CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE - THREE-TWO-THREE-FOUR?

"You mean that you miraculously allowed a man, hands bound to a chair, to escape from a locked, windowless room, with a single door, that you were guarding? You understand how that sounds. You understand how that leaves you. So I recommend, if you have any brain in those thick skulls of yours, if you have anything worth preserving, if you have anything useful, maybe, just maybe, I'll leave things here and now. And if you say nothing, then either you're idiots, or you're traitors, and until I find out which is which, you might as well be both, and you know what we do to idiots, you know what we do to traitors, and now you can imagine what we'll do to you. So, I recommend, if you have anything to say, anything at all, you say it here and now, and being aware of the consequences, I assume that if you say nothing, then you accept what comes your way."

Tanner shivered. Sersa Bayai wasn't yelling at them. His voice was a low, rasping whisper, shaking slightly with anger, but his eyes... his eyes made her think of chips of pure ice. He was beyond furious, The two guards stared at him blankly. Tanner could clearly see the horror in their expressions - the kind of horror that destroyed thought. They had no idea what was going on. And they had no way of proving their innocence, while their commander had every ability and reason to assume their guilt. Protests wouldn't work. No evidence could be found. All roads pointed to them. And nothing came out of their mouths beyond a feeble 'but it wasn't us'. Tanner glared down at them. Sized them up. Tried to figure out what they were thinking. Had they done it? Had they let Dyen out of his cell? Quietly, she pushed past the two as they continued to splutter - both of them sturdy, strong, career military men reduced to the demeanour of schoolboys by the flashing eyes of their commander. The room was much as she left it. Even still smelled of Dyen's sweat, like he'd been rubbing himself against the walls as if he were a dog leaving scent to mark his territory. Chunks of broken metal, heaps of dust, the stench of gunpowder... a single lantern hanging overhead, the tiny flickerings of its flame being the only motion in the whole dead place. She glanced down quickly, looking at the ground...

Cursed internally. Only internally. Never externally.

Could already see what the guards had done. They'd gone into the room, presumably to check on the prisoner, give him breakfast, something routine... and when they found him gone, they'd promptly walked all around the room, hunting for any sign. And in the process, they'd crashed through any potential trail that might've been left in the thick dust. Then again, to be fair, she'd left her own trail yesterday, and the man had left a trail as he'd been brought in, and Sersa Bayai too... there were many people who had left trails, was the point, and with there hardly being any injections of additional dust, there was no way of timing them. Her footprints from yesterday were just as clear and bright as her footprints now. So... he might as well have...

Oh gods.

Oh gods.

She had an idea. She had an idea. She'd read about this, she'd read about in newspapers back in Fidelizh, people were very nervous about it, and she'd never stopped being able to think about it... well, at least, at times when she couldn't find more newspapers or books on the topic. It was funny, she found the topic interesting, but it only occurred to her whenever she was least able to research it, and when she was, she found herself preoccupied with everything else under the sun. She bent close to the floor, rubbing her fingers in the dust... what had the newspapers said? Thick soot, unnatural soot, clinging like black fat. No, just dust and ancient, damp gunpowder. Then again, maybe the gunpowder contributed, maybe he'd managed to reactivate it somehow, or... no. Hm... no, no, no, there was something else... yellow fluid of some sort, they called it emulsion in a few articles, thick and repugnant to smell, touch, feeling, stagnant and sickening in every respect, offensive to every sense... she checked the floors, the walls... no, it wasn't there, but the accounts always different, maybe it had soaked into the gunpowder further... what did the articles say it smelled like? No, no, they never said, just that it was vile. And... the chair was still here, there was no sight of the bindings, and...

