Chapter Sixteen

The morgue was full.

It was also silent.

Green tiles were underfoot, all of them gleaming - they were cleaned every day, apparently. No doctors waiting for them, just a stink of preservative chemicals that hung heavily in the air. The building itself was squat and grey, no-one had intended for it to be pretty. Hadn't even been grey, honestly. More... white that had slowly been stained by rain until it had become the shade of the water that flowed into the drains outside laundries. Stucco, and it wept. Worse, there was pale scaffolding all over it, wood that was probably growing soft and spongy under the influence of water. The scaffolding itself wasn't bad, but the way it formed a kind of hollow rib cage over the weeping grey-ish mass of the morgue... it made the whole thing look like something that ought to be interned in a bigger morgue, a morgue for corpse-like architecture. Along with the tiles which made her think of the strange dead-lights which bloomed in the theurgists' labs late at night... it wasn't a pretty picture. And no-one was talking to her. It felt like it was Hull, herself, and no-one else in the entire world.

Carza buried her head in her hands, relishing in the cold. They were sat on a low wooden bench, and her thoughts were running too quickly. Observations occurred without any rhyme or reason. The stink of preservative chemicals that felt like it was slowly impregnating her clothes, infecting them to the point that no amount of cleaning would really make it give up. Idly, she noticed that all the signs on the walls were in a different script to anything she'd previously seen - it wasn't in the language of Mahar Jovan, that much was for sure. Maybe the local tongue? It seemed... odd that a morgue presumably funded by and run by colonials would only have signs in the local language, but... hm. No-one was around. Heavy metal doors led to cold rooms where theurgic contraptions kept the bodies from rotting. And there were many. Small glass windows looked out onto huge storage rooms, rack upon rack upon rack, bodies mounted on them and barely concealed under white sheets. An idle memory. When she was younger, the Court of Chalk ran all the slaughterhouses in town, but the butchers worked for the Court of Salt. Which meant that sometimes whole carts were mounted up with dead pigs and shipped off. This morgue reminded her of that. Dead legs poked out like the trotters of pigs taken to the butchers' shops a corpse-cart.

She shivered.

Hull nodded suddenly, almost falling asleep.

At least it was cool in here. It stank, but it was cool.

He mumbled.

"What was that?"

"Hm?"

"You said something."

"Did I?"

"Yes. What was it?"

"...just wondering why it's so damn quiet."

Carza shivered. She had an idea. But she didn't want to express it. Maybe all the people here had gone off to work on wounded soldiers. Or maybe they'd decided to cut their losses and run. Take the next train out of Krodaw and into the wilderness, to any city that might have need for more morgue workers. The bodies weren't being autopsied or studied, they were just... here. Here because no-one had the time to put together a mass grave, and no-one wanted rotting bodies near inhabited areas. She could already imagine the governor ordering people around, telling them what to do. Can't have disease and panic, eh. Ought to keep the bodies in cold storage, eh. Don't worry about disposing of them, soon as we have time we'll have our soldiers take care of them, real chop-chop, don't you know. Oh, Founder, she was already internalising his speech patterns. Anyway.

At long last, someone came in. A local, dark hair cropped closely to his head, eyes heavy with weariness. His fingers were stained with unnameable substances where he'd been at work, and he didn't seem to be wearing a doctor's uniform. Not one Carza recognised, at least. He was just wearing... well, loose clothes, the kind she'd seen on the street. But then she saw the marks. His chest was clear, but his arms were a little stained around the elbows and shoulders, and his shoes were soaked through with something dark and unpleasant. He'd been wearing an apron and gloves until recently, she realised. A doctor, or what passed for one. He spoke slowly, in very hesitant city-speak.

"Scholars?"

