“An Inspector?”

Recalling where we were, I lowered my voice and looked around and, sure enough, Beetle’s braids whisked around a corner.

Conference room, I hand-signed and led the way there, where we found Faith frowning at a heap of student essays and viciously circling all the spelling and grammar mistakes with crimson ink. In fact, the essays rather resembled the deck of the Nightbreaker after we got through with it.

Shutting the door behind Ash and me, I asked, “They sent an Inspector to investigate Strangford’s death?”

Renowned for their incorruptibility and doggedness, the Inspectors stood apart from (they would say above) local law enforcement. They hailed from other isles to minimize conflicts of interest, and their Imperial Mandates granted them sweeping powers for the duration of one specific investigation.

At my words, Faith’s pen nib stopped scratching. Red ink pooled over and blotted out one hideously mangled conjugation of the verb “to be.”

“Yes,” replied Ash with distaste. “One Candra Sarnai, originally of Severos.” He made the isle sound like an expletive.

Capping her pen and laying it aside, Faith flashed him a brilliant grin. “Why, if you’re worried about her, then I suggest you make friends with the Spirit Wardens! I hear they’re very useful.”

Ash and I gave her matching raised eyebrows. Wasn’t the next Ascendent on our list the Commander of the Spirit Wardens herself?

But reality never stopped Faith. “Why, when a poor, innocent young acolyte in the Church of Ecstasy got swept up for questioning by overzealous Brightstone Bluecoats, just because she happens to be distantly related to Timoth Bowmore and might on the slimmest off-chance know something about his plans, or his enemies, or anything even tangentially useful, a kindly Spirit Warden swooped in, paid off the Bluecoats, and made her record vanish!” Faith heaved a deep sigh of contentment at a bribe well paid. “It’s sooooo nice to have friends in the Wardens.”

Yes, well, I was sure Arilyn felt that way. Unfortunately, what saved her wasn’t going to help us. “Do you know how long we have before Inspector Sarnai gets here?”

Ash made a frustrated noise. “She’s here already. The Lord Governor must have requested her the night we killed Strangford. She arrived two days later.”

Thank goodness we’d preemptively framed Timoth Bowmore, although that story would need bolstering. “How far has she gotten?”

“I don’t know. But we should find out.” Ash’s voice rose until the orphans who were almost certainly loitering outside the conference room “waiting for Miss Karstas to return our essays” could hear him. “Because she is here basically for the sole purpose of finding out that it was we who killed Strangford, and not poor – I mean, the bastard – Timoth, so she can bring the full force of the Imperium down on us and eviscerate us, piece by piece!” Registering Faith’s fascinated stare, he caught himself and forced himself to finish more calmly, “Which is, admittedly, an entirely appropriate response given what we did.”

Bored again now that the show was over, Faith stretched, arching all the way backwards over her chair, and said through a wide yawn, “I disagree. I’m underwhelmed by the response. Here I was thinking that they’d burn Doskvol to the ground looking for us.”

Like whatever happened in the Charhallow Conflagration? “That might not actually be such a bad thing,” I mused out loud, “in terms of causing so much domestic turmoil that the Immortal Emperor can’t afford to invade Iruvia….”

Faith perked up at that. “You mean burning Doskvol to the ground?”

“Yes….”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, pleasantly surprised by this display of ruthlessness.

Equally startled, Ash said approvingly, “I’d have thought you would be the hardest person to convince, Isha.”

Without giving me a chance to recant, Faith jumped in. “What do you think? Should we start in Whitecrown? Or in Silkshore?”

“You mean, with the burning or the Inspector?” Ash clarified.

Did he know Faith or not? “She means the burning.”

“Yes,” he agreed, letting himself get sidetracked from the Inspector, “that would be quite pretty – ”

“Or in Charhallow!” Faith interrupted, her face bright with excitement. “We could start in Charhallow!”

“Well, ‘char’ is in the name already…,” Ash observed.

“Did the name come before or after the fire?” I asked abruptly. After all, if Crow’s Foot could be named after a gang, why couldn’t Charhallow be named after a particularly memorable conflagration?

Faith was so disgruntled that the district hadn’t been named after a tragedy she personally provoked that she actually gave me a straight answer. “Before,” she grumbled, her face scrunched up like a particularly grumpy cat’s.

A little chuckle escaped Ash. “I am more than on board with the burning,” he assured us, “although I’d prefer to start with the Sanctorium.”

