Asher pushed the thoughts into the back of his mind. He had other things to worry about in the investigation, and he needed to worry more about the Gate and the world being put back together wrong. Revolution meant nothing if they were all going to die anyway.

‘She is staring.’ Penn pointed up towards the Town Hall. Asher hadn’t heard him approach, and wondered if he’d been standing there the whole time. Asher followed his gaze and saw the courier woman. She was sitting on the stairs in front of the statues, openly staring while her party sorted the messenger bags around her. He sighed. At some point his job had been public response, but the last thing he wanted to do right now was talk to anyone. Still, he hobbled his way up the stairs with Penn on his heels.

‘Before you say anything,’ Asher said. ‘I don’t know anything about this Sovereignty, whoever they are. I can look into it, but I can’t promise anything. I just got back.’

‘I know,’ the courier woman said. She leaned back against the broken part of the step, and Asher wondered if she was being hostile or didn’t blink. He had no idea what her tone was supposed to be. ‘Just thought you should know. They raided us because they were looking for you.’

A cold chill ran down Asher’s body. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, they set up that outpost because they heard you were heading into town. They got angry when we weren’t with you and tried to throw the whole delivery story at us. The other deliveries before us said the same thing. I don’t know why they think they’re in charge, but that’s the situation.’

‘Oh,’ Asher said. ‘Oh. Okay. I…’ he didn’t know what to do with this, or why they would want him. ‘How in charge do they think they are?’

‘Aside from calling themselves Sovereignty?’ the courier asked. ‘They might be the only ones stopping everything from turning to shit. Even got the zealous types to shut up, but a lot of them have been taking the feedback like they own the whole province now.’

That’s a problem. He would need to talk to Norrah or Lord Barque about this, when he got a chance. Though, his mind whirled trying to connect the issue to the bigger one at hand. Maybe it had something to do with his investigation, though he’d barely gotten anywhere with it. Unless they already knew he was a witch, but why not just arrest him if they knew? Were they waiting for proper evidence?

No, it had to be something else. Something else he had to figure out. ‘Thanks for letting me know,’ he said.

The inside of the Town Hall wasn’t as busy as he expected, though the lobby had been repurposed into a makeshift command centre. The narrow opening gave way to tables set up between rows of marble pillars, and the tiled floor had been worn of its patterns by muddy foot treks. Norrah stood behind one of the bigger tables, leaning over a stretch of papers that scattered across the surface. Hushed conversation rang out from the table behind her, a group of men in worker rags that Asher didn’t know. Norrah shifted as he approached, but didn’t look up.

‘You got here late,’ she commented.

‘I got sidetracked,’ Asher said.

‘That seems to be the flavour of the day,’ Norrah said. She was more dishevelled than before, stray hairs flying wild from her bun, and a ragged shawl thrown over her shoulders that wouldn’t been out of place on an urchin child. Behind her, nestled between two of the pillars, was a cloth strung up to block off a corner, with the unmistakable curve of a bedroll peeking out underneath.

‘How is everything going here?’ he asked.

‘They’re settling down compared to the last time you asked,’ Norrah said. ‘If you’re going to ask to help, thank you but no. I have a system and I am working with it.’

‘I was going to,’ Asher said. ‘You look exhausted.’

Norrah did glance up then. She frowned. ‘You have cuts all over your face.’

Asher’s hand jumped up, and he felt the sting of a fresh wound across his jaw. ‘Stupider than it looks,’ he said quickly. ‘Got one of my crutches caught in a rock and I fell over.’

‘That is stupid,’ Norrah said. ‘Did I hear right that you were back up in Valenda?’

Asher nodded. ‘The Research Team has come up from Fanmaryh.’

‘Good. The sooner we can figure out where that blasted city went, the more we can deal with everything else.’

‘I don’t know if you know, but there’s a group of people playing commander here —’

‘Yes, I know,’ Norrah said. ‘I don’t know who is in charge of the volunteers, but I’m leaving issues with Captain Delana. She’s gotten very good at shutting down the ones who are bothering people.’

‘I’ve had more than one run in with them now,’ Asher said. He nodded at Penn, who was sifting through a pile of papers without stopping to read any of them. He glanced back and forth between the two of them, then went back to flicking them around.

‘Do I want to know why you’ve taken a volunteer as a personal assistant?’ Norrah asked.