They both nodded silently. He asked for no further credentials. Maybe the tattoos did it... or the fact that literally no-one else was here. He gestured awkwardly over his shoulder, and led them away, into the bowels. She realised that the top layers were for the mass storage - piles of bodies that could be claimed if someone was so inclined, shopping around to see which tags they recognised. But down here was where the work actually occurred. A shadowy spiral staircase wound round and round and round a slender pillar, and she felt like she was descending the vertebrae of a spine, each step a faded yellow under the light of the theurgic illuminators. No idea how the things worked, but they cast no shadows, and shone without a single flicker. Unnatural - none of the life of an oil lamp or a roaring fire, just... light, projected out from tiny alcoves shaded with frosted glass which dispersed the light and prevented it even from glaring. It was nothing - stare at it, and no after-images developed. Look away, and find no shadows, just the same dull, flat pane of light.

Made her feel gritty, like she'd just rolled around on a rain-slicked beach.

They were led down a long passage filled with more metal doors, and she could distantly hear trolleys squeaking. Hull gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, and the local man unlocked one of the doors, showing them inside.

Carza gasped, her eyes widened, and her hands flew to her mouth.

Cam was lying on the table. Unmistakeably him. The same short, broad frame, with black locks spilling around his head and the letters of his name branded on his face - one letter under each eye, and a final one on the bridge of his nose. He wore the marks of a god - the Mountain-Leap-Weaver. A god who once explored the mountains of the world, and who wore his hair in braids wound around tiny glass beads. Unmistakeable. He was a god. He was one of her hires. And he was dead. A cloth was draped over his groin for the sake of decency, but otherwise he was exposed to the harsh lighting. Carza saw that his skin had been pierced several times, but blood no longer flowed - congealed in his veins and arteries, incapable of doing much more than rotting at this point. Deathly pale. She couldn't look away from his eyes. Wide and frightened. She tried to speak. Tried to say something useful, but... but her mouth wasn't working. Hull wasn't doing much better. It took time, but the local seemed to realise that they weren't going to recover any time soon, and he broke the rotten silence.

"He is friend?"

Hull spoke quietly, his voice low and cautious. None of them were sure how to feel right now.

"Hire. Employee."

"Hm."

Carza finally managed to speak.

"How?"

The local stumped forwards - he was wearing heavy boots, waterproofed. That seemed to disturb Carza, and she wasn't sure why. Maybe it was the thought of pale bodies piling up, blood spilling and running into drains, the stink of preservative fluids in the air and mingling with the copper...

He poked at Cam's side, and Carza almost threw up.

"Stab. One, two, three. Beaten, bone break. One, two. Bleeds. Dies."

He shrugged.

"Sorry."

Carza felt numb. Hull took over.

"Where are the others?"

The local tilted his head to the side, shrugging helplessly. It was a gesture she might've found endearing. Once. Now she could only think about the image of him in an apron and gloves. All she could think of was a sink in the corner of the room with two heavy waterproofed gloves soaking in a foaming pile of hot water, boiling off the remnants of flesh. She could see incisions. Had he... had he rummaged inside? She wasn't sure if she wanted a cigarillo, some liquor, or... or just to go home. She wanted to go home. Cam stared sightlessly at the ceiling, and she could see a slow drip to the ground from his finger - clear liquid, drip, drip, drip, preservative fluid, they were stopping him from rotting on the slab. The heat would make metal spoil quickly. She remembered an old theory, long-debunked. That maggots simply emerged in dead things. Spontaneous generation. No notion of flies laying eggs. She could see why people had come to that conclusion. She hadn't blinked since she'd seen Cam, and her vision was swimming, which made his flesh look like it was crawling. Ready to breed little white bodies that could squirm over the shining green tiles. Maybe that was why the man here wore such heavy boots.

She gulped again, and tasted that same acrid stench. The local man finally talked, understanding what Hull was getting at.

"Other room."

He looked cautiously at Carza.

"She?"