...alright, she was going to have to write off spontaneous combustion as a cause of death. All the accounts of that from Fidelizh were fairly adamant that there was a charred, shrivelled thing left behind in the end, or at least some sort of definite scorch mark, especially on a wooden chair like this. She stood, brushing down her skirts, raising a handkerchief to her lips to wipe away another small trickle of blood. The rasping, furious whisper of Sersa Bayai continued to echo around her like a ghostly curse, like Dyen himself was insulting her once more, insulting her over not saving him from... no, not spontaneous combustion, definitely not that. She'd confirmed it. So... she could still hear panicked spluttering from the guards, which came down to saying the same thing over and over and over again, aware that they were completely doomed. Either they were very good actors, or they had no idea what was happening. She checked the walls again, this time with an eye for... well, anything. Maybe this place had secret tunnels or entrances, maybe the floor had trap-doors ready to receive a fleeing fugitive, maybe... maybe... or the guards were being especially subtle. Or they were hiding something that wasn't the fugitive - say, they were covering for someone else, and were caught between either betraying that trust, or proving their own innocence. Hell of a loyalty, in that case. Or... hm. Didn't seem... their style, whoever they were. They seemed more content killing the people who stood a chance of opposing them. Clumsy, but...

Well, they'd tried it on her and Marana. Almost succeeded with the latter. Another spasm of guilt in her stomach. Idiot. Dolt. Should be better at her damn job, should've been much more cautious... should've brought a guard to stand outside, should've stayed put and never left the mansion, should've done a hundred, hundred things. Why hadn't she brought a guard to stand outside? Was she that much of an idiot? Or... had she been tired, stressed, forgetful, and dragged away unexpectedly by Marana?

Idiotic mistake. Never to be repeated.

She stepped outside, and Sersa Bayai shot her a look.

"Anything in there, honoured judge?"

Gods, it was eerie how his voice had switched from that furious rasp to his usual, light, chummy tone.

"Nothing."

She sized the guards up again. Sweating. Nervous. But mostly just... dumb with horror. Worst nightmare, really. Being accused of a crime they didn't commit, and finding they had no way of proving their own innocence. One thing to be someone engaged with criminals getting accused of criminality, another thing to be wandering along, ordinary as you like, and find that something you had no control over decided to ruin your life. Understandable being paranoid after that, really.

...if someone had come along to silence him, then he'd been in need of silencing, and if he was in need of silencing, then he'd had something to say. Something to contribute.

What else could he contribute? Were they just trying to find out how much he confessed?

She stared back into the room, with its dust and metal and darkness... and chair standing as mute witness to its failure in the single purpose it was entrusted. She hummed. Ms. Blue was standing nervously nearby, shifting in her heavy protective gear, the fuel in her flamethrower tanks sloshing with even the most minute movement. Right. Someone had tried to poison her this morning. And if they'd succeeded, then... gods, she could see the path. See it clear as day. She'd be gone, her notes would be ransacked (if possible), and this man would vanish. The investigation would stop. The confession would be eradicated, might as well never have been given. A single morning, and they'd have ended any chance of being found or prosecuted.

Did that mean she was close? Did that mean she'd hit a gold seam, and just had to keep powering through the cave-ins and the gas and the darkness until she found all she wished to find?

"Could you question them, Sersa? I need to get on with something else."

Bayai blinked... then exchanged a glance with Ms. Blue. She helplessly shrugged. His eyes widened suddenly, remembrance flooding past the fury.

"Gods, you were poisoned today, weren't you? Thought you'd be in the damn infirmary, how-"

"I'm fine. Marana needs time to recover. I don't suppose you could... ask someone to go and retrieve my things from my house? There's some evidence from the Tyer case, my clothes, that sort of thing. I need my cape, too. I'll move up here, if at all possible. Might be safer. And bring Marana when she's..."

Tanner abruptly sagged against a wall, a little wave of weariness passing through her limbs, and little threads of blackness appeared at the corners of her vision... fading a second later. Couldn't trust the world, couldn't trust anyone, couldn't trust her own damn body, couldn't trust stoves... think, think, think past the panic, think past the worry. Someone had tried to poison her with tainted coal. Now, this was obviously deliberate, no question of it being an accident. Question was - who had delivered fuel to the house? Idiotic question, the fuel would've been delivered while she was out, and Marana too. Would just be sitting out there in the snow, in a coal bunker, ready for someone to contaminate. Could already see where that 'mystery' would go - she'd drag up schedules, haul people in for questioning, waste hours and hours doing all of this, and by the end, would find herself exactly where she started, albeit with less time and more paranoia. But maybe, maybe, she'd find someone had sighted a recognisable figure poking amongst the coal just before she got back home, and then she'd find that person and extract a two-hundred-page confession that explained everything and everyone and...

