Kano fell asleep with the light on in the room the Red Company had provided for her, and after waking she lay there staring up at the light. She realized that this building had power. So had the factory, along with the rest of the city. Which meant Eomonsa had specifically cut off the citadel, and only the citadel. Feuds between necromancers, or whatever Eomonsa was exactly, were hardly uncommon, but why did he care so much about what An was doing?

As far as Kano knew, disrupting An’s current project would provide little immediate advantage if the two were to have a little war. So why was he going to so much trouble? There may be some hidden aspect of An’s work that she wasn’t appreciating, but how did Eomonsa know about that? Did he have some prior connection with An?

There was a good chance An didn’t have most of the answers Kano sought, and she didn’t want to go back to the citadel after their argument anyway, so she decided to seek out Eomonsa again. Besides, she’d told Miusvon she’d find out the source of the attacks. She wasn’t exactly on their side anymore, but it didn’t hurt to fulfill her agreement.

He’d said he only needed the power plant for twenty-four hours, and presuming he was telling the truth, whatever he was up to would be happening soon. Now that she thought about it, Kano would very much like to know what exactly he was doing before it happened. Stopping it would be even better, but that would probably have to wait until she knew what it was.

The first logical step was to see if Sherp had discovered anything about where he might be hiding out, so Kano left the Red Company and went to Sherp’s office. The dirty, precariously teetering building looked much the same as ever, and as Kano climbed the stairs, she heard someone speaking. It was too quiet for her to make out who it was or what they were saying, but there was definitely someone talking inside.

There was a frantic edge to whatever they were saying that put Kano immediately on guard. Had Eomonsa already caught wind of the investigation and sent someone to interrogate the detective? Intent on rushing in and saving whatever information might be left, Kano kicked open the door.

Sitting behind her desk, Sherp jumped at the sudden intrusion. “What?” she squeaked, eyes wide with alarm.

“Who were you talking to?” Kano asked, scanning the room for the other party.

“N-no one, I was just talking to myself.”

Kano narrowed her eyes. The detective must have had a lot to say to herself. There seemed to be quite a conversation going on from what Kano heard. It seemed strange, even for Sherp, but not unthinkable.

“Why were you talking to yourself? Have you figured anything out about Eomonsa or where he might be?”

“Um, sort of,” Sherp said, licking her lips nervously. “I have a theory I’m working on but not much concrete so far.”

Pulling up a chair, Kano sat down opposite her. “Let’s start with the facts. What do you know for sure?”

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After rubbing her eyes and taking a drink, Sherp cleared her throat and began. “Well, as I said, ghouls have been disappearing all over the city. From what I heard, they just wander off, but it only seems to happen at night.”

Kano had already known all that of that except for when they went missing. “Any idea why it only happens at night?”

“Not really. Though I’m currently working under the assumption that it’s being done at night to attract less attention.”

“How successful have they been at that? Have many people noticed what’s happening?”

“Quite a few at this point. Given the scale of the disappearances, it would be hard for them not to. But no one I’ve talked to so far has any real idea of what’s happening.”

Tapping her foot, Kano mulled it over. If there were no direct witnesses—and she’d have expected their accounts to have spread widely by this point if there were—then whatever Eomonsa was doing must affect reasonably large groups at the same time.

“Have you been able to find any sort of pattern to the disappearances?”

Sherp shook her head. “Once I had an idea of just how many people were going missing, that was the first thing I looked at, but I haven’t been able to turn up much beyond that it mostly seems to be focused around the poorer parts of town, which might just be because they’re the most densely populated.”

“So you don’t have any leads on where he might be hiding out?”

“None. I haven’t even been able to find anyone who knew his name. Are you sure you’ve got it right?”

Kano shrugged. “It’s definitely the one he gave me, for whatever that’s worth. It sounds like you haven’t found any worthwhile information.”

Hunching in her chair, Sherp said, “That’s not entirely true. I haven’t been able to find anything about the man himself, but I did figure out where a fair number of his ghouls have gone.”

Kano leaned forward. Finally something she could use. “Where? And why aren’t you there right now?”

“It’s an old warehouse on the south side. And I did watch it for a while, but more ghouls were arriving, and it didn’t seem like they’d be leaving anytime soon. So I thought I’d look for more information and try to put things together more before I went back there. It’s not like I could go in there, anyway. And there was only so much I could see from the outside.”

Already thinking about the prospect of storming the place, Kano was only half listening. “Then we should get in there before they move,” she said, standing up.

Sherp raised her hands. “No, no. Even if you did kill them all, we wouldn’t learn anything from it. Much better to wait and see where they go from there.”

Much as Kano was sick of waiting and wanted to rush in heedless of the actual use of what she was doing, she sat back down. It would be incredibly foolish to squander the only useful bit of information they had about Eomonsa. Sherp was right. They should wait until the ghouls were ready to move out and headed to do whatever they were assembled for.

Kano was about to say they should just watch and wait when a thought struck her. “How far away is this warehouse from the power plant?”

“Uh, not that far, I think. Why do you ask? Is that important somehow?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure yet.” It was hard to say for sure, but what if whatever Eomonsa was using the power for was going on in that very warehouse, Kano was wondering how she was going to see what was happening inside without alerting anyone when she remembered that Himin had disguised herself as one of Eomonsa’s minions.

It seemed a fine approach, but Kano had no idea how she’d managed it. Surely it couldn’t be as simple as just pretending you were one of them and wearing more or less similar clothing. And even if it was as simple as that, Kano wouldn’t be able to pass for one of the ghouls. No, seeking out Himin and forcing her to handle it definitely seemed like the easiest way.

“Forget about Eomonsa for the moment,” Kano said. “I need you to find someone else. Do you know who Himin is?”

“The ghoul who used to work for Shorin? Yeah, I know her.”

“Good, take me to her.”