Hull wrapped an arm around Carza's shoulders, and murmured in Tralkic - was she alright? Did she need help? The local man grunted irritably, and stumped off to grab a dark green bottle, unlabelled, which smelled like something between jellied fuel and liquid death. A quick glass was poured of it, and thrust in her unresisting hands. It stank. But it felt strong. She demurely and automatically sipped it... and immediately felt calm rushing through her. But that calm unwound some crucial supportive piece of tension, and she sagged into Hull, using him to keep her upright now that her legs weren't quite doing the job. Cam was dead. Cam had been stabbed. Cam had been beaten. Cam had died while she was feasting. She'd only known him for about a day. And he was dead. Why? What was the point? Who had done it? He looked so... small. Memories kept flooding back. Other bodies she'd seen. First time she'd seen one she recognised. Even her own mother hadn't been like this, exposed on a metal slab. Hadn't even seen her mother's body after the fever took her. A doctor took care of her, and disposed of the body when the time came. Then Carza had ran. Hadn't really stopped until she was curled up with Melqua in the Court of Ivory. And now she felt a similar urge. Run back to the mission. Do whatever was necessary to get back home. Damn the consequences, damn being exiled, just get back to a city where this didn't happen, run away from the others, run away before... before...

She sipped, and sagged more into Hull, who barely seemed steadier than she was. The two hobbled awkwardly out of the room, Hull receiving a glass of the strange liquor for himself. Tasted like nothing Carza had ever tried, and she couldn't even bring herself to describe it.

A small room.

A few chairs.

A break room for the surgeons and butchers that made sure people would fit in their wooden boxes before they went underground. And in it... three other people. Lirana. Egg. And Anthan. Cam was gone. Cam was lying naked on a slab with his blood cold and his organs surrounded with substances that stopped him from turning into rotten sludge before he could get home. The coldness of the world kept piercing into Carza's innards, even though she wanted the liquor to warm her.

Three facing two.

Lirana looked shaken. Pale. Her eyes kept flicking around. Her teeth were chewing themselves, hunting for leaves that she'd either left behind or simply run out of. Anthan had his hands locked around his knees, while he stared vacantly at the floor while his jaw occasionally clenched. And Egg... Egg was soaked with blood, and was quietly murmuring over a tiny set of charms and figurines, all of them well-worn from months, years of devotion. His eyes were closed, but she imagined they would be vacant. The three did nothing - only a glance to confirm who it was, and then back to their own forms of mourning. Or brooding. Or... shock. Hard to say where it lay for Lirana and Anthan. At least Egg could be confirmed as a mourning individual. Carza sat down heavily, and Hull beside her. The local man left swiftly, unwilling to confront their awkwardness. No papers to sign, just the common decency of a quiet room to figure things out. That, or he didn't speak any language they spoke, and didn't want to play charades with a bunch of mourners.

She let out a long, shuddering breath.

Not sure if she could stand up again.

She nudged Hull. Felt like a rotten coward doing it, but... it'd been a big night, and she really couldn't stomach talking again.

"...so... so what happened?"

He sounded shaken. Fair enough. They were just going on an expedition, the worst danger was meant to be the elements, the wildlife, not... not some random attack in a city that was meant to be safe. A little point of safety before the wilderness. And yet here they were. In a morgue. With Cam on a slab down the hall, everything about him slowly decaying no matter what the temperature and the clear fluid said to the contrary.

She sipped. And wished the man had left the liquor behind, just to stop this feeling in her chest.

Anthan spoke only when it became obvious no-one else wanted to. Egg's lips moved constantly as he prayed to his gods, made sure that his friend's soul was... no idea. Did they have an afterlife? Was there a cycle of reincarnation? Was there nothing after death, or was it so ambiguous as to be close to nothing? Anthropologically, she felt compelled to ask. As a human... she didn't dare. Didn't want to. Too tired. Too drained.

Anthan's voice was low and empty.

"We were out drinking. Going from cat-house to cat-house once we were drunk enough. Something for Lirana in there too, just as much as for us. It was all harmless for a while. We were going to find a place to sleep - the cat-houses are decent enough, if you keep hold of your money. Memory's fuzzy about some of it. Too drunk. We were... we were in this bar, just topping up before we went to the next cat-house, then we were going to settle down for the night... then this man went mad. Don't know why. But he started demanding drinks. We thought he was out of money, said nothing. Just wanted to get drunk and leave. That was it. He started challenging people. Something about Egg set him off. Don't know what. Maybe he smiled, I don't know. But the guy went... he went fucking insane when Egg refused to fight him or finance him."