Who cared.

Ms. Blue pointed her flamethrower nozzle at the two soldiers, keeping them immobilised as Tanner and Sersa Bayai stepped aside to have a chat. He said nothing at first, just popped a cigarette into his mouth and left it unlit, dangling like a mosquito's proboscis. Tanner coughed up a little more blood, wiping it away disinterestedly.

"I don't think they did it."

"Hm."

"I think if they did, they'd be dead to stop them from talking. The people involved in this don't like leaving their loose ends breathing."

"So, think Dyen's dead?"

"I wouldn't be surprised."

"How did he get out, then? Any ideas?"

"...I want you and your men to tear that room apart, if at all possible. Floors, particularly - maybe there's a secret passage or something, how old is this mansion?"

"Built for the last governor, renovated by the current one."

"Well, maybe some things were forgotten. I really don't have time to tear it apart myself, I'll have to trust you to do it. As for myself..."

She sighed.

"You saw his confession, yes? The details about the... grey man?"

"Certainly did. Interesting business. Unsure if he was telling the truth or not, but it's an interesting story. Needs proof, of course."

"Well, he was terrified when he told it. That much was completely genuine - you can still smell his sweat in there."

"Can smell it from here. So, I'll tear the room apart, what else?"

"...has that woman, Beldol, been secured?"

"Still alive and healthy. Even checked her coal once we found out what had happened to yours. Don't worry, we're instituting checks across the colony, telling our boys to be on high alert for any poisonings - some of them are just waiting in protective gear, make sure they can get out to people faster. For instance..."

He jerked his head vaguely in the direction of Ms. Blue. Nuts, didn't say her name. Nuts. Ms. Blue it would remain, then.

"I understand. Thank you, that should help. As for me, I... just need time. Go over my notes, see what I can put together from it all."

Bayai gave her a stern look.

"If you need to rest, rest. You're no use if you burn yourself out."

"I know. I know. But... I'm not running around. Just sitting indoors, working while sitting down. Should be fine. I think."

He paused... then reached out and squeezed her shoulder. Tanner froze... the warmth of his hand could be felt through her dress, her under-layers, and it made her skin feel like it was burning a little. First time a...gentleman had done something like this. Felt odd. Felt very odd. Too nervous to really... work through anything. But she smiled back very slightly, even as her eyes ached to shift away and stare at the ceiling, and her shoulder ached to stiffen into a piece of solid metal.

"If something happens, if you need... any kind of support, I know my boys cocked this up royally, but if you give us a target, we'll take care of it. Promise you that much."

Didn't think she'd earned anything close to that kind of loyalty. Wondered how far it extended beyond Sersa Bayai's good intentions.

"The lad from yesterday who caught the bastard is healing up well. Should be on duty in a few days, eager to get out of bed and back to work."

"Oh. That's... that's wonderful. Give him my best."

Another squeeze. Ooh.

"Definitely will. Now, you get on with things, and take it easier."

A tiny cough echoed through the corridor - it was Ms. Blue, the nozzle of her flamethrower pointing vaguely at them before she realised what that looked like and jerked it away in a panic. All of her gear clanked and clunked like a pile of drums, and Tanner could see how much she was sweating under it all. Her eyes immediately flinched from Sersa Bayai giving her a look... and she soldiered on with whatever she'd been intending to say.

"Sir, I had a potential suggestion, if it would be tolerable to hear, sir!"

A pause.

"And ma'am, honoured judge!"

Enthusiastic nipper, wasn't she? Bayai nodded as she saluted and clicked her heels, looking almost a little exasperated.

"Go on, then."

