Since we were developing a reputation – in our own minds, at the very least – for assassinating our targets while they were indulging their vices, that was what we focused on while we researched Skannon Vale. Pretending to represent a wealthy client with a ship coming in, the three of us interviewed docker handlers, including all of those who used to own the offices that Vale usurped. We also requested character references from merchants who still found it more profitable to bring in goods by ship rather than by rail.

“Tidy and punctual” was how the docker handlers grudgingly described Vale – when they weren’t cursing him for pricing them out of their properties.

“Possessed of a ruthless business sense” was how his fellow merchants admiringly portrayed him. Apparently the man had an uncanny talent for negotiations, offering just the right amount at just the right time.

They also told us that Vale lived in Charterhall, that his main office was located not too far from the university – and that he attended his local branch of the Church of Ecstasy religiously. Multiple times a week in fact. Not only was he a regular at Mass on the sixth day, but he never missed a single third-day Study, where devotees dissected the writings of the Immortal Emperor, founder and head of the Church.

“They read all about how death is final so we should enjoy life to the fullest!” explained Faith, blatantly contradicting what she’d told Irimina about the Church. (“You know, it’s not for finding pleasures,” she’d lamented over tea and biscuits.)

“Can we kill him at Study then?” I asked, thinking that maybe the eyewitnesses would be too absorbed in their books to notice assassins sneaking in.

With surprising authority, Faith declared, “It’s smaller and more intimate, so it would be harder to infiltrate.” Strikingly, she dispensed with her usual glibness.

“Killing him at Mass would be more public and more embarrassing for the Church anyway,” commented Ash before I could pursue the matter.

Faith’s eyes went all dreamy. “You know, the Church proposes Hollowification for true disciples. Since ghosts are unholy abominations, you should remove your own soul in order to purify yourself….” Snapping back to the present, she grinned at our stunned faces. “What better way to enjoy temporal life than without an unsanctified soul inside you?”

A horrified silence smothered the railcar.

“Are – are they still sentient?” I asked when I could speak again.

“Oh no, of course not! What would be the point?”

“I – I – ” I didn’t even know what to say.

Ash did. Slamming a fist on the table, he exploded, “That’s a waste of a life’s worth of education and the state’s investment in its citizens!”

With exaggerated patience, Faith explained to the heathen, “That’s why it demonstrates the utmost faith.”

The heathen was unimpressed. “You can’t make up something stupider!” he fumed.

She smiled a smile full of daggers. “Well, if I were to waste ‘a life’s worth of education and the state’s investment in me’ in order to demonstrate my faith – ” she smirked at the pun – “isn’t it better to have my soul ripped out and eradicated and to let my animated corpse shamble mindlessly through the rest of its existence, than to read account books?”

For a moment, I really thought I’d have to pry Ash off her.

Faith merely regarded him with cool superiority.

Quashing his wrath with titanic effort, he snapped, “Then I propose we ensure that the Church Hollows the wrong person ‘by accident’.”

At that idea, Faith’s entire face lit up and a litany of possibilities poured forth: “Or we could kidnap him, Hollow him, and make it look like he did it; we could convince him to do it himself; we could make it look like he overindulged and dropped dead at a Hollowing….” Noticing my stupefied expression, she leaned close to whisper in my ear, “I could show you the pleasures of Hollowing.” Then she sat back and giggled.

“No!” I burst out. “No! We’re not Hollowing anyone! That’s – that’s – ”

In my distress, the only word that sprang to mind was “wrong,” which was so weak a description that it didn’t even begin to encompass the horror of destroying a perfectly good human being for benighted principles of faith.

“I left Iruvia – ” and sacrificed my position, my family, my entire life – “so I could escape a city ruled by Demon Princes, and this is what I find here?”

Faith shushed me as if I were a toddler throwing a tantrum. “Don’t worry, Isha. Your soul is safe with us.”

That hadn’t been what I was worrying about.

Ash was more blunt. “It’s certainly worth more than six coin,” he pointed out.

I sputtered in outrage.

Faith patted me comfortingly on the head. “There, there, Isha, if your maidenly qualms do not permit us to rip out Skannon Vale’s temporarily immortal soul, will they allow us to poison his temporal flesh?”

That did sound much more acceptable. And I even knew the perfect place to get drugs.