Carza was too tired to even challenge his vulgarity.

"It's all a blur after that. Egg punched him, the guy went over the bar. Came up with a bottle of tequila. Smashed it, starting slicing with the broken end. Egg got cut up his arm, Lirana was reaching for a cudgel to break his skull open, and then... then he went for Egg's throat, and Cam jumped in front, too the slash. Things were in chaos then. The guy was screaming in a language we didn't understand... and then he leapt over the bar, and starting trying to get to anyone he could reach. Not very busy place, or he'd have been taken care of sooner. Egg was trying to get Cam away. Lirana was about to start beating him, and I was just trying to stop him from slicing my throat. Then... then he went for Cam again. Sight of blood just got him enraged. he went for Cam, and Egg was trying to drag him out so he couldn't protect him, and... and he managed to stab him a few more times. Pretty deep."

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Hull gestured.

"Then?"

Lirana growled.

"I beat his brains across the floor."

Carza stared at her. Lirana stared back, challenging her, demanding some form of judgement. Her hands were red, not from blood, but from where she'd scrubbed them until the skin was on the verge of breaking. Carza didn't challenge her. No moral judgements about whether it was right to beat a man to death. He'd killed Cam. He would've gone for the others. She'd barely even known him, but... he wouldn't have been in this city if she hadn't hired him. If he wasn't hired, he'd have remained in ALD IOM, in a city which, by her estimations, was just south of perfect. She'd dragged him away from that to come on her own wild goose chase, and like that, he'd just been... snuffed out. Because someone went insane in a bar and decided to turn violent.

...or was it?

...maybe... maybe something else was going on.

Paranoia crawled over her skin like a mass of insects. Had the Court of Salt done this? Or maybe the Sleepless? The latter, going against a foreigner who'd been going from... cat-house to cat-house, by Anthan's own admission. Or the former, going against any notions she had of basic courtly decency, resorting to common murder... but if they had, why would the man have been so dedicated to killing Cam, why wouldn't he have retreated? And... and... and the man, the local man, he'd said that he was beaten, too - how had that happened? She felt something in her gut. Something which made her feel very, very, very nervous indeed. The man at the treasury, Mr. Tskhyz, he'd said not to trust anyone. And the governor had said that the Court of Salt might be working with the Sleepless. Might be. Could be. Possibly. Too many uncertainties. Egg looked up suddenly, and slowly, deliberately placed his charms and trinkets back into his jacket pocket. His fists were raw where he'd clearly exchange blows with the madman. His eyes were flat and solemn.

"There is an address for a sister in Fidelizh. Any wages should be sent to her, as per his request."

Hull nodded shakily. Carza couldn't bring herself to disagree. She'd gotten him killed. She ought to pay his sister anything he was owed. It was all budgeted in. Founder, she was thinking about the budget when a man was dead. Egg was... was this how grief worked for him? She'd only known it once, and years ago, before she really understood it. Childish. Was this how adults grieved? Was her being a paranoid mess some kind of failure on her part? Anthan pinched the bridge of his nose, breathing heavily. He looked like he was still processing the event... and any remaining alcohol in his system. A second later, he looked up, eyes bloodshot. He sprawled backwards in his chair, legs stretching out across the floor as he slowly, carefully moved himself into a more comfortable position. He studied Carza and Hull. Studied them like he was memorising their features. What? Had something happened? She had a nightmarish image of the madman who killed Cam screaming something about the expedition, or something that planted doubts in the heads of the people she was going to rely on up in the mountains, and... and...

She spoke.

"We should leave. Soon. As soon as we have a guide."

That was all she felt strong enough to say. Hull took over.

"Right. Yes. Of course. So... all of us should stick together in the mission. If we go out, we go out in large groups, we stick to good areas. If we want to get drunk, we get drunk in the mission, Marle should have plenty of bottles."

