“Malvia?” someone asked me. I couldn’t tell who, but I got my laughter under control.

“Sorry,” I said as I passed the piece of paper back to Dawes. “I simply can not believe how gullible those Pure Bloods are to fall for this. This must be fake.”

It had to be fake. Sure, the Church of Halpus hated Infernals. Sure, they’d been making moves recently. But there was a difference between that and this, a signed writ directly beseeching some random human street gang for help. Sure, it said the bearers were servants of the church instead of shape-changers, and they’d made it so some bishop had signed instead of the church’s head, but this blatant a piece of evidence? Clearly faked.

“The seal looks very authentic,” Dawes said shakily, looking over the paper again. “Some others have it as well, and those are at least more easy to confirm.”

I looked over at Malstein. This was, after all, his show, and I’d already stepped on his toes. A hundred Watch eyes affixed on me did a good job of reminding me to tread carefully. Malstein nodded, and I went to the rest of the papers, going through them.

Lists of equipment to be delivered, among them for alchemical supplies. Seems like the Pure Bloods were doing a lot of the grunt work, which seemed strange. With that warehouse, the shape-changers clearly had either the ability to move cargo or their own people they trusted. More lists, various weapons. A few targets to help the bearers of these paper with, some to kill on their own.

One was where Golvar would be, what time he should reach that little alchemist shop Gio had sent him to, where they should ambush him. How many of the Pure Bloods should be sent. The attempt that had started my involvement in this mess.

“This is too obvious,” I said. “This is a mountain of evidence implicating the church. There is not a remote possibility they would risk having their name dragged into this. It wasn’t just wreaking havoc in the Quarter, they targeted the nobility!”

Malstein had leafed through the papers now, looking at each carefully.

“It’s in the hands of a bishop,” Malstein said. “I know this one. There were questions involving some purchases she made on the church’s behalf before. She could be a rogue. Or a changer.”

I frowned. “Could a changer even wield divine magic? Be a devout follower, so if one replaced an existing bishop, they shouldn’t be able to touch the divine to the same extent, correct?”

“That’s assuming one isn’t a devout follower,” Tagashin chimed in from where she sat on one of the few intact chairs. Or that a changer could join the church as a devout follower and naturally rise the ranks.”

I frowned. That was also a possibility, as was this just being church corruption? Perhaps the bishop was willing to be bought. One fact clicked into place. A potential answer.

“A devout bishop could summon a divine creature capable of providing ichor for the poison,” I said. “If it fits within the broad goals of their deity’s goals, there wouldn’t be any issue. Although the celestial would hardly be happy with what happened. But you wouldn’t need to imprison it. Just take a little blood and banish it before anyone notices.”

Repeated summoning would take a lot out of the caster, but could if paced well you could manage them. A lot of money in reagents, but money didn’t seem too large an issue, from what I’d seen of their operation and Hawkins’s talk. Not enough where someone hadn’t considered engaging in what they’d tried to frame me for, but enough to manage. Especially if the Bishop would pilfer from inside the church.

Another piece of the puzzle. Some were still missing, but we could test its shape and see how it felt.

I went through the rest of the papers first. Nothing too useful, equipment to be retrieved, members of the gang to bring down, parts of the underground to check for signs of activity. Most of these had been sent by the Changers, with regular ones from the bishop telling them to obey the people sent to oversee them and not to worry about the details. There were instructions to burn after reading at the bottom of each.

Clearly, someone had collected these instead and hide them with Kalasyp as insurance. A point in favor of the bishop being real, since I doubted anyone who would take that precaution would trust a scrap of paper with a seal.

Then again, they’d been fooled into thinking Lord Montague supported them, and some of these papers mentioned his support as well. If I wanted to add a fake noble just to embolden the thugs, I’d go for someone with more name recognition and prominence. The bishop might be fake as well.

One last quick read-through of them all. A lot of moved goods. This place probably had been a waystation for the lab, stuff stored here till the Changers were ready to move it to the lab. It likely lay further underground, safety in where the Delvers had not yet gotten to.

“Let’s piece this together,” I said, looking around the vast room. Some of the Watch had left, taking up posts in the surrounding tunnels, others still inside to guard. Others were helping to get Kalasyp into a condition to move to the surface. “We’ve got a space. We’ve got details. We don’t have the criminals, but that’s going to end up being difficult no matter what we do.”

Tagashin cleared her throat. “Excuse me, are you trying to steal the climatic revelation from I, Voltar, the greatest of all detectives?”

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Okay, I was going to test Malstein or Gregory when I had a chance. Being exposed to as much glamour as Tagashin must be pumping into them could not be healthy.

“It’s not much of a mystery,” I said. “Well, it was, but that’s because everyone has been colliding with each other, including the Changers. Hawkins’ interrogation gave the impression they aren’t working as closely together as we might think. So, unless you think this is truly worth a dissection worthy of your mind, Mr. Voltar?”

Tagashin considered me for a second, then shrugged.

“Very well then, apprentice,” she said. “You have the bloodstained floor.”

Had she informed the real Voltar about this apprentice idea? Probably not. I clopped to the middle of the floor, being watched by some idle Watch, a barely there Kalaysp, Dawes, Malstein, and a smirking Tagashin.

“Our story begins several hundred years ago,” I began. “With an attempted takeover of the Duchy of Anvlia by a minor son of the ruling dynasty, Dustin Tarry.”