“You know the unpleasantness at the Docks?” I asked Mylera in the privacy of her office.

“Mmmhmmm,” she replied impassively. Folding her hands on her desk, she regarded me politely.

I wasn’t fooled. From that position, she could easily reach the blades strapped to her arms, the jeweled “historical” dagger displayed among her curios, and the stiletto disguised as a letter opener. Mylera, as more than one would-be assassin had discovered, was at her most dangerous when she brought out the etiquette.

I soldiered on, making sure to keep my own hands where she could see them. “We’ve been investigating. The Lampblacks have hired us to remove the person behind the…acquisitions.” I deliberately left it vague as to whether we’d done the preliminary surveillance at our own or Bazso’s behest.

At the mention of the Lampblacks, Mylera’s face hardened. “I see.” Her right hand twitched, just the tiniest bit.

I held my own hands absolutely still. “We’re planning to arrange for an overdose. We could use…assistance.” Given that she too would benefit from checking the Hive, I thought she would be willing to donate drugs to the enterprise. I was planning to submit her aid to Bazso as evidence of the Red Sashes’ collaborative spirit.

“I see,” Mylera repeated, her dark eyes studying me like a vase at auction.

“Do you have any recommendations?” I hinted heavily.

Ash, Faith, and I had already debated the advantages and drawbacks of common narcotics and tentatively settled on Black Lotus, but I was curious what Mylera, owner of high-end drug dens across Doskvol, might suggest.

“Well, it depends on the effect you’re going for,” she lectured, shelving the issue of Lampblack involvement for the time being. She sat back in her chair, out of reach of the stiletto and jeweled dagger (but in range of the sword under her desk). “There’s trance powder, but it’s almost impossible to overdose on that. Quicksilver opens the user’s mind to the ghost field, which might be useful if you have a Whisper – which I believe you do. Dream Smoke is probably too mild for what you’re planning….”

“I’ve heard that they often use Bloodneedle at Mass,” I volunteered. That was a stimulant that induced euphoric mania when injected. “The Church provides it, and devotees often bring it as a tithe. We were thinking of spiking it with something that would…interact poorly.”

“You want Black Lotus then,” she pronounced, and I felt a burst of satisfaction that we’d gotten it right. “Black Lotus is a depressant and hallucinogen. The two drugs clash interestingly.” She smiled wryly. “It’s not a combination we provide in our establishments, for obvious reasons.”

Obediently, I chuckled at the folly of killing off your revenue source.

Ringing a bell, Mylera summoned one of the junior Red Sashes and ordered him to fill a syringe with a one-to-one mix of Bloodneedle and Black Lotus.

“Perhaps more than just the one needle?” I murmured. “As a backup?”

She glared at me, reminding me that she wasn’t a charity soup kitchen, but nodded at the underling.

“I’m beginning to wonder what your angle in all this is, Glass,” she remarked casually.

I nearly froze, but forced myself to shrug with equal casualness. “You know me. I’m just trying to make a new life in this city.”

“Mmmmmhmmmm.”

But she left it at that.

As our tithe for sixth-day Mass, we collected a horde of partyers, er, potential converts, that consisted mostly of university students celebrating the end of the week. Parading from one tavern to the next across Charterhall, we distributed alcohol liberally until everyone was in the appropriate state of mind for the service, so to speak, and then led the rowdy band to Vale’s church.

From the outside, the architecture looked prim and proper, reflecting the sober-mindedness of the predominantly middle-class congregation. (The nobility attended its own, far grander cathedral in Brightstone, the grandiloquently named – and constructed – Sanctorium.) As soon as we stepped through the double doors, however, the staid right angles exploded into fantastical swirls and curlicues and oddly voluptuous curves, with nary a straight line in sight. Scanning the throng of clerks, lawyers, businesspeople, and doctors who swayed into the pews in their sixth-day best while swigging from bottles of wine and swapping needles, I made a mental note to recruit more of the middle class as informants. They definitely held hidden depths.

Our revelers dispersed when we entered the church, and Faith guided us onto a wavy wooden bench in the back. I noticed that she’d donned a black, albeit still frilly, gown for the service, during which she helpfully inserted her own Commentaries on the Sermon to the Middle-Class Congregation of Charterhall. According to her, the homily contained only standard, “uninspired” fodder. Embraced within a disconcertingly curvaceous pulpit, the priest exhorted us to live life to the fullest while we were alive and pontificated on the nobility of allowing life to end when it actually ended. Throughout his discourse, Faith flinched or grinned from time to time, although in no pattern I could discern.

