The Eidolan sanctuary in deme Iris was better preserved than most I’d visited and retained much of its former glory. Its worn pediment rose on six thick columns smeared with a gray patina from their long watch. Etched into the stonework were the eleven Eidola, with the World-Father, Tyurn Sky-Sea, in the center. But the worn faces of the gods said much of how the religion had fallen out of fashion with many Oedijans. Fiery Valemism, a religion centered around an angry, volcanic god from the southern empire of Avvad, had taken the place of Eidolan as the primary religion of Oedija. But despite having some Avvadin cultural inheritance from my father’s side, it had never much spoken to me. When I had a craving for the divine or a philosophical itch, I came to the oracles and their sanctuaries for satisfaction.

As Nomusa, Xaron, and I filed through the great doors, an acolyte quickly approached. Glancing down the center aisle over the acolyte’s shoulder, I saw a ring of candles in the middle of the floor. Familiar as I was with Eidolan rituals, I knew what this one was erected for: a ward against daemons, the malevolent pyr said to reside in the Pyrthae. They were often blamed for ill happenings, yet I had a feeling such spirits were more myth than reality. I kept my skepticism to myself.

“Welcome, children of Tyurn,” the acolyte said hurriedly. “If you would excuse us, some odd happenings have forced us to be less than hospitable. Perhaps we can foster your prayers later—”

Little as I wanted to, I saw I was going to have to bull over this poor acolyte. “We haven’t come for prayer,” I interrupted him. “We’ve come about the man who died.”

The young man wrung his hands, glancing back towards the candles, or perhaps to the oracle’s rooms behind the altar. “I’m afraid I can’t speak to you about that. Please, I must insist that you leave.”

Nomusa stepped forward. “At least let us speak with the oracle,” she said as if it were so reasonable a request he could hardly refuse.

The acolyte’s tongue moistened his lips. “Please, my ladies, my sir, I can’t—”

“Look!” Xaron pointed back at the candles, and we all turned to see the flickering flames roar up in a dozen conflagrations. It was all I could do not to laugh at how the acolyte jumped and cowered away, even as another part of me groaned at Xaron’s recklessness.

“That’s a sign we should continue, right?” Xaron continued to string the boy along. “I’m going to take that as a sign.” He led the way down the aisle before the acolyte could respond. When it became apparent that the poor boy, shaking and still staring at the candles, wasn’t going to stop us, Nomusa and I followed on his heels.

I walked up next to Xaron. “You shouldn’t be so blatant with your talents.”

He rolled his eyes. “That dullard doesn’t know the difference between divinity and divine gifts.”

“And you don’t know the difference between wisdom and wisecracks,” Nomusa said, flanking his other side. “Caution would not be the worst thing to practice from time to time.”

Xaron shrugged. “I’ll consider it next time you don’t need me to save your investigation.”

We stopped at the end of the aisle by the circle of candles. I stared at the empty space, as if trying to summon back the image of Agmon’s body when he died there. Yet now that Xaron wasn’t channeling and scaring acolytes, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the space. Then I saw it: a hint of red glow tucked under one of the front pews. A bit of pyrkin from our unfortunate patrician, I did not doubt. I gestured us on, and my companions and I moved behind the altar to the heavy, blue curtains that guarded the back room, ignoring the acolyte’s weak protests for us to stop.

I pushed the curtains aside to reveal a small, circular room with a wizened, bald man in ash-gray robes in the middle of it. The man didn’t look up from the book before him as we entered. It was a mammoth thing, half the length of his person, and so heavy it had to be mounted on a pedestal to be handled. We waited for a minute, then two, for him to acknowledge us. In the end, Xaron’s impatience won, and he cleared his throat loudly.

“You are the intruders here.” The oracle still didn’t look up. “Perhaps it would be polite if you first announced your intentions before barging into sanctums.”

I shot a glance at Xaron, but he only shrugged. “Our apologies, Father,” I said, “but our errand is a hasty one. We were hoping you could—”

“Death is not always a hasty affair,” the oracle interrupted, his voice echoing off the close stone walls. “Sometimes, it is slow, ever so slow, almost too slow to bear.” He finally looked up at us, a man with petite, shriveled features and watery blue eyes. I thought I saw a twinkle of humor in his expression, though I didn’t understand the jape. “So, too, with errands. Perhaps this rush is all of your imagination, would you not agree?”

“If we might, sir,” Nomusa said. Her upbringing in her homeland tended to make her polite towards elders. “But the circumstances of this death bring about our urgency. We fear—”

“I know what you fear,” the oracle interrupted again, and I couldn’t control my mouth twitching. He didn’t seem to share Nomusa’s penchant for respect. “I know,” he repeated, “for it has been echoed by another who has since come.”

“Another?” I stepped forward. “Father, if you could tell us, it would be of immeasurable help.”

“To whom? Your own selfish aims? Or the glory of the Eleven?” The oracle studied each of us in turn, and I flinched as his eyes lingered on me. “A man’s death is nothing to profit from.”