Still irritated, Faith lectured him, “The Sanctorium would be a problem because it’s made of marble, and marble is not combustible. We already tried.”

If she counted the tiny fires set by the orphans as a distraction during the Djera Maha score, anyway. Personally, I thought we could try much harder if we wanted – although that really wasn’t and shouldn’t be a priority at the moment.

Ash also realized that we’d veered away from our most urgent problem. “I have very poetic plans for this Inspector, but first we need to learn more about her. We should start by identifying possible leads she might find, and smoothing over them. We won’t succeed at completely covering up our tracks, of course, but at least we can do slightly better.” Tapping his fingers together, he considered potential red herrings and surprised me with: “We could blame it all on the Grinders…but that’s a terrible idea. I kind of like them.”

Not to mention that Hutton knew what we looked like and would happily betray us right back. Also, Sigmund had been funding the Grinders in secret for nearly a year now and would not appreciate that investment loss – an argument that might actually carry weight with Ash.

“Anyway,” Ash pronounced, “we should go find out more about this Inspector. Are either of you interested in helping?”

I was already halfway out the door.

“Have fun, kids!” Faith sang, uncapping her pen and poising it over the next student essay. “I’ll start preparing incendiaries for Charhallow.”

Pausing in the doorway, Ash looked as if he couldn’t decide just how seriously to take her. “I’m on board with Charhallow,” he reiterated, “but really – can’t we start with a richer district? Can’t we start not with the destitute?”

She just flourished her pen at him. “Ah, but the destitute are more flammable.”

“Have you not seen the frilly lace that the nobles are wearing these days?”

“But gold and marble can’t be set on fire,” she pointed out in a tone of utmost reason, “whereas nice wooden houses with dried-out rafters and straw mattresses – they just go whoosh!” She threw her arms into the air to demonstrate, her sleeves rippling like flames. “And then there’s fire!” A dramatic wave. “Exploding everywhere!” An even more dramatic wave that sent all the fabric flying out like a pink inferno. “Like the lace and ruffles on a dress!”

“Yes, well, there’s plenty of lace – ” Ash tried.

“And beautiful shades of red and orange! Can’t you just picture it? It would be so pretty!”

“Pink and orange don’t go together,” he reminded her, trying to douse her enthusiasm. “And certainly not pink and red.”

“Young disciple, you still have much to learn.” She fixed him with the same disappointed stare that she gave her students when they lapsed into street lingo during her elocution lessons.

I mouthed her next line along with her: “Everything goes with pink.”

Our crew had begun to store costumes in the orphanage, so Ash and I didn’t have to go all the way back to the railcar to change. Instead, clad in ill-fitting, greasy vests and baggy trousers, we slipped out the backdoor and made our way north to the Docks. There, we attached ourselves to a work gang and busied ourselves rolling barrels down the pier until a pair of Bluecoats who were questioning all the dockers reached us.

“Did you see anything suspicious the night of the Admiral’s murder?” one of them asked in a perfunctory tone, while her partner glanced idly at the ship we were unloading.

“Ah yes, the poor Admiral! That was terrible! And on a leviathan hunter, too! I do hope the leviathan blood keeps flowing!” Ash exclaimed, wiping the sweat off his brow with one filthy sleeve. I didn’t think he was entirely pretending to be grateful for a break. “But – ” he lowered his voice and leaned forward a little as if preparing for a sun-shattering confession – “I’m glad they finally docked. It was getting really hard to keep going out to the ship like that. Not that I’m complaining, of course. I’m glad we can do our proper duty to the Imperium and help out with the leviathan blood because it’s so important….” On and on he blathered, until the Bluecoats’ eyes glazed over.

I nudged him with my elbow. “But we did see those two men, remember?”

Jolted out of their trance, the Bluecoats turned hopefully. “Two men?”

“Yes,” I told them importantly. “Out on the pier, the night the Admiral died. It’s not that they weren’t where they were supposed to be, because our chief said it was fine and don’t worry about it when we asked, but – oh no!” I widened my eyes in horror. “I’m so sorry! We really should have reported it sooner!”

“Can you describe them?” the first Bluecoat demanded.

I could indeed.

I gave them a description that, while not a perfect match for Wayan and Kuwat Maha (because that might arouse suspicions), could only point at them. I could see that realization dawning on the Bluecoats too, and right as their eyes lit up, I asked tentatively, “I heard there’s an Inspector in town? Is she here too? Should we go tell her what we saw?”