"Sir, I was thinking that honoured Judge Tanner would appreciate a suit of fitting protective gear, sir! Given the potential risks of her position, sir, I thought she might appreciate something being prepared, sir!"

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Another click of the heels - seemed to be basically instinct for her, not sure if she noticed she was doing it. Tanner stared.

Stared at the gear.

And quietly, with a very slight smile, she nodded.

"That would... be wonderful, actually. I'd appreciate it, if it isn't too much trouble, of course."

Bayai snorted.

"None at all. Kal, assigned to that duty. Back to the armoury, get out of that gear, get to work on modifying something. Send someone to measure-"

Tanner had a sudden image of a soldier with a tape measure doing her in-seam. A chill of raw, unfathomable terror followed in its wake.

"No, no, no, quite fine, if you're clearing out my house, just take some of my clothes, those should have the measurements, all of them fit quite adequately."

Oh, gods, don't look at her undergarments, but she couldn't talk about undergarments in front of Bayai, ladies didn't have undergarments, it was just dress all the way down, why did humans have to have flesh?!

Bayai nodded, unaware of Tanner's internal screams.

"...right. Understood. So, kal - off you go, hot-foot it. Take those two with you, get Bergi and Renima to escort them to the garrison. Off you pop."

"Sir!"

A pause.

"And honoured judge, ma'am!"

Her heels clicked... and she bustled off, the whole mansion sounding like a percussion instrument factory was being attacked by a herd of brass bulls, rendered rather more alarming by the intensely volatile pile of flammable liquid on her back, and the nozzle for the igniting and dispersal of said flammable liquid. Really, there was never going to be anything less than alarming. Especially when she had to run back, having clearly forgotten to actually take the two suspects with her, who looked both alarmed and slightly insulted at being hauled around by this clattering being. A muffled 'sorry' echoed through the gas mask as she returned with her captives in tow, flamethrower swinging from side to side like a hypnotic pendulum, and appropriately, everyone's eyes were fixed upon the nozzle, almost entranced by where it was going, when it would... go, and who it would go at, and by going at them, would make them go into the hereafter.

Bayai had the decency to wait until she was gone to snort with a bit of laughter.

"Sorry about her. Terrifically enthusiastic, in her credit. We mostly stick her in the armoury, everyone likes an enthusiastic armourer. Guns have never been shinier. But... well. If things are going poorly, felt wise to drag a few people out of the dark, shove them into the light. Always good to refresh people."

He was turning over rocks, just as she was. Imitating the bouncers, even. Rotating in the unlikely soldiers, disrupting the usual schema of squads and friendships and hidden loyalties. Throw a stone into the pond, see what the ripples disturbed. What did he expect to find? Did he suspect his own men of disloyalty?

Of course he did. She would. She did. Everyone was suspect.

A salute.

And he was gone.

And she continued to feel the warmth of his hand on her shoulder, even as the minutes rolled on.

* * *

Her room. Her papers. Should never have left. The world beyond was poisonous - only here was something approaching truth and clarity. She thought... and she came to a number of conclusions. Papers were brought to her in great bundles - she didn't want to leave, not unless absolutely necessary. The mortuary was practically drained of files, supervised by herself, and she had them arranged all around her in a beige, slightly greasy nest. The shelves were practically bare, the ledgers bristled with tiny slips of coloured paper, marking out pages where something salient had been observed. If she worked, she didn't think about Marana downstairs, she didn't think about how much she'd failed, she didn't think about the gas clawing its way across the room like a living creature... a purple face, swinging from a rope. A broken body lying in the snow. Screaming horses with shattered legs, wailing in the dark. The night of three mouths. And the broken, half-caved ribcage of the governor, face paralysed into its own death mask. All of it faded from her mind so long as she focused on the data, on... dissecting people, just like Mr. Canima had said. Dissecting them down to slivers of paper and ink, and if she assembled them, she'd get a complete person. And if she didn't, she knew there was something to look for.

