In the midst of all these preoccupations, Beetle stopped me outside Strathmill House right as I was starting to tail Faith. My crewmate had just left wearing her incognito-Spirit-Warden costume, and if she were meeting that Church of Ecstasy acolyte again, I wanted to eavesdrop.

“Miss Yara, Miss Yara,” called Beetle, running up and tugging at my arm. “Have you seen Kristov? Locust is looking for him.”

Five-year-old Kristov was Locust’s best buddy, but he sometimes tagged along after two of the older boys, who treated him like a favorite pet. I’d noticed because those specific teens happened to be Faith’s final candidates for infiltrating the Church. “Have you checked with Wester or Brace?” I suggested, keeping one eye on Faith’s disappearing back.

Twisting a braid – a nervous tell I hadn’t broken her of yet – Beetle frowned. “They haven’t seen him either.”

In the distance, Faith’s cloaked figure rounded a corner. If I didn’t hurry, I was going to lose her. “Well, check again,” I ordered, reclaiming my arm. “I’m sure he’s off playing somewhere. He’ll pop up soon. And don’t fiddle with your hair when you’re nervous.”

Beetle bit her lip but obediently dropped her braid and let me go.

And it was a good thing she did too, because Faith had apparently decided to have poor Arilyn practice infiltrating a demonic cult so she wouldn’t be shocked and terrified when she discovered that she was already infiltrating a demonic cult. Over reasonable tea but distinctly tough scones, the fake Spirit Warden instructed, “You will pretend to be a member of a demonic cult that used to operate out of an abandoned house in Six Towers. Your cult was recently destroyed, and you want revenge and power.”

Arilyn, who was no Slide, fumbled her scone. “But I don’t actually have to bind myself to a demon, right?” she checked.

“No,” replied Faith at once, making me wonder yet again which persona was her true self and why, if she were capable of normal, direct speech, she insisted on subjecting Ash and me to her alliterative outbursts. “But you will need to gather information on their rituals and uncover their plans. This is how the recruiting process goes.” And Faith proceeded to lay out a detailed description of how cult recruiters haunted shady establishments, searching for people interested in the arcane who were also desperate, immoral, hungry for power, and willing to do horrible things to their souls in exchange for said power. (Which sounded suspiciously similar to the type of clergy favored by the Church of Ecstasy, when I thought about it.)

“After you have come to the attention of the recruiter, they will interview you to ensure that your motivations for joining their cult are perfectly pure or – I suppose – impure, and that you possess the necessary willpower and courage. You should develop this personality.”

Faith handed Arilyn a dossier. The acolyte opened it and leafed through the pages, frowning in concentration.

In a hard voice, as if to demonstrate the persona for Arilyn, Faith declared, “Your old cult failed, but that’s because your old demon was not powerful enough. You need something better.”

Still skimming the notes, Arilyn nodded.

Faith passed her a small bundle wrapped in a handkerchief. “Wear these symbols, hang out in the Jumping Fish Pub at the Docks, and someone may approach you.”

“The Docks?” Arilyn’s head jerked up. The young noblewoman’s eyes were wide with alarm.

Faith skewered her with a look, of the variety that I often gave my jumpier agents, especially that archivist at the Sensorium.

Abashed, the acolyte ducked her head. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Are you afraid?” Faith challenged.

Arilyn’s hunched shoulders screamed “Yes!” and she essayed a tentative, “I – it’s just – I’ve never been to the Docks. Except for Fleet Week. And that doesn’t count. You hear stories about the men there….”

Faith showed no pity for the poor little aristocrat whose world ended at the border between Brightstone and Charterhall. “You know,” she hinted, “I did you a rather big favor by interceding with the Bluecoats on your behalf.”

Arilyn still didn’t know that it was our fault she’d gotten swept up in the probe in the first place. Suppressing her fear of human traffickers, she muttered, “I’ll – I’ll do what you need me to do.”

“Good,” Faith pronounced, then threw her a bit of encouragement. “I’ll be nearby as backup, but you won’t see me, and the infiltration is up to you and you alone.”

“I – I understand.”

“I will also set up a dead drop where you can leave your reports. A ghost named Cricket will check it regularly.”

The acolyte, who’d been indoctrinated with anti-ghost propaganda since she was old enough to be carried to the Sanctorium for sixth-day Mass, looked as if she thought that associating with a ghost would be the least palatable part of this assignment. Nevertheless, she tucked the dossier and cultic symbols under her cloak and set off for the Jumping Fish.

Ash, too, went off to haunt the Docks or, rather, to talk to the friend who haunted them. At the mouth of Catcrawl Alley, he found Nyryx lounging on a barrel, carefully positioned to show off her long legs while she cast a speculative eye over passing sailors.

Strolling up like a potential client, Ash braced one hand against the wall and remarked, “Well, that was exciting.” He waved an arm in the general direction of Captain Rye’s Menagerie – or the Nightbreaker, whose dark bulk loomed over the wharfs in the distance.