A flicker of doubt passed through my mind. It was true enough that I was eager to pursue this case. True also that we would likely profit if we solved it, whether in reputation or monetary gain or, hopefully, both. But that didn’t change that we would be bringing justice to a murder. Surely solving such a crime could justify somewhat impure motivations.

But I also knew my history. When I first became a Finch at fifteen, I at least thought then that my intentions were pure. But what fifteen-year-old doesn’t dream of glory? And had it truly gone away, even seven years later?

But even if it was my motivation, he couldn’t know that. “Of course not,” I said briskly. “We’re here to see that no one else does. Which is why, Father, it would be helpful if you could tell us who else has inquired after Agmon of Iris.”

The oracle raised an eyebrow. “I do not divulge sanctuary secrets to strangers. And you have yet to introduce yourselves.”

Xaron gave a cursory bow. “Xaron,” he said brightly. “A pleasure to meet you.”

Nomusa and I shared a glance, and she rolled her eyes. But when she faced the oracle, she had composed herself and bowed deeply. “Nomusa of Port.”

“And I’m Airene of Port,” I said with my own bow. “We fashion ourselves Verifiers like those of old.”

The oracle squinted at us. “Finches, are you?” His expression lightened, and he gave a short laugh. “I never thought to see Finches flitting about in my lifetime. Not acting with the authority of the Conclave, I trust, but the mission remains the same.”

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All the coercion, sneaking, and lying we did on a daily basis flashed through my mind. “It does,” I said, wanting to believe it. “Can I ask your name, Father?”

The oracle waved his hand impatiently. “I’m an old priest; my name is of no consequence. Call me Father if you must call me anything.” He peered at Nomusa with a queer expression. “Or ‘sir’ — I rather like that one.”

A hint of pink colored Nomusa’s olive cheeks.

“Well then.” The oracle parted through us and pushed aside the curtains. “Let’s go take a look.”

Sharing glances with each other, Nomusa, Xaron, and I followed him back into the main chamber, where he led us to the ring of candles. “It was in the middle of the interpretation yesterday,” the oracle explained, pacing the perimeter. “He scrambled into the aisle and fell to the floor, screaming and clutching at his gut.” The oracle shook his head. “A horrible sight. It was worse still when the red glow began in his middle, and then it suddenly—” The oracle spread his hands apart like a fountain.

“He burst,” Xaron said with a knowing nod.

The oracle glanced with a sad smile at the acolyte standing at the doors, who watched us warily. “It was not a pleasant mess to clean up.”

“Pardon, sir — Father,” Nomusa said. “But did Agmon have anyone who bore him a grudge?”

“A jilted lover? An estranged brother? A disappointed mother?” Xaron hazarded guesses.

The oracle shook his head. “None that I know of. I cannot tell you of his confessions, for those are between the gods and him. But of what I know… no, I know of no enemies.” He paused, his eyes seeming to search about his sanctuary. “However… a woman visited here who indicated an interest in his passing.”

I kept my expression carefully neutral. “What did she say?”

“Little enough, yet she left a distinct impression. She wished to know how he died, which I, of course, did not divulge. After all, I don’t go around spreading gossip.”

Xaron snorted.

“Then she said some strange things, all regarding the importance that I not spread what happened here to anyone.” The oracle flashed a brief smile. “I always was a rebellious man, Tyurn forgive me.”

I wondered who this woman was. “What did she look like?”

The oracle shook his head. “When you live as long as I do, faces start to blend together. But what I can tell you is that the woman had hair like fresh ice.”

I frowned. Outlanders from the western seas had light-colored hair, but blue was a sight I had yet to see. “Thank you,” I said to the oracle with another bow. “If we discover who was behind Agmon’s death, we’ll be sure to bring them to justice.”

The old man smiled at each of us in turn, and to my surprise, bowed deeply. “Nothing would please me more. None was more generous to the sanctuary than Agmon. But be careful. Death can come to the young as well as the old.” With one last significant glance, he returned behind his thick curtains.

* * *

“Where do you get hair like that?” Xaron wondered as we exited the sanctuary. “I could go for some orange hair myself.”

“I would have thought we’d have heard of hair of that color before,” Nomusa mused.

I shrugged. “Oedija hides all sorts of characters. Maybe she lives in one of the outer demes—”

I stopped mid-sentence as a man stepped out from around one of the columns not six paces away from us. The man, Avvadin by the look of him, leaned against the column and stared at us with a lazy smile. He wore a fez half tilted off his long greasy hair, and though it was cool outside, his stained shirt was unlaced down to his chest and his sky-blue vest flapped open. His trousers were smudged and dirty as if it had been years since they’d seen a wash, much less a good scrubbing. The straps of his sandals seemed wont to snap at any moment. Yet for all that, he had bright, honey-brown eyes that seemed to pierce through my clean garments, as if to see all the dirty secrets I hid behind them. I tried not to notice the tone of his muscles beneath his vest, nor the strong line of his jaw beneath the suspiciously clean jaw.