“Starting on shaky ground,” Tagashin interrupted. “Evidence that none of us have seen and is based on your interpretation of a book title. Poor show.”

I glared at the Kitsune. “Perhaps the great Voltar would wish to come up here and show his apprentice how it’s done? Or perhaps just accept this is a theory?”

The Kitsuné could chafe as much as she liked. I would not let her derail this. She remained quiet, so I continued.

“It failed. The random chaos of adventuring parties of the time doing what they did best uncovered the infiltration of one of the more minor houses of the Duchy. Over several decades the efforts of other adventuring groups and the king’s army slowed, stopped, and then reversed the takeover and also caught the Changer’s creator. They did not, however, catch all the Changers.”

“Reasonable,” Tagashin said. “If we assume these are his shape-changers.”

“We’ve got decent evidence Lord Montague is leading them now,” Dawes reminded her. “He had to have something to accomplish that. What they wanted would be enough.”

“Likely, but that’s getting a little too ahead of ourselves,” I said. “Instead of hiding out in the countryside, they come here to the big city. They probably started small. No name immigrants coming in looking for work. As they got used to the city, they probably started picking off ideal targets and replacing them. Loners, people who they could impersonate where a personality shift wouldn’t be noticed by close friends or family. They use that to slowly gain more power and influence.”

Essentially, what Gio had done, just with less bribery, threats, and demonic possession and more murder. Had their operations bumped up against each other before? That might be part of why the Flame had been a target in this.

“They get to work setting up fake identities and stockpiling,” I said. “The warehouse was evidence of that. What were they doing? Surviving, if I had to guess. If there was a central goal, it eludes me.”

No disagreement so far.

“So,” I said. “The changers put someone in the Church of Halpus a few decades back. Or more accurately, one signs up of their own free will. We’re talking about an actual follower. It could be she split from them initially or not. She rises in the ranks till she reaches the bishopric. I don’t think they planned on that being useful, but maybe they discovered this next point further back than I thought.”

“At some point, one of them finds out Dustin Tarry’s testimony is locked in the archives, as well as other accounts. And this sets everything off. Dustin Tarry was a Biosculptor, one who created a race. Two things any Biosculptor learns to do with any created life forms are remove their ability to make more of themselves and make them have a weakness you can exploit. You can pick whichever of those reasons they pursued it, but they wanted it.”

“If it’s the weakness, I don’t see why,” Malstein said. “They’re already hard enough to take down as it is.”

“It would be something Tarry was sure they wouldn’t encounter regularly or even semi-regularly,” I said. “He designed them as infiltrators. Anything that could kill them or weaken them would be something he had access to, but no one else could use. It could be a word. It could be a special alloy. Actually no. It would be something he could make with nothing else, so a phrase, a word, something anyone could produce but most never would.”

“Foreign language?” Malstein suggested. “Empire was a kingdom back then, and much less of a melting point. Could be he picked up a phrase he figured no one would say.”

“Possibly, depends how far afield. Or it could be how to make more of them.”

“So they hatch the plan to replace Lord Montague’s heir?” Tagashin asks. “Realizing that the old man probably has far too defined of a personality to replace.”

“Yes, and they decide on a poison that, when cured more often than not results in personality changes for the survivor,” I said. “Removing any need to fool close relatives. Probably the heir, possibly because if they poisoned Lord Montague, the royal family would remove the house’s management of the archives as a precaution against a fight among potential heirs and other power grab attempts. And that leads us into their efforts to put that into reality.”

“And ended up falling into ruin from pure chance or divine intervention,” Doctor Dawes noted.

“I wouldn’t be on divine intervention keeping Golvar alive,” I deadpanned. “But yes, him running across me-”

“When you were disguised as their chosen fall woman, Falara,” Tagashin noted, which got a choked sound of panic and shock out of a slowly eating Kalasyp who stared at me in disbelief.

“Yes, thank you for that fact everyone definitely needed to know,” I told her. “But yes, things got screwed up from there. The Watch never found the box of Angel’s Sorrow they were supposed to find Golvar delivering to Versalicci. I ended up discovering something strange was going on and also they got greedy and sent a change to my lab trying to get the cures. Someone panicked and ransacked my apartment, stealing my possessions, probably as evidence in Lord Montague’s mock trial. Then that went wrong, and I escaped, and they’ve been winging things since then.”

The events leading up to there needed less discussion. It was a lot of conjecture, but it hung on what was known, and we had a new figure to grab and maybe unravel this entire mess with. Of course, that depended on Malstein being more willing to go after a member of the church than he had been a noble.

And there was a more immediate question.

A dozen shifters. Thirteen, if you believed my suspicions about Lady Karsin. Maybe two less now? The Archives were on lockdown and none of us had an answer on if the two changers who had gone inside ever came out.

“This is too easy,” I muttered. “Think, they knew we were coming down the Pure Blood’s hideout. Sure, we’ve brought their numbers down a little, but even if the two at the archives never made it out, there would be more than enough to ambush us. Kill us even. Why not?”

“One question no one has thought to answer,” Tagashin said. “If they can summon another celestial, or even if they have all the poison they need, why would they need the basilisk anymore?”

Silence broke out at that. Then a scream, more screams that suddenly stopped. Cut off in an instant, and a low sibilant hiss echoed across the tunnel halls, building into a roar matched by Kalasyp’s sudden ragged scream.

Basilisk.