Asher honestly hadn’t considered it to be a problem, but he also wasn’t about to tell Norrah about whatever eldritch monster from another world Penn really was. ‘I need the help,’ he said. When Norrah frowned, an awful idea came to him, and he leaned over so Penn wouldn’t hear. ‘He’s not getting along with the others.’

Penn straightened at the words, and a low growl rumbled through his throat before he moved to another scattered pile of papers. Asher’s spine contracted in at the noise, but Norrah only sighed.

‘Fair enough,’ she said. Asher held back a sigh of relief, and the creature he had seen the night before flashed through his head. Part of him wanted to see it more clearly, even in his minds eye, but he also needed to remember that angering him probably wasn’t something he wanted to do.

‘Is there something you needed, Lieutenant?’ Norrah asked. ‘Or are you just checking in?’

Right, he needed to look into Hadley and what happened to trap her in that place. ‘I’m still looking into other missing person cases,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a few to look into but I need access to the city records.’

‘If you’re looking for arrests, they’re over there.’ Norrah pointed to a stack of folders and bound record books at the same time Penn reached for it, and he shrunk back. ‘I had to follow up on this Black Scroll business if it’s going to bar people from entering the town.’

‘Are you still going to undo it?’ Asher asked. ‘You said you found it barbaric.’

‘Archaic,’ Norrah corrected. ‘Though your entire judicial system is centuries behind. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll arrest anyone who takes a shot at another human being before I arrest anyone on that list for coming into town.’

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‘None of them are that bad?’ Asher asked. He moved over to the pile and flipped open the first bound book, noting that it wasn’t an exile list but a record of executions the city had sentenced over the decades. The first six listed witchcraft, and Asher tried not to let the thought dig its way into his brain.

‘For a kingdom that considers the death sentence an acceptable punishment, no, they are not,’ Norrah said. ‘So many of them are for witches. I thought you abolished that ruling when we did?’

‘We did,’ Asher said. ‘The third reigning King outlawed it, and the fifth brought it back.’

‘You’re in the sixth now,’ Norrah said.

‘The end of it, some people are saying.’

Norrah waved him away. ‘So this is the same King who burned all the records who people didn’t like.’

‘The one who was assassinated by his own kids, yeah,’ Asher said.

‘I can see why no-one liked him.’

Asher snorted before he could stop himself. He kept flicking through the hanging records, though he wasn’t sure why. Hadley was never accused of anything.

‘Your Kings have a habit of being murdered by their own children it seems,’ Norrah said. ‘I hope that’s not something I have to look forward to.’

‘Wouldn’t you be the murderer in that situation though?’ Asher asked. He paused, the files momentarily forgotten. ‘What do you mean?’

Norrah tilted her head. ‘Didn’t the first King get assassinated?’ she asked. ‘Maybe Euthria’s history has altered the facts, but I’m surprised you didn’t know that.’

‘Early history is not my forte,’ Asher admitted. ‘What’s the story there?’

‘You want a history lesson from me?’

‘Humour me.’

Norrah sighed, and with a quick glance over at Penn – who was sitting cross-legged on the floor and turning over yet more papers – she dropped her elbows onto the table. ‘It’s probably more controversial in my Kingdom than it is yours. Tarinye and Euthria were at war, because of course they were, and Tarinye surrendered. Internal conflicts from what I remembered. Then the Tarinye leader was executed, his son took control, and they claimed themselves a nation the same time they claimed Telkesi as part of their territory. Bold move, honestly, but you won that war.’

‘Internal conflict?’ Asher echoed. Maybe that was around the time Sergius of Audoen earned the title of Witch King. Warlock of the Moors. So many other colourful names.

‘Why do you ask?’ Norrah asked.

‘It was one of the parts scrubbed from the library,’ Asher said. When Norrah raised an eyebrow in question, he added. ‘With how bizarre everything was, I went all the way back to see if anything similar had been recorded.’

‘You’ve certainly been thorough.’ Norrah’s voice was dry.

Asher gestured to his crutch. ‘Not much else I can do.’

‘I suppose I understand,’ Norrah said. ‘Try not to get too distracted. Did you at least find something?’

‘Not enough to pull any strings together,’ Asher said. ‘But I have a few leads.’

He had neared the end of the folder, where the pages had long worn down from age, a lot of the ink fading entirely. Then something caught his eye and he paused.

An execution order that was never completed because the accused disappeared from a completely locked cell. He’d been written off as dead by suicide, but none of the official paperwork had been filled out. A quick flick through the other pages gave Asher the impression of a record erased to hide a scandal. The scandal of a man who had escaped out of a constantly guarded room with no window and iron shackles on the door. A single comment at the bottom of the page had been mostly faded away, save for a word he could still make out. Ring.

