“Malvia?” someone asked me. I couldn’t tell who, but I got my ughter under trol.

  “Sorry,” I said as I passed the piece of paper back to Dawes. “I simply ot believe how gullible those Pure Bloods are to fall for this. This must be fake.”

  It had to be fake. Sure, the Church of Halpus hated Infernals. Sure, they’d been making moves retly. But there was a differeween that and this, a signed writ directly beseeg some random human street gang for help. Sure, it said the bearers were servants of the churstead of shape-gers, and they’d made it so some bishop had signed instead of the church’s head, but this btant a piece of evidence? Clearly faked.

  “The seal looks very authentic,” Dawes said shakily, looking over the paper again. “Some others have it as well, and those are at least more easy to firm.”

  I looked over at Malstein. This was, after all, his show, and I’d already stepped on his toes. A hundred Watch eyes affixed on me did a good job of remindio tread carefully. Malstein nodded, and I went to the rest of the papers, going through them.

  Lists of equipment to be delivered, among them for alchemical supplies. Seems like the Pure Bloods were doing a lot of the grunt work, which seemed strange. With that warehouse, the shape-gers clearly had either the ability to move cargo or their own people they trusted. More lists, various ons. A few targets to help the bearers of these paper with, some to kill on their own.

  One was where Golvar would be, what time he should reach that little alchemist shop Gio had sent him to, where they should ambush him. How many of the Pure Bloods should be sent. The attempt that had started my involvement in this mess.

  “This is too obvious,” I said. “This is a mountain of evidence implig the church. There is not a remote possibility they would risk having their name dragged into this. It wasn’t just wreaking havo the Quarter, they targeted the nobility!”

  Malstein had leafed through the papers now, looking at each carefully.

  “It’s in the hands of a bishop,” Malstein said. “I know this ohere were questions involving some purchases she made on the church’s behalf before. She could be a rogue. Or a ger.”

  I frowned. “Could a ger even wield divine magic? Be a devout follower, so if one repced aing bishop, they shouldn’t be able to touch the divio the same extent, correct?”

  “That’s assuming one isn’t a devout follower,” Tagashin chimed in from where she sat on one of the few intact chairs. Or that a ger could join the church as a devout follower and naturally rise the ranks.”

  I frowhat was also a possibility, as was this just being church corruption? Perhaps the bishop was willing to be bought. One fact clicked into pce. A potential answer.

  “A devout bishop could summon a divine creature capable of providing ichor for the poison,” I said. “If it fits within the broad goals of their deity’s goals, there wouldn’t be any issue. Although the celestial would hardly be happy with what happened. But you wouldn’t o imprison it. Just take a little blood and banish it before aices.”

  Repeated summoning would take a lot out of the caster, but could if paced well you could mahem. A lot of money in reagents, but money didn’t seem te an issue, from what I’d seen of their operation and Hawkins’s talk. Not enough where someone hadn’t sidered engaging in what they’d tried to frame me for, but enough to manage. Especially if the Bishop would pilfer from ihe church.

  Another piece of the puzzle. Some were still missing, but we could test its shape and see how it felt.

  I went through the rest of the papers first. Nothing too useful, equipment to be retrieved, members of the gang t down, parts of the underground to check fns of activity. Most of these had bee by the gers, with regur ones from the bishop telling them to obey the people sent to oversee them and not to worry about the details. There were instrus to burn after reading at the bottom of each.

  Clearly, someone had collected these instead and hide them with Kasyp as insurance. A point in favor of the bishop being real, since I doubted anyone who would take that precaution would trust a scrap of paper with a seal.

  Then again, they’d been fooled into thinking Lord Montague supported them, and some of these papers mentioned his support as well. If I wao add a fake noble just to emboldehugs, I’d go for someoh more name reition and promihe bishop might be fake as well.

  O quick read-through of them all. A lot of moved goods. This pce probably had been a waystation for the b, stuff stored here till the gers were ready to move it to the b. It likely y further underground, safety ihe Delvers had not yet gotten to.

  “Let’s piece this together,” I said, looking around the vast room. Some of the Watch had left, taking up posts in the surrounding tunnels, others still io guard. Others were helping to get Kasyp into a dition to move to the surface. “We’ve got a space. We’ve got details. We don’t have the criminals, but that’s going to end up being difficult no matter what we do.”

  Tagashin cleared her throat. “Excuse me, are y to steal the climatic revetion from I, Voltar, the greatest of all detectives?”

  Okay, I was going to test Malstein ory when I had a ce. Being exposed to as much gmour as Tagashin must be pumping into them could not be healthy.

  “It’s not much of a mystery,” I said. “Well, it was, but that’s because everyone has been colliding with each other, including the gers. Hawkins’ interrogation gave the impression they aren’t w as closely together as we might think. So, unless you think this is truly worth a disse worthy of your mind, Mr. Voltar?”

  Tagashin sidered me for a sed, then shrugged.

  “Very well then, apprentice,” she said. “You have the bloodstained floor.”

  Had she informed the real Voltar about this apprentice idea? Probably not. I clopped to the middle of the floor, being watched by some idle Watch, a barely there Kaysp, Dawes, Malstein, and a smirking Tagashin.

  “Our story begins several hundred years ago,” I began. “With an attempted takeover of the Duchy of Anvlia by a minor son of the ruling dynasty, Dustin Tarry.”

