings, working on an ever-growing arsenal to prepare for the party. Having to outfit a minimum of three people only added to the work. Not helping was that I wouldn’t know till I went to this dress shop how much I could hide inside the dress. The latest fashion trends tended towards the voluminous, but trying to move in that much fabric might prove difficult.

Something to worry about for when I went there with Gregory on the third day: for now I had other things to occupy my mind.

***

Dawes had collected close to all information he could on shape-changers in the public stacks of the Avernorn library, an impressive three stacks of histories, adventuring accounts, and other books addressing shape-changers or what might be shape-changers in one way or another.

There was just one problem.

“This is junk,” I said after getting halfway through a series of eyewitness accounts claiming to be of shape-changers. “Most of these are misidentified animals, druids, and foreigners suspected of having foul magic powers because they were foreigners. The ones that aren’t are so light on the details, they might as well not have been written. Arelt the Ashen spends more time on how many logs he can cleave his axe through in one swing than the entire time his blood brother got replaced by a shape-changer for five months. This cannot be all that’s publicly available.”

Dawes looked up from his own current book, an account of an adventuring group. He set it aside.

“I’m not shocked that it is. Shape-changer appearances were already rare by the time Thierdeith invented the printing press. This leaves whatever had been recorded by scribes, which would have limited distribution.”

“Limited spread,” I muttered. “And probably containing things others would not want to be made public.”

By others, I meant royalty. Most old stories involving shape-changers typically involved some plot or another to infiltrate the ranks of royalty. Not the only thing they attempted, but potentially the only acts notorious enough to be recorded. And every one I read had the signs of being sanitized, probably to protect the reputation of someone long dead.

“I’ve gotten too used to papers detailing the experiments, explaining exact details on biology,” I said. “Too used to knowing whatever insignificant fact I wished to look up on how monsters and Infernals function. A little kindness for the Shape-changers.”

Experimentation of the kind done on Infernals wouldn’t have happened back then because the methods wouldn’t have been established yet. Shape-changers might also be the only group that would have suffered experimentation on to that extent besides Infernals.

The days after Her Profane Majesty’s end had been joyous days for most, dark days for others. For the Infernals sacrificed, so the newly risen queen could understand how my race functioned for any future threats? Probably the darkest of them all.

“The accounts at least give us something to work with,” Voltar said. “Even if it’s not biological. Shape-changers have tried to infiltrate nobility before and have aimed for the upper rungs first. They don’t infiltrate from the lower ranks up.”

I frowned. “Seems a bit of a recurring pattern, at least for those. Other accounts of shape-changers tend towards them, aiming for insular communities and slowly taking them over. The two most common stories are a sleepy village or hamlet they’ve infiltrated being discovered, or like you said, upper nobility.”

As sanitized as it was, information on the latter was always more common than the former.

“There’s another pattern that emerges,” Voltar said. “I’ve been through quite a few adventuring accounts, and as prone as some are to exaggeration, you’d think they’d mention if the shape-shifting creatures they fought could turn into the monstrosities you fought on that pier. Yet they do not.”

“Similar to my accounts, although some of them have mentioned abilities similar to what Miss Harrow has described,” Dawes added. “I think we might be dealing with two different races, perhaps unrelated? Potentially more, but it raises a possibility.”

A possibility that wasn’t hard to grasp. “You think they’re artificials.”

Artificials would be the precursors to the creations Biosculptors made today, back when the art was less established. The most common mistakes from back then most principled sculptors would not make these days. Using ordinary people as a base template, or creating new races capable of breeding with each other. And finally, granting entities forced to obey your will sentience and intelligent thought beyond that of an animal.

Doing any of those three today was supposed to net you a death sentence, at least after the empire-wide ban on slavery forty years ago. Much like my case, I wouldn’t be shocked if Intelligence recruited some of those. A lot of things were more palatable than the Hangman’s noose. Especially to those already lacking some morals.

“You think they were made for intended purposes and that the core concept is so universal it’s been repeated across various Biosculptors, then?”

The core concept is the basis for the creature’s design, which tends toward a ‘Big nasty monster.’ The idea of all shape-changers being various attempts to create shape-changing minions was a bit of a long shot. I thought there would be at least one existing group that inspired everyone.

“Hopefully, it’s not the case,” I remarked. “Otherwise, anything we learn might be useless. Although it does point to a central driving intelligence. Joy. How about the non-public sources of information?”

Stolen novel; please report.

“The last message from Lord Montague made it clear unless he gets lucky, he won’t find any information on shape-changers till after the Ball. Maybe not till weeks afterward.”

“That depends on how hard he’s looking,” I muttered.

“His problems go away after his son recovers,” Voltar admitted. “If we assume they are going after targets of opportunity. If he is being targeted specifically, failing once won’t make them stop. They’ll just shift to more directly targeting what they actually want.”

It wasn’t hard to imagine what that might be. “The records.”

“Lord Montague doesn’t possess much else that couldn’t be gained from another family,” Voltar said.