Good. Good. Excellent move. Nice and prepared. Paranoid, maybe. But it wasn't paranoia when things could actually go horrifically wrong. Lirana sagged slightly, and stared blankly at the wall, unseeing. Her hands kept trying to clutch something invisible. Instinctually reaching for something which wasn't there at all. A cudgel, maybe. A bottle, possibly. Something. Anything. An anchor. Carza felt some kinship there. With some effort, Egg stood, brushing his clothes down. He looked sad, but... she remembered him talking about being a soldier. Maybe he was used to losing people. The governor had lost almost his whole squad, and he was still mostly functional. Maybe... maybe Egg would be alright. She had nothing to say, nothing she could say.

"I will attend to his removal, if I may. There are rites which must be performed. If there are any duties you require of me, please, ask them after tomorrow. I'll look into options for his body."

Carza looked up suddenly, a little strength flaring.

"I'll talk to the governor if I can. Maybe he can arrange for Cam to go back to Fidelizh."

Egg walked over, slowly, and placed a huge hand on her thin shoulder. He smiled kindly.

"Thank you. That's very kind."

And with that, he was gone. Going to perform last rites. And they were alone.

Soldiers came to clear them out after almost a full hour passed in painful silence, none of the four willing to talk to one another about it. Lirana looked ready to collapse, and Anthan was just... drained and sorrowful. She got the feeling that he'd seen this sort of thing many, many times. And that he was simply... resigned to it now. Much like Egg. Blue coats and red trousers, splashes of colour in the monotonous halls of the morgue. A well-groomed soldier at the head, clearly well-rested based on how fresh he looked. His city-speak was surprisingly good.

Time to go back to the mission. He was to provide an escort. She tried to think... to think politically. Maybe the governor was being nice, or maybe he thought that this was an attack by the Sleepless and didn't want the debacle of revenge killings against foreigners in his city. Last thing he needed - a total collapse in trust by the foreigners at his disposal, who relied on his authority to conduct business in this strange, strange place.

Marle asked no questions when she and the others came stumping in after curfew.

This time, Carza had no problem sleeping. The liquor had helped.

She managed a few hours before the sun broke through the window and cast itself on her prone form, sprawled on top of the bed, staring sightlessly at the ceiling as she mustered the willpower to remove, to get out of her chemise and pantalettes and into something decent.

Work.

She had to work.

If she stopped working, she'd lose herself.

* * *

She hadn't left the mission in a day now. More, maybe. Dining was small and primitive. Marle didn't really... cook. She just dumped a handful of eggs into boiling water, and ten minutes later finished them off in a boiling black sauce that was exceedingly salty and... remarkably tasty. That was breakfast. Just a bowl of brown, salty boiled eggs that she chewed without much thought. The others were silent as well. Work to be done. Always work. Right, there was... there was equipment, there was a guide. Marle said she'd find one of those. The three remaining hires went off in a group, promising to remain in the good parts of town. Hull had considered leaving... and Carza's firm hand on his elbow had kept him hear. She wasn't going to let him get slashed by some other madman who wanted to have a fight, and settled for a fight to the death at the drop of a hat. The world felt distinctly unreal as she sloped off to draft a letter to the governor. Couldn't just walk up to the palace and see him, had to have a letter conveyed and read at his earliest convenience. She spent hours drafting, redrafting, editing... making sure that it was the blandest, more respectful work she'd ever put together. The words all swam on the page, the typewriter's clunks felt almost sickly, like the mechanisms were struggling to force through some kind of tough membrane. Only when the sunlight shifted to stare her in the eyes did she realise how long it'd been...

Carza blinked.