  “Starting on shaky ground,” Tagashin interrupted. “Evidehat none of us have seen and is based on your interpretation of a book title. Poor show.”

  I gred at the Kitsune. “Perhaps the great Voltar would wish to e up here and show his apprentice how it’s done? Or perhaps just accept this is a theory?”

  The Kitsuné could chafe as much as she liked. I would not let her derail this. She remained quiet, so I tinued.

  “It failed. The random chaos of adventuring parties of the time doing what they did best uncovered the infiltration of one of the more minor houses of the Duchy. Over several decades the efforts of other adventuring groups and the king’s army slowed, stopped, and then reversed the takeover and also caught the ger’s creator. They did not, however, catch all the gers.”

  “Reasoagashin said. “If we assume these are his shape-gers.”

  “We’ve got det evidenontague is leading them now,” Dawes reminded her. “He had to have something to aplish that. What they wanted would be enough.”

  “Likely, but that’s getting a little too ahead of ourselves,” I said. “Instead of hiding out in the tryside, they e here to the big city. They probably started small. No name immigrants ing in looking for work. As they got used to the city, they probably started pig off ideal targets and repg them. Loners, people who they could impersonate where a personality shift wouldn’t be noticed by close friends or family. They use that to slowly gain more power and influence.”

  Essentially, what Gio had done, just with less bribery, threats, and demonic possession and more murder. Had their operations bumped up against each other before? That might be part of why the Fme had been a target in this.

  “They get to work setting up fake identities and stockpiling,” I said. “The warehouse was evidence of that. What were they doing? Surviving, if I had to guess. If there was a tral goal, it eludes me.”

  No disagreement so far.

  “So,” I said. “The gers put someone in the Church of Halpus a few decades baore accurately, one signs up of their own free will. We’re talking about an actual follower. It could be she split from them initially or not. She rises in the ranks till she reaches the bishopric. I don’t think they pnned on that being useful, but maybe they discovered this point further back than I thought.”

  “At some point, one of them finds out Dustin Tarry’s testimony is locked in the archives, as well as other ats. And this sets everything off. Dustin Tarry was a Biosculptor, one who created a race. Two things any Biosculptor learns to do with any created life forms are remove their ability to make more of themselves and make them have a weakness you exploit. You pick whichever of those reasons they pursued it, but they wa.”

  “If it’s the weakness, I don’t see why,” Malstein said. “They’re already hard enough to take down as it is.”

  “It would be something Tarry was sure they wouldn’t enter regurly or even semi-regurly,” I said. “He desighem as infiltrators. Anything that could kill them or weaken them would be something he had access to, but no one else could use. It could be a word. It could be a special alloy. Actually no. It would be something he could make with nothing else, so a phrase, a word, something anyone could produce but most never would.”

  “Fn nguage?” Malstein suggested. “Empire was a kingdom back then, and much less of a melting point. Could be he picked up a phrase he figured no one would say.”

  “Possibly, depends how far afield. Or it could be how to make more of them.”

  “So they hatch the pn to repontague’s heir?” Tagashin asks. “Realizing that the old man probably has far too defined of a personality to repce.”

  “Yes, and they decide on a poison that, when cured more often than not results in personality ges for the survivor,” I said. “Removing ao fool close retives. Probably the heir, possibly because if they poisoned Lord Montague, the royal family would remove the house’s ma of the archives as a precaution against a fight among potential heirs and other prab attempts. And that leads us into their efforts to put that into reality.”

  “And ended up falling into ruin from pure ce or diviervention,” Doctor Dawes noted.

  “I wouldn’t be on diviervention keeping Golvar alive,” I deadpanned. “But yes, him running ae-”

  “When you were disguised as their chosen fall woman, Fara,” Tagashin noted, which got a choked sound of panid shock out of a slowly eating Kasyp who stared at me in disbelief.

  “Yes, thank you for that fact everyone definitely o know,” I told her. “But yes, things got screwed up from there. The Watever found the box of Angel’s Sorrow they were supposed to find Golvar delivering to Versalicci. I ended up disc something strange was going on and also they got greedy a a ge to my b trying to get the cures. Someone panicked and ransacked my apartment, stealing my possessions, probably as eviden Lord Montague’s mock trial. Then that went wrong, and I escaped, and they’ve been winging things sihen.”

  The events leading up to there needed less discussion. It was a lot of jecture, but it hung on what was known, and we had a new figure to grab and maybe uhis entire mess with. Of course, that depended on Malstein being more willing to go after a member of the church than he had been a noble.

  And there was a more immediate question.

  A dozen shifters. Thirteen, if you believed my suspis about Lady Karsin. Maybe two less now? The Archives were on lockdown and none of us had an answer on if the two gers who had gone inside ever came out.

  “This is too easy,” I muttered. “Think, they kneere ing down the Pure Blood’s hideout. Sure, we’ve brought their numbers down a little, but even if the two at the archives never made it out, there would be more than enough to ambush us. Kill us even. Why not?”

  “One question no one has thought to answer,” Tagashin said. “If they summon another celestial, or even if they have all the poison they need, why would they he basilisk anymore?”

  Silence broke out at that. Then a scream, more screams that suddenly stopped. Cut off in an instant, and a low sibint hiss echoed across the tunnel halls, building into a roar matched by Kasyp’s sudden ragged scream.

  Basilisk.

  Saithorthepyro