And if she kept working, her stomach only had a spasm every other hour. Blood trickled from her lips as she worked, and she wiped it away with a handkerchief that was already the red of a pirate banner. Her dress was dirtied. She had nothing on her back, no god, no governor, nothing. No golden pince-nez, no gloves, nothing. Witchcraft ruled the day, and her candle had doubtless guttered out some time ago. Eygi was... Tanner felt churning anger and frustration and paranoia and confusion inside of her, and had no outlet but her work. Her automatic quill flew with agitated strokes, and her eyes did their best to never blink behind their thick, thick lenses, sometimes to the point of watering and sending little tears to patter at the glass, or on the page. Tears, and the emotion behind them remained frosted over, unyielding, but always growing.

Reviewing the evidence available to her, certain issues were cropping up, over and over, like motifs in a piece in music. Yan-Lam brought her a cup of coffee, Tanner drank it, and almost swore as the acrid stuff burned at a raw, raw throat, and sat in a half-flayed stomach like an angry parasite. The energy and the pain woke her up, though. That was the most important thing.

Two stories existed. One was complete, save for a few points of motive and so on, and needed supporting with more rigorous evidence. The other was born only of scraps. To an idle glance, the scraps were meaningless, the complete-ish tale was what mattered. A mostly-complete puzzle that only needed a few additional pieces to be wrapped up and finished, pieces she could already make out from what surrounded them, what remained to be established. To a more detailed glance, the scraps were maybe useful, but might well just be pieces of the puzzle that were still obscured, once the whole pattern came together she'd see where they fit in.

And from a third glance, a more fevered one, one that remembered Marana's advice that sometimes, you're the sane one, and everyone else is barking mad... that glance saw the phantom outlines of a second story.

The first. Merchants. Well-to-do people of great importance. Paying off bouncers via an intermediary known to Dyen as the grey man. Using them to attack seemingly random individuals, or place them in positions where they could be removed quietly, or in some cases simply pressure them into departing of their own volition. Dyen confessed, and was wiped out. Maybe Tyer knew too much, too, and bouncers (particularly Myunhen and Lyur) were involved in getting rid of him. Then, Myunhen was wiped out to stop him talking. She was getting too close too, and thus they tried to get rid of her.

The second... scraps and shadows. What did Tyer know that made him need to die? What explained the conflict in character references, with some saying he was a lovely man, and others saying he was a lonely, violent individual? How was Tom-Tom involved? What was the cat with human teeth? Why had the governor been wearing such a plain scarf on that night, when he could have worn a much finer one, and indeed was wearing an equally fine tie? How did he factor into this generally? What accounted for his odd wounds - a battered front and sides, but an uninjured back? What was inside his safe? What was in the ledger pages excised using razor blades? How did Dyen vanish, and could the method be repeated? How did the governor's silent war alter things? Why did Mr. Lam have to die? What did he know?

What about the cages and the iron decorations?

It felt as though this was overcomplicated. Like the plans arrayed before her could've been done with one step instead of ten, or ten steps instead of a hundred.

She hummed.

Sipped more coffee, wincing painfully. Couldn't wait or the citrinitas to be brought up from the house, assuming it was still drinkable. She paused...

And slowly, carefully, began to assemble a plan. A genuine plan. Something with... well, some kind of complexity to it. If it failed, well, everything else had failed, this would be no different. If it succeeded...

Who was she trying to fool, she couldn't pull off a grandiose plan. Not suited for it. Needed someone to bounce off, needed a sounding board for her ideas... she kept working as she thought, slowly compiling lists of the dead, analysing issues with the reports, connecting them to dots on a map, to bouncers, to everything, trying to map out the whole tapestry of guilt that might be arrayed before her, before taking the names and numbers of bouncers and attempting to cross-reference them in employment ledgers, seeing where they'd gone afterwards.

...she had to do something.

Kept thinking about Marana, with her frothing mouth, her glazed eyes...

Kept thinking.

Kept-

Tanner stood suddenly, her chair rattling, and she marched as quickly as she possibly could into the nearest bathroom, charging up a flight of stairs to reach it, hands gripping her skirt so tightly she feared she was about to tear the fabric.

Managed to get inside and lock the door before the bile reached the top of her throat.