Nyryx followed his gesture, then turned a seductive smile on him. “It was certainly splashy,” she purred.

Leaning closer, Ash pretended to inquire about her rates. “Yes, well, that’s why I’m here, actually, because I’d rather not have it splash onto every single person I know. Plus, this conveniently ties into the ritual with the fragment of the Gates of Death….”

His voice trailed off and, when I risked edging closer, I glimpsed his dreamy face. Lately, every time he thought he was alone, he would unwrap that broken-off hunk of crumbly rock and gaze at it with a reverence better suited to a forgotten god statue.

Judging by Nyryx’s expression, she empathized.

Pulling himself back together, Ash began again, “So, there’s an Inspector in town.”

“Sarnai. Yes.”

“I was thinking that she’d be an excellent target for the ritual.”

His sheer audacity nearly knocked Nyryx off her barrel, but she did her best to hide her shock by sliding to the ground (flashing a lot of her petticoats in the process) and sashaying into Catcrawl Alley. Still acting like a client, Ash followed and, after a moment, so did I.

From the other side of a stack of crates came Nyryx’s flat voice. “You want to possess an Imperial Inspector.”

“We have a lot to gain, and we can test the ritual at the same time.”

A long pause while the ancient ghost assessed the risks and rewards of drawing the Inspectors’ attention. “All right,” she said, neither promising nor denying him aid.

Ash, naturally, was undeterred by her lack of enthusiasm. “The sooner, the better: Both before she gets too far in her investigation, and because we can exploit the Inspectors by controlling what they believe. They’re probably convinced that their organization is incorruptible,” he sneered. “Plus I, for one, have a lot of secrets I want to learn from her.”

“All right,” Nyryx repeated slowly.

“We don’t have to do this immediately,” he allowed, acknowledging her reluctance. “The Inspector only just arrived. But I think it’s a good plan.”

Nyryx’s sigh was audible. “No, it might be very fruitful,” she admitted before explaining the source of her hesitation: “I…I’m pretty sure that the ghost who does this…will be Salia.”

“Interesting,” commented Ash, the single-word response inviting her to justify why she thought Salia would risk herself and the rest of the Reconciled that way.

“Because she couldn’t ask that of anyone else. Or – she wouldn’t be willing to. So if we’re going to do this, we have to do it right, and…please watch out for her,” Nyryx almost pleaded. “We need her.”

Honestly, I wasn’t convinced that Ash saw the Reconciled as more than tools to be used and used up, if necessary, and his reply confirmed that impression: “There’s not much we need to ask of her besides lying low, although that in itself will be hard.” With the verbal equivalent of a shrug, he returned to his main point, “We don’t want to wait too long. We have to act before the Inspector makes too much progress.”

Another long sigh drifted out of the shadows. “No, I think you should act quickly. Let us know when you need us. We’ll be in place.”

“Good. I’ll speak to the others.”

“That said, you probably don’t want to wait too long before you move on Rowan and Dunvil,” Nyryx warned, reminding him of Salia’s other two targets. “I’m sure they can see the pattern of assassinations as clearly as anyone else.”

“That’s true,” Ash agreed, “but it’s certainly not going to help us to have an Inspector breathing down on our necks while we do so.”

“No, of course not.”

Perhaps she thought that was the end of the conversation, but Ash only broached another of his obsessions. “That aside, there’s something else I wanted to ask you about. I was thinking about the Church’s other enemies, and I was hoping to get your opinion on the Path of Echoes.”

Faint condescension crept into Nyryx’s tone. “Ah, the Path. Our fancy recruits.”

Ash chuckled as if at a joke. “You consider them your recruits.”

“That’s what they are.”

After considering that angle for a moment, he admitted, “I never thought of it that way, but that’s true…. Well, I’m trying to determine how we can work together. So far we haven’t tapped much into that connection, and I’ve learned that they’re quite powerful. Not quite at the level of the Church, but certainly more so than many of my friends.”

Before he could get carried away with grand plans of a massive joint attack on the Sanctorium itself, Nyryx cautioned, “Any given member of the Path is going to be willing to risk their life but not their soul, for what that’s worth.”

“So if we wanted to cooperate on a potentially life- but not soul-risking project that is relevant to all of our goals, do you have a contact?”

Surprised, Nyryx asked, “Don’t you know Irimina Kinclaith?”

“Yes, but I was hoping to learn more…,” he fished. When no more information was forthcoming, he said, “We can speak to Irimina. That’s fine.”

Nyryx must have been debating how far to trust him, because she now said, “If you meant the Path’s leadership, their situation is kind of strange, because they’re basically just us, but alive. Um, there’s Lord Penderyn, but…he…does not tend to – well, he’s not very far along the Path and fears exposure. I don’t have much dealings with Path members, for obvious reasons.” I saw a flutter in the shadows – Nyryx plucking at her short, torn, hopelessly low-class skirts. “I get the impression that they’re scattered throughout the minor nobility and Charterhall.”