“Oh no,” the second Bluecoat replied scornfully, “she’s over in Brightstone, checking all the Admiral’s enemies.”

“You did good to tell us,” the first Bluecoat praised. “Don’t talk to anyone else. We’ll make sure it gets to the right people.”

And off they scrambled to report this brilliant lead before any of their colleagues beat them to it.

Ash and I returned to work, spreading the same story among the dockers and guaranteeing that by the end of our shift, at least half of them would be swearing that they personally witnessed Djera Maha’s hitmen attacking Admiral Strangford on the deck of the Nightbreaker.

Satisfied with the day’s work, I made for a public bathhouse to scrub off all the grime, while Ash headed to a Docks pub to celebrate with Hutton.

“Cheers!” Blissfully unaware that Ash had considered tossing him to our Imperial overlords, Hutton raised his beer mug in a sloppy toast. “To a free Lockport!”

Although Ash darted a wary glance around the pub, the mostly Skovlander clientele didn’t bat an eye. In a hushed voice, he asked, “Has anyone noticed that some of the leviathan blood is missing?”

“Nah.” Hutton dismissed that concern at once. “Everybody’s too busy talking about Strangford.” He shrugged. “Someday, somebody will tally up the blood and notice that some is missing, but by then it could have been anyone.” Another shrug, and then he drained his mug and shoved it across the counter at the bartender. “It was probably the crew.”

“Good point. This worked out better than I expected, although…various messes might need cleaning up to make sure that, you know, people stop talking. I hope this is the start of fruitful interactions of this type. There’s a lot more money to be had.”

The bartender plonked a fresh mug of beer in front of Hutton, who wrapped one giant hand around it while watching Ash curiously, wondering what he was trying to say. When no job offer appeared to be forthcoming, Hutton hinted, “It’s always good to meet someone sympathetic to the cause and, uh, we can take any funds you can chuck our way.”

With all his trademark opacity, Ash replied, “Rest assured that I want nothing more than your everlasting success in this regard. If I could sink all the leviathan hunters, I happily would. Do you have a finance guy I can talk to? A treasurer? No? That’s fine, I’ll be in touch. I have some strong leads for, well, not direct funding, but opportunities like this one: vulnerabilities in the Imperium that your crew is particularly well suited to exploit.”

After a moment of silent translation (much like our orphans), Hutton identified the gist of Ash’s speech and repeated, “Like I said, anything you can chuck our way, we would be grateful.”

The two drank together for a while longer, congratulating each other on the success of Operation Nightbreaker, and then Ash wended his way to the Temple to the Forgotten Gods for a relaxing prayer vigil.

“He brought an entire container of this ridiculous, gold-encrusted ice cream,” Ilacille’s acolyte reported to me later.

“For That Which Hungers?” I asked. Gold-flaked food did seem to embody the pointless opulence that Ash’s god (or maybe just Ash himself) appreciated.

“Yes, but also for the priestess. She never leaves the temple, you see. She even sleeps in a little room off the sanctum. So the followers of the different cults bring her meals to thank her for tending the altars. Yesterday was Adept Slane’s turn.” The acolyte shook her head, clearly bewildered by Ash’s idea of nutrition.

“Variety is the spice of life and all that?” I suggested, recalling the heavily spiced ice creams of U’Duasha and wondering if I could find them here.

“Perhaps,” agreed the acolyte politely. Without needing any prompting (which was why she was one of my favorite agents), she began her report: “After Adept Slane finished praying, he asked the priestess why the other gods are so passive.” Despite her training, the acolyte hadn’t yet attained Ilacille’s toleration for human and divine foibles, and her lips twisted in distaste at Ash’s abrasiveness.

However, Ilacille’s response was a serene: “What would you have them do?”

“My god has a plan to deal with this – this – shame that’s been cast on all of us,” Ash declared. “There are so many of us and only one Church.”

“Adept Slane,” Ilacille reproved him gently, “it is true that there are many cults, but each individual one is very small.”

“That’s no excuse for weakness and inaction!” he bellowed, his voice ringing around the sanctum and bouncing off the altars.

After a calm wait for the echoes to die away, Ilacille shook her head. “Every god has a plan. Some are in motion; some are not. It depends on the state of their cult.” (The acolyte, who really did have a theatrical streak, imitated the demure way that the priestess clasped her hands in front of her.)