Everything clenched as she hunched over the toilet, holding her hair up to stop it from being stained as she vomited into the toilet bowl., watching as... as very, very little came up. Coffee, water, tea, maybe a piece of bread, but... but then it all stopped, and she was just groaning as her stomach clenched over and over, trying to expel things which didn't exist, food she hadn't eaten because she was too busy. A long trail of blood spilled from her lips. Poison and decontamination. Tearing her apart from the inside to save her.

Not sure if it was nausea, or just guilt.

Just...

She hunched, gripping the toilet seat, and waited for a long, long moment, breathing heavily through her mouth, tasting bile with each inhalation...

Did she cry, now?

Was she allowed to cry?

Would judges cry under conditions of attempted murder of oneself and one's friends?

She grimaced. Spat... resisted, resisted. Couldn't let it out, couldn't let it out. Could feel grit on her teeth. Could feel bruises from yesterday marching up and down her side. Could feel a ragged edge to a nail where she had... no idea where that was from. Eyes sore from poison gas, throat flayed by the cure. The acid of her vomit stung.

A tiny, tiny knock echoed through the toilet's cramped interior.

Tanner spat out another piece of... something, and managed to croak.

"Sorry, someone's..."

Another cough.

"I'm in here, sorry."

A tiny voice.

"...are you well, honoured judge?"

Tanner flinched. Her hand, her numb, numb hand, grasped blindly for the handle... she watched her shame flush down the toilet bowl, stains replaced by raw, pristine porcelain in a matter of moments. Stood quickly, splashed water over her face from the sink, cupped her hands like a woman in the desert finding an oasis, drank little pieces... she was so tall that when she brought water up this way, it had quite a journey to make, and the splash-splash-splash of fat droplets from between her fingers became deafening in the cramped, beige interior of this miserable little room. Gargled - keeping a hand over her mouth to suppress any sound - and she felt a little more... functional.

Yan-Lam was waiting on the other side of the door, staring up nervously.

"I'm fine. Thank you for-"

"Honoured judge, there's..."

Another body? Another death? Marana? Had Marana died while she was working, and- no, she was pointing to Tanner's hair. Tanner checked. Well. That lock was a lost cause - evidently she'd let it drop in front of her mouth. Had a small knife in her pocket, and... oh, yes. Remembered this. Governor's knife. Tortoiseshell handle, and the blades were darkened to prevent glare in the sun. She sliced the lock off quickly, brusquely, and threw it end over end into the toilet bowl, choosing to wait until she could flush it once again.

Yan-Lam stared up.

"...did I do it unevenly?"

"You can wash hair, miss."

Tanner didn't reply. Yes. She could. And she hadn't. What a creature she was.

"Would you... like some water? I can bring some from the kitchens."

"That would be good of you, thank you."

"Are you well?"

"Poisoned this morning. Should be better soon, I think. Never really get ill, I just feel a bit off for a day, then I get better by the time I wake up. I think any disease has to work its way through so much of me that it winds up barely making it any distance before it's cured or recovered. I mean, I get a fever, by the time it's spread down to my legs, my head and chest are usually all better. At worst, I just have one off-feeling limb at a time, and that's about it. Might have a cold in my left arm today."

She was rambling. Elaborating unnecessarily. Which meant deception.

Feh

"Would you like to lie down?"

"No, thank you. Just need to get back to work."

Vomiting was rather cleansing, wasn't it? Oh, it hurt, felt awful at the time, but there was something about the body going 'no, this is quite unreasonable for me to accept, it must be gotten rid of', getting rid of the offending article, and then settling back down again. Biological function happening as it should. Nice and straightforward, with a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end. Vomiting had good narrative structure.

She was going odd again.

The two went downstairs, Yan-Lam seeming conflicted over going in front (bold, brash, not what servants did), to the side (not much room for that, and probably made her feel like a dog clinging to the heel of her master) or behind her (appropriate for a servant, very dangerous if Tanner fell over or needed to run back to the toilet without warning).