Hours. She'd been writing for hours. How? She'd... she'd been writing a letter, nothing but a single piece of paper to be signed, sealed, and sent off to the palace, or delivered at her earliest convenience. Why couldn't she just get it done with? Why did movement feel slow... but why was time passing so quickly? It was a dangerous combination, one that made her want to sit back and let the hours speed by while her body stewed in its own thoughts. Not that she was thinking of... of anything. All her thoughts were wrapped in grey fog. She stared at the paper, at the swimming words, at the respectful syntax, at the tiny distortions - the mission only had cheap paper. She could see little distortions. Little areas where the pulp remained. Labyrinths, all of them. Had... had the equipment been found? A guide? The mission was silent. Alone? Maybe? She rose from her chair, and immediately leant against a wall, breathing heavily. Wanted to stay in this position - slightly hunched, almost fetal but still elevated, staring blankly at the cheaply plastered walls, letting the heat undulate over her...

She slapped herself in the face.

Again.

Harder.

She slapped hard.

Something seemed to break. A spark of adrenaline that made her want to move, to do something, anything. As long as it wasn't just sitting here staring at paper. Wasn't going outside. She was being spied on, maybe. She was being tracked, possibly. There were people out there who might well want her and her hires dead, and her friend. Quietly, she slipped through the narrow halls of the mission, passing closed wooden doors, ears peeled for any sound. Anyone. Anything. Hull. Wanted to find him. Make sure he hadn't done anything stupid like leave. She peered around a corner... and heard the scratching of a pen. Quietly, ever-so-quietly, she crept closer. A door. His door. With a slender hand, she pushed it open, and...

There he was.

Hull.

Hunched over his desk. Writing. Exercises from a book. Trying to brush up on his translation skills.

He turned sharply at the sound of his door opening, and Carza blinked a few times.

He raised one eyebrow, shrugged...

"Stay in here if you want to. I don't mind."

A clunk echoed as her typewriter settled on her legs. Barely a minute. She needed to be around someone else. She couldn't say why Cam's body had affected her so much... maybe she was just weak, or maybe she was just squeamish, or maybe it was an omen of things to come. Maybe it was her fault. Maybe she should feel worse about it. Maybe this entire expedition was going to turn out terribly, and it would be her fault. She typed quickly, trying to let work outpace her thoughts. And for a time... it actually somewhat worked. The letter was finished. Hull kept up his own work, offering her the use of his desk a few times - she always refused out of principle - and otherwise the two lingered in absolute silence. She could post the letter later. But for now... for now... she did nothing. She opened a book on Mahar Jovan's language, and worked steadily away at trying to memorise the rules of grammar, around which could be built a framework of vocabulary. She was good at this. Good with languages. It was a concrete goal for her, and one which she could easily hammer away at for hours, but... her fingers kept tapping against the page, and her mouth felt clotted, like something was between her teeth, or clinging to the roof of her mouth... she couldn't say what, but it made her feel thick and clumsy and now her back was itching, and... and...

She stared at the book.

Been staring at it for a good few hours now.

...when did she walk back to her own room?

Why bother?

Not like... like she had anything else to...

She coud write a letter to Melqua. She'd promised.

Dearest auntie,

Yesterday I saw a dead man. He died because I brought him here. And now I can't remember things. The governor's daughter frightened me greatly. The city is under siege by men who will scalp us if they think we're associated with the governor. I think Hull will die too.

Yours,

Your darling niece.

She tore up the letter. Too dark. Even for her. But what else was there to say? The eggs were good. The governor had a nice palace. The artillery had faded into the background once she was distracted by the dead body of someone she'd hired and brought here. She stared ahead...

And someone knocked at her door.

"Yes?"

Probably Hull, come along to-

Marana pushed it open and swept through,

Carza blinked.

Oh no.

"Oh, you wretch, you look ghastly. Come on, stand up."

Carza stared.

"Look, my father heard about that awful business last night, and he volunteered me to come and make sure everything was proceeding around here. He's arranged that patrol for you, and neither of us are going to let you miss it. So get up, before I ask my men to come in and get you up by force."