To no one’s surprise, Ash was entirely unimpressed (and the acolyte mimicked his arrogance and impatience to perfection too). “Well, my god certainly has a plan, and it is certainly in motion – ”

At that, Ilacille smiled, as if at a private memory. “Of course.”

“ – and if any other gods are willing to work towards our mutual interest, that is important to know.” (Ash’s tone made it clear that he didn’t believe any such highly-motivated gods existed.)

“What precisely are you looking for assistance with, Adept Slane?” Ilacille inquired, her neutral voice revealing neither encouragement nor censure.

“Enacting the will of my god, of course.”

“But you must see the difficulty,” she pointed out, mildly. “Any cult would be interested in enacting the will of their own god.”

Ash immediately rejected the notion of accommodating other gods’ (and potential allies’) goals. “All of us seek freedom from this captivity – except maybe the most base,” he pronounced. “Any reasonable god would seek freedom for their followers.” He pointed at the altar of That Which Hungers and its bowl of gleaming ice cream. “Yes, of course my god has an agenda beyond that, but we all have common interests. This – ” he waved an arm around himself, encompassing the sanctum and the entirety of the temple – “this is a hovel compared to the Sanctorium, and my god will not suffer this indignity forever.”

Having seen the Sanctorium myself, I thought there was some truth to his assessment, even if the Temple to the Forgotten Gods had a certain derelict charm – but the acolyte was absolutely appalled, and Ilacille finally looked offended.

Ash cut himself off but didn’t apologize.

Forcing some semblance of composure, the priestess inquired, “Do you actually have a plan – or do you simply have ambitions?”

To his credit, Ash did struggle with his own instability, but by this point, he had passed well beyond discretion, and he boasted, “Well, who do you think might have killed Admiral Strangford?”

(I winced, but the acolyte reassured me that Ilacille heard this sort of bluster all the time from the followers of She Who Slays in Darkness, and that it didn’t faze her one bit.)

In the face of Ilacille’s indifference, Ash tried again. “I would say that the ramifications of my god’s actions have already been echoing throughout the city, if you’ve been paying attention – ”

Frostily, Ilacille interrupted, “I assure you, Adept, I am always paying attention.”

Here, at long last, Ash looked slightly chastened.

Drawing herself up to her full height, the priestess rebuked him, “I have seen this sort of thing before. Yours is not the first cult to attempt drastic action. I doubt you’ll be the last.”

“I would hope not,” replied Ash, but in a subdued way that suggested he knew how close he was to getting thrown out of the temple for good. “Still – my initial inquiry stands. My god is not unwilling to work with others. Well.” He had the grace to stop and question whether That Which Hungers’ view on “working with others” matched the generally accepted definition. “Anything to undermine the status quo,” he amended.

Calm again, Ilacille merely observed, “That Which Hungers has always been one of the more impatient ones.”

Ash chuckled before he could catch himself. “I hope so.”

“Mmmm, I suppose you would.” Forgiving him and his god for their excesses, Ilacille promised, “I will circulate your…request among the other adepts as they come in. Some may be amenable. Regrettably, one of the ones who might have been most amenable is not happy with you right now. If you truly wish their assistance, you’ll have to make reparations of some sort.”

(Since theology was no strength of mine, I couldn’t tell whether she meant the Golden Stag or the Unbroken Sun, and the acolyte lacked the necessary context to judge. I had no intention of providing it either. I wasn’t Ash.)

To the acolyte’s and my surprise, Ash actually entertained the notion of reparations. “That Which Hungers is not one for compromise, but he does appreciate the need for appropriate remuneration…. But that said, your service in maintaining our temple is a gift that my god will be happy to repay a thousand fold. One day, the Sanctorium will pale in comparison to the temple that you will lead!”

Even before he finished speaking, she was already shaking her head. “That is kind of you, Adept Slane, but my place is here.”

“This is but a seed for the glory to come! I appreciate what you have done for my god so far, but the time for growth is already upon us!”

He then spent a good five minutes conjuring up visions of a grand temple even more mind-bogglingly lavish than the Sanctorium, and implying that even if the other gods would be tolerated as divine presences, That Which Hungers would reign supreme over the pantheon. Having heard variants on this rant before from many followers of many different gods, Ilacille simply listened patiently.

“She’d never let him turn the Temple of the Forgotten Gods into a temple to That Which Hungers, but she’d be fine with him building another temple elsewhere,” the acolyte summarized.

As long as it didn’t interfere with any Iruvian issues, I supposed that I was fine with that too.