“Good,” said Ash, pleased by the prospect of potential allies at all levels of society. “Anything else I can help you with?”

“No, as far as we’re concerned, we just want Rowan and Dunvil gone.”

“We’re more than on the same page there,” he reassured her. “I should mention though – do you have any connection to the Grinders?”

The prostitute laughed her throatiest, most seductive laugh. “Some of them are my clients.”

Unsurprised by that revelation, Ash explained his interest: “They helped us out a bit on our recent escapade. Let us know if anything strange happens there, or if there are individuals whom you would or would not like to see risk their lives.”

She didn’t even have to think about that. “I don’t have a strong attachment to any of them.”

“That’s fair. They’re useful for brute force, if nothing else,” agreed Ash, casually dismissing the allies who’d gotten us safely off a leviathan hunter after we murdered its commander in full view of the Docks.

“They are at that.” Nyryx’s tone was perfunctory, and the way she glanced past him suggested that the longer this conversation dragged on, the more clients she was missing out on, and she was a working girl who needed to pay rent on her cheap cubbyhole in Catcrawl Alley.

Taking the hint, Ash told her, “I’ll be about my research then,” and started back down the alley. “By the way, I hope the display didn’t cause you any problems. In hindsight, it was perhaps a little more poetic than it should have been. I imagine it was quite a view from the Docks.”

In the middle of disarranging her bodice, she shot him a rueful look. “It was certainly striking. Salia wasn’t very happy. She does tend to be more subtle.”

Over his shoulder, Ash retorted, “We tend to value poetry over subterfuge.”

Nyryx shook her head at the vagaries of the living. “It’s all right. It’s all right,” she said, as much to herself as to him. “You got the job done, and we are definitely grateful. Just try to avoid the world falling down on your shoulders.”

His answer was as unreassuring as it was predictable: “Well, we’ll try.”

Before the city could fall upon us, though, a different tragedy struck. Ash had just convened the crew in the Strathmill House conference room, probably to “speak to us” as he’d promised Nyryx, when a mob exploded down the hall, shouting incoherently. Many fists pounded on the door, and high-pitched voices shrieked, “Mr. Slane! Miss Yara! Miss Karstas! Come quick!”

Leaping across the room, Ash wrenched open the door to reveal what must have been the entire orphanage jammed into the hallway. The children had crammed themselves in so tightly that their figures practically melted into one another, like the hordes of specters Faith kept packing into abandoned houses, and the whole mass trembled with sobs, from the youngest who still burst into tears if Faith looked at them funny, to the teenagers who liked to play tough. At the front stood Faith’s two candidates.

Wester’s face was set and drawn, but he squared his shoulders and met our eyes one at a time. “We – ” he gestured between himself and Brace – “just found Kristov at the Docks.”

“The Docks?” Ash demanded. “What was he doing there? He’s much too young for that! Kristov? Kristov!” He craned his head, scanning the mob for the five-year-old so he could give the boy a good scolding. “Where is he?”

Brace’s face crumpled. He ducked his head, but not fast enough to hide the tears streaming down his cheeks. His shoulders shook with sobs.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Faith scrutinizing both of the boys’ reactions.

His voice filled with icy rage, Wester bit out his answer: “Kristov is in a grotto, which appears to be some sort of cult headquarters.”

“A cult?” I turned to look at our resident cultist.

“A cult?” Ash echoed, stunned. “Which cult? What’s he doing there?”

Wester’s jaw twitched, and he swallowed hard, but his voice never wavered, and in his fierce stare I saw the killer he would grow up to be. “Kristov is…lying in pieces. On a sacrificial altar. I do not know which cult it was, but the carvings of a tentacled goddess should make it abundantly clear soon enough.”

“What?” Ash and I cried in unison.

Bursting out of the crowd, Locust launched himself at me and wrapped his arms around my knees, nearly knocking me over.

“Locust!” hissed Moth, but he only buried his face in my legs and wailed.

Awkwardly, I patted the top of his head, trying to remember how Mother used to comfort Sigmund and me when our playmates got slaughtered along with their parents. “It’ll be okay,” I soothed. “It’ll be okay.”

But of course it wouldn’t be.

Suffice to say that we left me to guard the children while Ash and Faith investigated the grotto. By the time they arrived, however, the cultists had already returned, disposed of Kristov’s remains, and vanished again.

“Based on the carvings, Faith thinks it was the cult of Setarra,” Ash told me afterwards, his cold fury a mirror of Wester’s. “Setarra has messed with us one too many times.”

I agreed completely. “We’ll add her to our list.”

In the meantime, however, we held a memorial service in the dining hall and kept a close eye on all the children, especially Brace, who stumbled around in a daze for weeks, and Wester, whose carefully controlled rage never faded. The other orphans’ well-honed survival instincts warned them to give him a wide berth, which increasingly isolated him and worried Ash and me. It was almost a relief when Faith suggested sending him to take fencing lessons at the Red Sash Sword Academy.