Her voice was cold and bored. None of the hungry, almost predatory interest from last night. What, when socialising with her was mandatory, it became boring? Only when she had absolute control did it become something she liked? She stood nonetheless. She fully believed Marana would order her men to come and haul her up. It felt... suitably invasive and disregarding of her own feelings. Nervousness was quivering up and down her spine, and she realised how... scruffy she was, her hair all over the place, her shirt unbuttoned a little too far, swear marking her skin and making her seem dirty. Marana, though, was as effortlessly well-groomed as always, and she seemed to fill the room up... while also not existing in it at all. Too clean. Too graceful. And that made her feel out-of-place, a drawing inserted into a photograph after it had been taken.

She strode over and flicked a strnad of hair out of Carza's eyes, something that made Carza immediately flinch backwards nervously.

"You silly creature. Did your hire die?"

She tilted her head to one side.

"My mother's handmaid was brutalised by the Sleepless, let me assure you, they won't want to kill you, not anytime soon at least. No interest in killing foreigners, and trust me, when they attack, you'll know they attacked."

She spoke like Carza was an idiot. That realisation sparked irritation. And that irritation sparked speech.

"Miss Marana, I'm afraid I'm quite busy. Thank you for your kind visit, but-"

"Oh, pish-tush. You look a wreck. Now, obviously you don't want to go outside. So either my men bring me my easel and I can paint here while you mope and perhaps soak up some of my artistic, creative energies..."

She tilted her head to the other side.

"Or we indulge in a little something else."

From irritation, to speech, to terror. What on earth was she talking about. Marana stalked over, a bag dangling from her shoulder jumping a little with each step. She was tall. She was graceful. She had an easy confidence which suggested that she knew her own capabilities and relished in them shamelessly. Carza stumbled backwards. She was legitimately frightened. Marana was unpredictable, her own father had compared her to a predator, and her arm still ached from where that long-fingered hand had clutched her. Her lips spread into a toothy smile, and Carza squeaked a little as her back impacted the opposite wall. Nowhere to run. Marana's grin widened, she reached into her bag... and she removed a tiny leather case. Carza blinked.

"Oh, don't look at me like that. This is quite the fashionable form of recreation back home, you know."

A needle was extracted. An injector followed. And a few tiny glass vials, covered with paper bags that obscured their contents. A long-fingered hand unclipped a clasp sealing her dress' sleeves, and Marana exposed a long, pale arm, broken by elegant blue veins, and... marks around the elbow. She sat delicately on the end of Carza's beg, crossing her legs over one another, and a happy hum escaped her lips as she began to prepare the needle, the injector, the vials, combining them into a single unit. Carza managed to speak.

"What is..."

"Cocaine, darling. Cocaine. Seven-percent solution, wonderfully potent. Your folk chew coca, don't they? Unrefined stuff, back home we've extracted something a little more potent from it, much more potent indeed. Used to just be medical, you know, for veterans in those awful wars a decade or so ago, but then they came back home and realised that what was necessary in wartime was splendidly enjoyable in peacetime. All the artists back home try it to keep themselves stable."

Carza winced as the needle slid into Marana's flesh. A depression... and the injector fired off. An immediate shudder ran through Marana's body, and her back arched while a low sigh of happiness escaped her. Her eyes were burning with renewed fire, the fruits of chemical catastrophe... but the rest of her relaxed considerably. She was pulsing with unnatural sensations now, her nerves must be crackling. Carza licked her lips. Cocaine...? She'd... heard about something like that, something popular outside ALD IOM, but it'd never quite reached them. Medical, though. Nothing... nothing like this. Her exposed arm was marked with innumerable scars marching up, down... it was almost artistic, like some sort of tattoo, a parody of her own graceful eye. Thoughts of mourning and strangeness were forgotten, and all Carza could see were those paper-wrapped glass vials... seven percent solution... she remembered coca. She loved the stuff, adored the way she wadded it up in her cheeks and extracted the juice over the course of a day - she knew she loved it because of how she drew out her sessions, never getting them over with quickly, always taking everything she could from what she had.

...that would take away everything.

She stared at the bottles. At Marana. At the way her long, clever fingers had already removed one needle and changed it for another, murmuring softly of hygiene. Well, it was good to know she was... she was responsible. Marana smiled, tilting her head back and letting her hair cascade downwards.