She settled for just hovering around like a vagrant moth, choosing all and neither, and immediately breaking for the kitchen the moment she had a chance. Tanner had barely sat down when she returned, her eerily quiet boots whispering rapidly across the thick carpets, cup held precariously outwards like a chalice in one of her lodge's mystery plays.

"Your water, honoured judge. Chilled."

A pause.

"I can get cough medicine. If you would like some."

"Water's fine."

"Tea, perhaps? There's some rather nice tea which I find helps with sore throats, I can-"

"The water's fine, miss. Really. But thank you."

Silence reigned for a long few moments, Yan-Lam hovering nervously. Tanner was just trying... hell, she was just trying to get her plan together. The issue was... wait. Wait. A thought. When she'd gone after Dyen, how had she done it? Because she'd achieved more genuine achievement with that single action than she had with most of her other moves. Extracted a confession, intimidated with evidence... she had to say, before he ran off, she was having a very good interrogation indeed. Still a little panicked, but... workable. And what had she done? She'd gone off unexpectedly. Quite a bit of silent research, shared with no-one but herself and her notes, endless mounds of scribbling and cross-referencing, even recruiting Yan-Lam to help with some elements of it... no wandering around, no unnecessary interviews, just research and a single directed strike.

And what had happened?

A confession. A prisoner. Responses that were... well, clearly on the panicked side of things. Poisoning her fuel to try and gas her to death felt like a very imprecise method, but it was easy to do on short notice while still making pretensions at subtlety. And then they'd had to get Dyen out of here. How difficult had that been? What resources had they wasted? The room was being torn apart even now, if they found anything, those would be permanently sterilised assets. Quite the risk for a single man.

And if she'd been spelling out her progress, she had no doubt Dyen would've never been found in the first place. And she might well be dead already, by means rather a bit more subtle, maybe even easily confused for an accident. Lure her into the city hunting for Dyen, then drop a rock on her head. Plenty of rocks in there. Some quite high up. Piece of, pardon her language, piss.

Soldiers might be compromised. Might be. Bouncers had been able to hide their activities for years from the authorities. This very well might extend to the top.

And always, those damn cast-iron decorations and wooden cages kept coming into her mind.

And she remembered a little thing in the city. Something only she, Bayai, and Marana knew she'd seen. In that cantina. The one she'd gone to after the Tyer business, right before the governor turned up dead. A pie, some cheese, maybe something to drink... talking about continuing the investigation after the governor had 'taken it over'. Semi-formal, never filling out a single file until something had been found. Almost innocent, really. Now, the stakes were higher, and everything was just... so chaotic. Not just a murder, this was the whole damn colony swept up in a blood-red tide, a tide the colony spawned from itself, from every brick and plank, oozing naturally out of the streets... drowning in the tide they birthed.

All of them, drowning...

Her too.

If she couldn't stand higher.

And in that cantina... suspended above...

There'd been a cage. A wooden cage for capturing misfortune. Swollen by damp and age.

Old. Very, very old. A cage that was designed to be burned by those who fashioned it. A cage in a cantina in part of the city that had only been excavated comparatively recently. For all she knew, a cage that had been preserved since the Great War, left in the embalming darkness, and allowed to hang on even when, by Rekidan rite, it should be burned up.

By all the spirits of hammer and eye, I make this wrong right.

By all...

She knew what she had to do.

She could feel it crystallising in front of her eyes, a plan, a real, real plan. Her insides were shredded and bleeding, her throat was ragged and raw, she'd vomited until her stomach could do nothing but pulse and clench. Clarity dwelled in her. Panic and fury and paranoia and impatience. A great well of emotion in her chest that demanded release, and couldn't be released, she had no time, no time whatsoever for lancing that boil and undoing the pressure... she was unstable, she had enough clarity to realise that. She was panicked, she wanted revenge, she knew she shouldn't be in either state. All her mechanisms, for now, were gone. Pince-nez - shattered, and with them, the mnemonic to just see the world in a rosier light. Now it was all too... cold and sharp and full of poison. Gloves - gone for now, and with them, the cultivation of proper luck, and the optimism which came with it. Witchcraft - overwhelming, her candle gone, her lodge's light forsaking her in this interminable snowy dark. Eygi - no time to write, no time at all, felt wrong to release anything until the job was finished. Didn't even have her cape.