The most exciting part of the sermon was staring at the urn of ravenous ghosts on the altar, all hooked up to electroplasmic lines and ready for electrocution. Faith was planning to disable the latch on the lid.

After the priest finally droned to a close, the congregation disintegrated into a mob that chattered with drug-enhanced zeal and hugged to excess. The deacons brought out a grand feast – syringes of Bloodneedle and snuffboxes of Dream Smoke laid neatly beside roast chickens and fruit arrangements in the shape of swans – and invited us to apply the lessons of the liturgy. With cheers of “Amen!” our respected civic leaders and model citizens launched into an orgy that didn’t bode well for the governance of Doskvol.

Taking glasses of wine so we would blend in, Faith, Ash, and I circulated through the crowd and searched for Skannon Vale. After declining so many offers of drugs or kisses that my polite smile stiffened into a rictus, we finally tracked him down. With a knot of other men, he lounged in front of a stained glass window that could have depicted the Cataclysm just as easily as, well, never mind. My cheeks grew hot, and I hastily ducked my head.

Luckily for me, Faith was too busy examining Vale and his associates with clinical detachment to notice my chagrin.

Unluckily for us, they were using only drugs they’d brought themselves. As one of the men pushed up his sleeve to inject himself, I caught a glimpse of a bee tattoo.

“How do we separate him?” I asked Faith softly, under cover of sipping my wine.

She gave me an arch glance. “In my experience, everyone comes to Mass with an open mind.”

And she was off, wending her way through the crowd with eerie ease. Here she touched a lone clerk on the shoulder and smilingly directed his attentions to the lawyer across the banquet table. There she slithered up to a couple locked in a passionate embrace and offered them a packet of Dream Smoke along with a pipe.

“Is it just me, or is she really good at this?” Ash asked with a slight frown.

“It’s not just you.” Encouraging revelers must have been part of her acolyte training.

Deftly weaving her way through the congregation, Faith at last made her way to Vale’s little posse, one of whom had been casting sidelong glances at a pretty young girl across the room. With a pretty smile of her own, Faith pressed a syringe of Black Lotus into his hand. I just barely made out her words: “Your minds can be joined in a celebration of the Church.” Taking him by the arm, she led him gently over to the girl and introduced them, then shepherded them to a dark corner. Leaning in, she whispered something that made the girl giggle in shock and excitement. As soon as Faith left, the couple began enacting her suggestion with great exuberance.

Even with her uncanny skill, though, it still took a long time to draw off Vale’s allies. Ash wandered off to chat with a group by the (probably spiked) punch bowl, and I supposed that I should at least pretend to partake of the pleasures of the flesh while I was still alive because death would be the final end, etc. etc., but I couldn’t quite bring myself to. Instead, I leaned against an oddly slippery column and observed. About half of the crowd was using Bloodneedle and the rest Dream Smoke, and the haze filling the room was starting to make me woozy.

I was back in U’Duasha, nursing a single tumbler of whiskey in the shadows at the back of the Great Hall while staring moodily at him, seated on the Patriarch’s right. He was draped in stiff ceremonial robes that blinded us with ornate embroidery, and where the light from the chandeliers struck his head, his golden hair blazed like a crown. Not a year ago, he would have searched eagerly with his eyes until he found me, wherever I stood, and smiled ruefully, apology and regret and promise all in one.

Not so that night. His attention, like that of everyone else in the hall, was fixed on the Patriarch. That was how I knew I had lost him.

No, if I were being honest, I’d lost him the moment the heir apparent died under highly questionable circumstances (which was expected) and the Patriarch named him the new heir (which was not). It had just taken a long time for me to admit it to myself; he, I was sure, had drawn the conclusion long ago and accepted it as the price of power.

But I was about to lose him not only in the emotional sense but the physical one as well, and against that farewell, I sipped my whiskey and stared at him, memorizing everything I could about his face, his eyes, his gestures. The precise manner in which he sliced his meat. The little ironic smile that played on the corners of his lips. The way he tipped his head ever so slightly when he was skeptical. Little things, yes, but ones that I knew so well, that had remained constant even as his heart and his mind changed, corrupted by the Patriarch and the Demon Prince they served. I would miss him so, so much.