‘Oh shit,’ Asher breathed.

Norrah glanced up from her own papers, and Asher pulled the file free, handing it over to her. She barely glanced at it before her eyes widened. ‘That’s a very depraved crime,’ she said. ‘But I’ve already told you not to get distracted.’

‘At the bottom of the page,’ Asher said. He hobbled around the table to point it out, then paused. He hadn’t seen the crime listed, but the words made his stomach churn. The accused had been found with the bodies of missing men and women, all of them cut up to make a mismatched doll of different parts in his basement. The report said that some were still alive when he began cutting.

‘Fuck,’ he said. His mind flashed back to the abomination that had tried to kill him in Le Torkani, and a cold shiver trickled down his spine. A man of sick enjoyment, who had made tormented monsters of different creatures. He had toys of the same twisted amalgamations. It wasn’t possibly the same person, was it?

When he was a little kid, the Underlands were supposed to be a place of torment, where the most depraved and unforgivable of all would end up, but the monsters were the tormentors, not the people who ended up there. Perhaps it was the same as the old stories of witchcraft; blurred by history. Asher strained to make out the name at the top of the page, shoving it deep into the folds of his brain for later.

‘I can see why you think this is not an isolated incident,’ Norrah said. ‘But if you are convinced, I need something a lot stronger than this to consider it.’ She passed the book back to him.

Asher snapped it closed, his mind whirling. Had he met the depraved killer in that horrible world? Was it the same man who had been tormenting him? The same one who had tried to drop an entire stone arch on his head just the night before? There was no way to tell unless he tracked down the tooth man to ask him, but if it was him, it removed the mystery of the other world a little. It connected the stories from his days at school with the real events he had seen. It was something.

Light caught the edge of his vision as a little spirit danced across the table, pulling Asher’s attention away from his thoughts. It looked strangely like a glowing caterpillar, it’s back end forcing its front along as it struggled across the papers. When it reached another speck of silver on one page, it doubled in length then changed directions, moving to another speck further down the same page.

The entire paper was covered in the stuff. It smeared across the bottom half, splattering across the fresh ink. Asher lifted it out from under the pile, and a section of it turned to dust under his thumb, that same grey texture that had covered everything he touched.

Telkesi Project

Instigation of Rehabilitation and Research Survey

Under Decree of the Sixth King Thaddae Krishnit of Tarinye

Dated 14.20.6/799

CIC: Cpt. Navarre Chaverau

The sight of Navarre’s name was a punch to the stomach, hard and winding as the emotions Asher had pushed away came rushing back. It had been so long since that fateful day, though time had become a non-existence with Asher’s recovery, and all he could think of now was that Navarre was still in there, still trapped while he was standing here, looking at a report of an island that was destroyed fifty years before this survey happened.

Asher had no idea Telkesi had been declared safe. It had been a wasteland of rubble and rock since long before he was born, but it surprised him more that Navarre was a commander of the operation. Though, the man had said something about coming up from Fanmaryh when everything started.

The more immediate question was why spirits were clinging to the report. Did they come up from Telkesi? If that was the case, then this might have gone back further than the last year. It also suggested that the disaster had something to do with all of this, which was a horrifying thought. No, this had to do with the paper, who wrote it and where it had been. He flicked through, and there was the same name again. Navarre had signed off on the report. He had filled it out.

Please tell me you weren’t involved in all this, Asher willed silently.

‘Lieutenant,’ Norrah said. ‘You are in the way.’

‘Oh, sorry,’ Asher stepped to the side automatically. A farmer clutching a straw hat in his fists stood at the other end of the table, watching Asher as though he were some concerned citizen not seeing his needs met quickly enough. He held up the report. ‘Do you mind if I hang on to this?’

Norrah waved him away.

Asher scanned through the papers, but without the context of the project it was based on, none of it made much sense. Why Navarre was in charge of Telkesi when Telkesi had been independent for nearly a century was strange, but the war had been a partnership between them and Tarinye so he couldn’t question it too much.

It was yet another mystery to add to the pile, but not the most pressing one. Right now he needed to start dealing with the questions he had already brought up. First of all, before this Sovereignty drove away what little good faith people had with the guard, he needed to track down Hadley’s husband and find out what really happened to her.

He had a name from her file. Iain Derrian. He owned a blacksmith at the bottom of the valley.