"Oh, you must try, you complete clot. All the artists are using it. It takes away the pain of existence, you know. Satisfies our burning minds that our bodies can't quite keep up with... one has a choice either to settle the mind down for a rest, or encourage the body to catch up with it by any means necessary. The latter kills you quickly, the former lets you recover from your... mental exertions. Please, you ought to. Just for once."

Carza stared.

She licked her lips.

Her eyes were wide.

Sweat was pooling in her collarbone.

"Get out."

Marana blinked lazily.

"What?"

"Get out. Now. And take your needle with you."

From irritation to speech to terror and now to anger. She had overcome her dependence on coca, she'd replaced it with a dependence on tobacco and tea. Coca put you out of your mind, and this looked much, much more potent. A single injection and she was acting like someone who'd been chewing leaves for hours and hours, maybe even more so than them. Marana stood slowly, her fingers twitching slightly.

"Repeat yourself."

"Get out of my room. Get out of my mission. Take this letter to your father, but do not come here to... to..."

She stopped. Marana walked slowly over, and her long fingers wrapped around Carza's shoulder, gripping tightly. Tight enough to leave marks. No idea if she was doing that deliberately, or if the cocaine in her system was making her more... more. Her smile was permanent, and her eyes burned. Did she start doing this to cope with stress at living in a place like Krodaw? Or was this a pre-existing habit? How did she get this stuff in a place like this?

"We could have some wonderful fun together, you silly little girl. You'll feel much better about-"

Carza slapped her in the face. The redness broke her smooth mask of cultivated beauty. Her eyes barely widened, but the redness... it was imperfection, it was damage. The letter, sealed and signed, was thrust into her unresponsive hands, and her mouth kept opening and closing. Good. Carza poked her in the chest, driving her back a step.

"Now take that back to your father, and don't offer that nonsense round here again. I apologise for my curtness. But please leave."

Marana glared... and her smile returned, a little more crooked. Honest, in a way.

"Alright then. Best of luck."

And with that... gone. With a click of the bedroom door, a clunk of the downstairs door, and a pitter-patter of numerous feet moving away down the cobbled streets... gone.

Had that been a hallucination? It felt like one. Carza hesitated for a moment before ripping open her box of cigarilloes, lighting one up, and sucking greedily until her mouth was full of smoke, and the room wasn't far behind.

Slapping her had felt good. Not in a sadistic way, just... just good. Like she'd taken control over something. Anything. She sat down calmly on her bed, where Marana had just been sitting. The scent of her hair - almond and rosewater - washed over her... and she barely paid attention. Already reopening her book on grammar, and continuing to study it. The irritation and anger had helped purge away the... the doldrums that had been consuming her all day. It helped keep her level, keep her sane. Keep from her unwinding entirely. She felt like a mechanism that needed a single, sharp kick to get moving again - and Marana had provided that kick. Maybe she'd known she was doing it, maybe it was unintentional, maybe this was all part of a genius plan, maybe Marana was just an addict who wanted a new spot to indulge her habits, while dragging someone down with her. Those scars on her arm... she'd been at this for a while.

Well. Sod her.

Sod her and sod the horse she rode in.

She had some damn work to do.

And she was damn well going to finish it.

And no damn insane damn cocaine-injecting damn heiress was going to get in her way.

Someone had died. And that was awful. And she'd be insulting him by giving up on the task which had contributed to his death. A man had died, and that was no reason for her to stop living properly.

Work could be done. Progress could be made. She'd done this before - diving into work in order to blot out the rest of the world and the things she'd seen in it, the squirming, unpleasant things that scarred and consumed... she'd done it before, and she'd damn well do it again.

Puffing determinedly away, she got back to work.

"Yola-furfaka..."

She murmured... what Lirana had said to her on the train when chastised for vulgarity.

"...a difficult to translate term which can be roughly equated to 'god shits, and you eat'."

She froze.

She'd slapped someone today.

And now she was intending to slap someone else.