I already missed him so, so much.

When I judged that everyone was too drunk and too busy swapping boasts and insults (albeit with an eye on the Patriarch, always with an eye on the Patriarch) to notice my absence, I slipped out of the hall and dashed to the treasury. The guards posted at the door challenged me, of course, but I simply explained that he wished to display Grandfather to the assembled House and had sent me to fetch it. Since our devotion to each other was famous, strained as it had become in the past year, the guards let me take the carved wooden case that housed the sword.

As soon as I turned the corner, I ducked into a storage closet. There on the dusty floorboards, I opened the lid with trembling fingers, lifted Grandfather from its silken wrappings, slung it on my sword belt, and fled.

It didn’t take long before the Patriarch – at least, I hoped it was the Patriarch and not my parents or he – discovered the theft and sent assassins after me. For all my training, I barely survived the first few encounters. After one fight left me bleeding and alone in a dark alley a few blocks from the Akorosian Consulate, the sword spoke to me for the first time. In the tones of a wise old grandfather, it urged me to seek sanctuary in Akoros. I didn’t trust it, of course. Who would trust the Prince of Shadows? But what choice did I have? Luckily, our tutors had drilled almost accentless Akorosian into us, so all I had to do was disguise myself as a servant, mingle with the service staff at the Consulate, and eventually smuggle myself to Doskvol.

“That’s not a bad impression of someone high on Dream Smoke, Isha.” Faith’s half-assessing, half-teasing voice jolted me out of my memories. “But you should try to look more like you’re enjoying yourself.”

“What – oh.”

The banquet hall of my past melted and transformed back into the church in Charterhall. Five feet away, Skannon Vale drew a needle from his left coat pocket and injected himself as he chatted with his last two associates.

Shouts across the room caught my attention.

“That cheating slime!”

The voice sounded strangely familiar, although I’d never heard it at that volume, and distorted by rage and substance abuse. Edging my way around a rather energetic orgy, I sidled towards the commotion.

“Yes, yes, it’s most inappropriate for her to abscond with another gentleman when you escorted her here, is it not?” Now that was definitely Ash.

Sure enough, in an ever-growing open space by the banquet table stood my crewmate – and Tocker Helker.

The general’s widower glowered ferociously at a woman snuggling in a pew with another man. “She’s disgusting, she’s revolting, she’s – ” He flung an accusing hand in her direction but tottered and nearly fell.

Leaning forward as if to press Tocker’s hand in sympathy, Ash slid a dagger into it. “Isn’t it outrageous? And after you were the one who invited her to Mass too!”

Lost in a whirl of drug-addled grief and wrath, the little lawyer suddenly whipped around and slashed at Ash with the knife.

Ash yelped and leaped back – but not fast enough.

The blade connected with a hideous riiiiip.

Ash’s left coat sleeve flapped open. A trickle of blood ran down his arm.

Murmurs broke out around them. Partly appalled – but mostly curious – the congregation swayed back a few more steps and formed a ragged circle around the pair. With a resigned expression that suggested violence wasn’t entirely uncommon at Church fêtes, the priest started wading through his flock. “Excuse me, excuse me, coming through, coming through….”

Craning my head, I strained for a glimpse of Vale’s associates, hoping to see another man heading over. However, they only huddled together under the stained-glass window and began to evaluate whether they should leave.

There was no time to lose.

I deftly detached myself from the onlookers and glided back towards Vale, then pretended to get jostled and knocked off my feet. Waving my arms and stumbling forward, I clutched at his coat to keep from falling – and slid one of Mylera’s needles into his pocket.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, sir!” I cried. “I didn’t mean to! Someone pushed me!”

“No harm done, miss,” Vale replied tersely, setting me back on my feet. “Haig, go find Boden. Tell him we’re leaving.”

Haig began to force his way through the crowd, pushing towards the first man Faith lured off. Swiftly, she organized a couple dozen Dream Smoke users into a rowdy dance that snaked around the church and cut off his path again and again. They even managed to sweep away the last of Vale’s associates.

At this point, our target decided that enough was enough and he was leaving immediately, with or without his fellow Hivers. As soon as she saw him winding towards a side door, Faith flounced over to the priest and whispered urgently in his ear.