The poison had spiked the balloon. But it'd been swelling for some time.

To the outside world, there would be no sign of change on her face. Nothing at all.

Inside, an inferno.

She knew what she had to do.

"Ms. Yan-Lam, I want you to stay here."

A blink.

"I'm going to need some help. You can read, and... I need an assistant."

Another blink, followed by several more in quick succession.

"Miss?"

"What I'm doing right now is connected up with your father's death. All of it. The governor investigated, and he died. Your father's killer was killed by people connected up with... everything. And I need help."

Yan-Lam spluttered.

"Miss, I... I am flattered, truly, truly flattered, but I'm a chambermaid. I really have no power to-"

"Sersa Bayai is working on his side. Marana's downstairs, sick, poisoned. You can read, you can write, and you've got every reason to stay in this mansion. I need some help. I'm sorry, I really am, and I promise I won't send you out on anything. I just need you in here, helping with some of these papers."

"...oh."

Tanner's voice had changed. There was a hint of desperation in it. She needed someone to be around. She needed company, if she lacked that, she felt... felt like she might go insane. And... Yan-Lam was a potential vulnerability. Closer she was to Tanner, the more Tanner could do to keep an eye on her. If she was wandering around the mansion where someone had been stolen out of a locked, windowless room, then... then hell, nowhere was safe, potentially. Maybe Yan-Lam detected that. Maybe she saw that Tanner was very afraid indeed, and was feeling terribly alone. Saw the stained dress, the pale skin, the tangled hair, the missing cape, the borrowed boots, the bruises, the innumerable cuts from her splinters, the reddened eyes... and even if the expression remained fixed, she understood.

She sat down.

"Happy to help, miss, in any way you direct me."

Tanner smiled. Broadly.

"Thank you. It's appreciated."

"Just... this is to do with my father? Truly?"

"...I think so, yes. Feels like too much is connected to it. The bouncers, particularly. So... yes. Yes. To the best of my knowledge."

Yan-Lam's eyes suddenly flashed, and her mouth twisted for a second into something rather unpleasant.

"Good."

And then it was gone. She was a chambermaid once more. And was reaching for the desk to pull her chair a little closer, straining to do so. Looking expectant for her first assignment.

Well, Tanner knew what she had to do first.

Something she'd been putting off for some time. And now she had context, and highly specific goals. Now she just needed to fill in the gaps.

And then, things could really begin.

Her stomach spasmed.

Shut up, stomach. Useless organ.

"First, we need to start looking up a man called Lyur."

Yan-Lam froze.

She knew that name. The name of the man who'd killed her father's killer. Avenging, maybe. But he'd denied her answers, closure, a key to dispel all the confusion of that awful night. And now Tanner had dangled the idea of it being part of a broader scheme in front of her eyes.

Again, the unpleasant cast to her mouth. The shadow over her eyes. For a second, Tanner was almost reminded of that savage creature outside of the walls. The red-haired mutant with her dead glass eyes, and her fierce grasping hands that could tear a wolf limb from limb. Idly, Tanner wondered where she'd got to... and why she'd left the city's walls in the first place. Plenty of viloence to come, and the wintry wasteland beyond the watchful eye of the guards was no kinder. Less kind, really - the big mutants were more than willing to tear them apart. As far as she knew, that thing was dead. Eaten alive by her kin, or by something much larger. If she'd run from the city, maybe Tanner had effectively lured her back, wound up getting her killed in the process. Or maybe she was waiting. Waiting for Tanner to come back and give her another succulent meal of contaminated flesh. The look on Yan-Lam's face reminded her uncomfortably of that creature, enough so that her hand itched where it'd been nibbled, phantom pain crackling along it. But when the chambermaid spoke, her voice was smooth and sweet as honey.

"Lovely."