“We do only have two poisonings, so non-unique possessions of the Montagues are still on the table,” Dawes said. “It’s actually interesting. Not a single other poisoning since this all came to light. Either the families of the other victims are keeping it even more under wraps than Lord Montague and Lady Karsin, or there have been none.”

I frowned. “It could be the recent attention caused them to halt their poisoning efforts. Or did they target these two families specifically? In which case, I wonder why Lady Karsin?”

“Her being targeted is a question,” Voltar admitted. “For right now, I’m operating on the theory she was a test run to make sure things would work: that the poison would work, that the cure would be available from you, that whoever was supposed to provide the information leading the victim’s family members to you would not be seen suspiciously-”

“The other way around,” I said. “I heard that a noble family was looking for an Angel’s Sorrow cure. It wasn’t anything suspicious, just rumors on the wind inside the alchemist circles. They probably had other methods in case Lady Karsin didn’t spread the information.”

Voltar nodded. “Either way, a test case. Make sure everything works before acting on the actual target.”

“Timing’s an issue,” I noted. “They gave Golvar cases of Angel’s Sorrow and sicced the Pure Bloods on him at the wrong time. That’s something to do at the end of the scheme: frame your party after people are nearing your trail. Maybe give him the case and let him reach Versalicci. Small hitch for them, Giovanni wouldn’t suddenly use something like that, even from a trusted associate.”

Dead trusted associates, as it turned out. Voltar and Dawes had gone to Maldron’s Herbs. The entire shop had been cleared out, empty. After a meeting with Malstein, Maldron and his wife had been found among the bodies the Watch fished weekly out of the Nover, throats slit.

A dead end.

“The plan might have hinged on him using some himself. Make the connection to the Black Flame more clear,” I continued. “But then they also used the Pure Bloods immediately, which makes mush of everything. I’m wondering if we’re facing disharmony.”

Voltar drummed his fingers. “Potentially. I always prefer to see strength in the moves of an enemy I don’t understand instead of weakness. It makes it harder for them to surprise me. The simplest solution also works. A pair of poisonings is always planned, with a quick and easy scapegoat. I’m brought in to ferret out your identity quickly to put a bow on the entire thing.”

“The public and the watch’s opinion on Infernals has never been great either,” Dawes noted. “With the recent marches, they might have counted on a whiff of Infernals being behind poisonings to cause riots that might help bury the entire matter.”

“There’s still a lot of weak points in that plan,” I argued. “They knew I was Black Flame, but didn’t know I was a diabolist. They brought you and Versalicci in, hoping you would be patsies for them. Hoping six Pure Bloods would be enough to take down Golvar.”

“All holes for now in the theory,” Voltar said. “But the other alternatives have even less known. Preparing for every possible event that might occur is a good way to drive yourself to insanity.”

“Fair enough.”

We’d covered what we’d been able to find on our own, which was nothing. And what Lord Montague had provided. Also nothing.

That left one remaining option.

“How about your friends?” I asked Dawes. “Anything from them on this mess?”

“Very little,” he told me. “Confirmation they are aware of the situation and plan to address it. They don’t consider me worth being kept in the loop, but if I had to guess this probably presents an intriguing opportunity to them.”

“Well, that’s terrifying,” I replied. “Allow me to be unpatriotic for a moment. Imperial Intelligence getting ahold of some shape-changers terrifies me.”

Neither of the other two commented, but I didn’t think they disagreed with me.

***

The second day was spent getting my new face in place.

I looked in the mirror carefully, willing fat and skin to move as I carefully nudged the flesh into place. The third hour, and I’d only just now finished winnowing and moving bones about to their new configuration. Unfortunately, moving any swifter had a good chance of making a bone break out of my skin, but skin and fat had less calamitous effects if I messed up on it.

Just easier to mess up.

Someone opened the hatch behind me, and slammed the half a foot thick hatch onto the attic’s floor. Vibrations traveled quickly. The skin on my face rippled like the surface of a pond before I froze it in place. Waves of fat and flesh were frozen, forming raised ridges running across my face.

I turned a baleful glare on the open hatch, trying to force the anger out of my voice as I spoke.

“Come in.”

Voltar’s head poked out above the floor.

“Miss Harrow, I was wondering if you could…”

The rest of his sentence died in his throat as I stared at him.

“I said earlier this morning I should be undisturbed,” I told him. “I said it was because I was going to be adjusting my face, which will require the utmost concentration and stillness. What. Do. You. Want?”

Voltar coughed uncomfortably.

“Messages for your brother,” he said, holding up a sheet of paper. “As loath as I am to involve him, there might be a few matters he should know. Since you are the closest to him, I thought it best for you to deliver him.”

“Put them next to the hatch. I’ll do it tonight if possible, although it’ll probably be the day after tomorrow.”

He set them next to the hatch, then smiled apologetically.

“I am sorry. What you said earlier completely left my mind. You look nice?”

I stared at him, frozen rippling waves of flesh across a face hanging on an entirely different bone structure than it was used to.

“What you’re aiming for, I mean,” he said. “Not where it’s currently at.”

I gestured wordlessly at the hatch.

“Right. Again, I am sorry.”

The hatch slammed close.

It took half an hour to smooth out those ridges.