The clergyman abruptly turned on his heel and strode to the altar, where he raised both his arms and pronounced in ringing tones that sliced through the haze of Dream Smoke: “Dearly beloved, let us now proceed to the incineration of unholy abominations!”

I would have left anyway, but devout worshipper that he was, Vale now felt compelled to stay.

At the same time, Ash’s voice soared above the din in a gleeful shout, “It’s time to get into a passion! Nothing could be more devotional than fighting over jealous passions!” Through a gap in the crowd, I saw him whip out a second dagger.

Everything happened at once.

Tocker lunged clumsily at him with the bloody knife.

Ash twisted out of the way and rammed his dagger between Tocker’s ribs.

The lawyer crumpled to the floor and lay motionless, a pool of blood slowly spreading around him. As usual, there was no bell.

Across the room, I caught a glimpse of Faith’s face. For a split second, she looked inexpressibly frustrated, active annoyance and resigned acceptance chasing each other across her features.

Then she snapped out of it and refocused on the altar, where the priest was just reaching for the switch that would unleash bolts of electroplasmic energy upon the hapless ghosts.

Faith’s lips curved slightly upward.

At the very last instant, the priest noticed that the latch was broken. As horror dawned on his face, the lid blasted into the air, propelled by howling specters that shot out of the urn in a magnificent geyser of electroplasm. The electric-blue fount struck the ceiling and shattered into five frayed, feral ghosts that arched above the frozen congregation as if selecting their prey.

Yanking out a pistol from under his robes, the priest swung in a semi-circle and squeezed off an electroplasmic round at the closest ghost, which dodged, hovered overhead, and fixed its empty eyes on him.

Faith smiled again, toothily. The other four ghosts dove into the crowd, which finally snapped out of its stupor. Screams echoed off the walls as the mass of drunk, hallucinating worshippers stumbled and crawled for the exits.

In a flash, the first ghost leaped into the priest, who went stiff as a corpse, finger still curved around the trigger.

Two ghosts oozed their way into a couple in a corner who were frantically trying to pull on clothing.

I scanned the church rapidly. Scattered throughout the room, all of Vale’s associates were too busy saving themselves to pay him any attention. Letting a wave of fleeing Bloodneedle users catch me up, I slid my backup needle out of my pocket and palmed it. Right as they swept me past Vale, I rammed it into his back and let it drop next to him. For a heart-stopping moment, nothing happened.

Calmly descending from the altar, the priest left through a side door.

Ash had already vanished, leaving Tocker’s body in a small lake of blood.

Faith was nowhere to be seen.

All of a sudden, Skannon Vale wheezed and began to convulse all over. Within half a minute, he collapsed to the floor, twitched one final time, and died.

Faith materialized by my side, making me jump. “We shouldn’t leave extra corpses lying around,” she said softly. “It would be too messy.”

She easily detached me from the crowd of Bloodneedle users, and we approached Tocker’s corpse together.

“Here, Mr. Helker, let’s get you out of here,” I said, pretending to help him up.

Faith took his other side, and we “walked” him out of the church in the middle of the mob. Outside, Ash signaled to us from the shadows, I’ll keep a lookout.

With him shadowing us, Faith and I rushed to the nearest canal and dumped in the body – right as two Bluecoats rounded the corner. We barely had time to jump to our feet and pretend we were admiring the moon’s reflection in the water.

Hand clamped over his bleeding arm, Ash immediately hailed them. “Officers! Help! I’ve been stabbed!” he shouted imperiously, sounding infinitely offended that anyone would dare violate the sanctity of aristocratic flesh. “Stabbed! In Charterhall of all places! How could you let this happen?”

Faith and I slunk into the darkness.

Behind us, displaying a conspicuous lack of concern for the injury, one Bluecoat was reciting in a bored voice, “Milord, you’ll need to come to the station to fill out a report.”

Ash’s voice trailed off as he followed them down the street. “There were ghosts afoot! In Charterhall! What do we pay the spirit wardens for?”

At the Charterhall precinct, Ash spent a couple hours filling out a form in which he admitted to an altercation between him and another worshipper at Mass, although he claimed self-defense and intoxication (which was apparently a valid excuse for such incidents; there was even a little box to tick for that). He reported that he ran when the ghosts attacked, so he didn’t know what became of the other man.

Only then did he return to the railcar.