“Hanim,” the Avvadin said. His eyes flickered to Xaron briefly but seemed content to settle on Nomusa and me. “If it pleases you to pause a moment…”

“We don’t want to buy anything,” Xaron said, starting to walk past him, but I held Xaron back. The man’s arm was turned towards us so that I could plainly see that on the inside of his left wrist was the unmistakable glow of the shrouded eye tatu. Nomusa hissed, indicating she’d seen it as well.

The man’s smile thinned. “I see we understand each other now.”

Xaron followed our gazes, and his eyes widened. “A Guilder?”

I was just as surprised. The Underguild, the syndicate of thieves and organized crime in Oedija and elsewhere across the Four Realms, had its agents in many places. But here at an Eidolan sanctuary was not where I expected to find one. We knew he was a Guilder from his mark, a tatu formed from a glowing blue ink that was said to be impossible to falsify.

The Guilder shrugged. “Is it such a surprise considering what you’ve just discovered? My masters are very interested in the death of Agmon of Iris. Would we not be interested, too, in anyone else so pressed to investigate it?”

“I’d rather you leave us out of it,” Xaron muttered.

I took his arm and gently squeezed, hoping he would understand the need for silence. The Underguild was not an organization to be taken lightly.

The man saw my gesture, and his leer widened. “She keeps you on a tight leash, does she not, Xaron of Port?”

Xaron flinched at his name, and Nomusa spoke in his defense. “How do you know him?”

“I know all of you.” His gaze slid over us, greasy as a skewer of street stand meat. “Nomusa, a fugitive from her own ishaka. Her family, once the rulers of the chiefdom, were overthrown by usurpers, and her parents killed in the process. Forced into exile, she came to live with — what do you Bali call that relation again, the wife of your uncle? A bond-sister? Ah, but it doesn’t matter now, for she’s been dead for, how long now, six years?”

Nomusa hissed, but she couldn’t deny the truth of it. I stared in growing fear at this man, and all the more as he turned towards me.

“And you,” the Guilder said. “Airene of Port now, but you grew up in Riverport. Oedijan your whole life. However…” He held up a finger. “Your parentage is, regrettably, questionable. But not all women stay faithful when they tire of their husbands, hm?”

I tried to deny the holes his words bore into me. I was curious about most mysteries I came across. But my mother’s dalliances was one I never wanted to know anything more of, much less hear mentioned casually to me by a stranger. “And who are you?” I asked, hating the way my voice trembled.

“It’s only fair for me to tell you, isn’t it?” He paced back across the steps of the sanctuary. “Talan, you can call me. But it’s not all of my name. If you wish to know the rest, you’ll have to discover it yourselves.”

“Well, Talan,” Nomusa said in a tight voice, “are you going to tell us your reason for revealing our life stories in the middle of the streets or not?”

Talan smirked. “Indeed I will. Now that you are impressed by the depth of my knowledge and are convinced of my prescience, you will believe me when I tell you the location of the man you seek.”

I gave a short laugh, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to reveal that it wasn’t a man we sought now, but a woman.

The Guilder looked at me. “Ah, you must think I’ve forgotten the silver-haired woman who visited here.” He shook his head with another infuriating smile. “But it is not her I mean, but a man with more accessible information. One Eazal of Sandglass.”

The humor drained from me, and fear began creeping up in its place. Though he offered us honey, I did not like the flavor of his extensive knowledge, and trusted him with it less.

“What do you know of him?” Xaron demanded.

“His location, as I said. Or are you not interested?”

“Don’t play coy with us, Guilder.” Nomusa put her hands on her hips. “If you mean to tell us what you know, then be out with it.”

“As you wish,” Talan said, studying his nails. “Go to an inn in Bazaar called the Weeping Hills. There, you will find your man.”

Even though I didn’t trust this Guilder, I knew I would set off for Bazaar at once. But I wasn’t yet satisfied. “Why tell us this?” I demanded. “Why not go yourself if you’re so interested?”

The smile was back, wider than before. “I come as a sort of benefactor. Your spiritual guide, perhaps. A pyr made flesh.”

Xaron snorted next to me, and Talan nodded appreciatively.

I crossed my arms. “That’s not an answer.”

“Then perhaps you should ask a better question.” Talan gave a mocking bow, then turned and walked away. I watched until he slipped into an alley and out of sight.

We three Finches were left to stare at each other, until Xaron threw up his hands. “What in the dark depths of the ‘Thae was that? Was he waiting the whole time we were in the sanctuary to put on that performance?”

“He does have a flair for the dramatic,” I observed drily.

Nomusa adjusted her hair. “I like him. He’s certainly more amusing than other Guilders we’ve met.”

I shook my head. “Please. Take any other man to bed. Just not him.”

She gave me an amused look. “What? Do you have eyes for him then?”

Xaron looked between us with amazement. “Him? He had half a year’s mud on him!”

“I think we have more important things to do,” I said loudly. “Like maybe visit that inn?” I set off in the direction of Bazaar before either of them could protest. But as little as I wished to talk about Talan, I couldn’t help but look for our enigmatic Guilder in every shadow we passed.