A dress flutters in the wind, the yellow cloth draped from mesothorax to abdomen, the waves of motion over the fabric momently allowing glimpses of the darker fabric clinging to his legs. A loose fit as seen from how it shifts, two suspender straps run down the prothorax to secure the dress in place. He approaches, stepping out from the arches of the town hall and lifting the hem of his dress as he steps onto the muddy street.

As the three nymphs (two, really) stare down the new mantis, at least the loose, shifting fit gave them confidence there were no weapons concealed. That steepling of his hands moments ago likewise was no tarsign. Makuja relaxes, knife disappearing from her hand as quickly as it had appeared, but Awelah doesn’t put away her spear.

The white tiercel glances to Yanseno as if seeking reassurance. “Were my deductions off, off the mark?”

“Karatikale,” he starts. “You are a laymant. These are banes. Ought to have more caution than that. Do you know the last person who knew all that about these three? A fiend rank headhunter. She’s in the ground now.” (That’s not true, Awelah thinks. The wasp and her old lady knew.) “So, navigate the rest of this conversation carefully… This one had an ant at knifepoint just for thinking we might be plotting against her. And someone needs to teach this one not to pull out her spear every time her past gets brought up.”

“You could teach me.”

“Beg harder, kid.”

Awelah snaps her antennae back behind her, and looks at the white mantis again. He isn’t old — probably just shed teneral. Old enough he’d either be an experienced bane — too experienced to be making these sorts of mistakes — or of the laity. That fits with what Yanseno said, then.

But Ooliri is the one who finally asks: “How did you know all this?”

“Unvarnished observation, my friend, mere and unvarnished observation. I had hoped Yanseno would appreciate my eye for detail. You see, I read the news out of Solaroch, so of course, of course I’ve heard the stories of the genius of amberblood and of his tragic, tragic disappearance — of his promising sons, and now they say you’re missing in action? Suspected dead in anomalous wispstorms in Duskhold territory? But you look just like him.”

Shifting gaze to Makuja, Karatikale continues: “And her… well, she’s the youngest of you three, yet she was the first to react, and that look in her eye! You all are vesperbanes, but at that age… no, we don’t start that young, not here here under the Windborne — we aren’t that cruel. And the news reports say Bloodweb defectors have been swarming over Duskroot’s corpses — not that I’m saying you’re a defect, young lady, but it squares with the evidence.”

And then, at last, Karatikale looks to Awelah, and the pale nymph furrows her antennae in suspicion. “My last guess — for I was but guessing, I assure you — was the most tenuous. But with all the Duskroot refugees in town, and no other distinguishing features, it was suggestive — and that cloak! It feels devilish, does it not have vesper magic? I imagine you would need such a thing if you had indeed crawled from that heart of that dark storm. In fact…” Tugging up the hem of his dress, he steps even closer to the pale nymph. Her grip tightens on her spear, but he’s extended flexible antennae that point under her neck. “That peculiar clasp, how… suggestive indeed.”

Yanseno follows his eyes, and his palps flatten into pronounced neutrality. “Where did you get that cloak, girl?”

Awelah swipes across with her spear, lightly, to push the white tiercel out of the way. He looks at Yanseno, and clicks her mandibles. “My cousin gave it to me before — when our clan was under attack, she helped me hide, evade. But we couldn’t escape her , not for long. The last thing she did… she gave me her cloak, and went back to give me time to run. My cousin had been promoted to fiend. She was a singlet and an orphan, but rising in the clan on skill alone. Against that bane? She didn’t last a minute.” Awelah takes a defensive step back, pulling her cloak tighter around herself. “This cloak… I won’t forget.”

“Didn’t mean to bring back sad memories, my condolence, but I need to ask. Do you know what the symbol means?” The burgundy imago is pointing at the clasp.

Awelah looks down on it. Twisting it so that she can see it right side up, the core design is simple: it’s a sword thrust upward, into a sun wreathed in clouds. There are smaller embellishments: a chain falling from the pommel of the sword; flames wreathing the hilt; a jagged line which runs from one end of the sword to the other; and at the sword’s guard, an eye that was not a mantid eye.

It’s familiar, Awelah thinks. She’s seen it a few times.

“Emblem of the Heaven Slayers,” Karatikale provides.

That’s a name she should remember from history classes. “Who were they?”

“Terrorists,” Yanseno says.

“Freedom fighters.” The two tiercels spoke at the same time, but Karatikale provides elaboration: “They were, were really radical. As in, I think they must have had a death toll counting three digits just from political assassinations. So they did a lot of questionable things, but—”

“Mother used to say everything comes before the but is beetleshit. Don’t tell me you’re about to defend them? They were lead by an Antiscourge.”

“I’m not defending them. Just, they weren’t the Joyous Mothers. Indeed, you don’t get branded an Antiscourge without a political ani—animus. The Heaven Slayers had a motivation; they were a response to real problems.”

“What problems?” Ooliri asks. “What did they do?”

“Wingless inequality,” Karatikale says. “Disproportionate exile sentences, underrepresentation among leadership positions, and at the time, neither syndics nor scourges had done anything about the growing number of neo-dominionist terror organizations fermenting among the provinces. They were infesting the government, and the Heaven Slayers sought to be rid of them.”

“Extrajudicially, without a trial. Do you think they always made the right call?”

“No,” he says. “No, the Heaven Slayers weren’t good. But it makes sense why they’d exist, does it not? Why they’d feel they had to act, if no one else was?”

Impatient, Awelah spins her antennae in a loop. “What does this have to do with me or my cousin?”

“It’s a suggestive coincidence, is all. Supports my deduction.”

Awelah scowls, and before she can snap out another response, Yanseno finally explains:

“After all,” he starts, “there’s only one stronghold in the midwestern peace compact which didn’t condemn the heaven slayers. A stronghold founded by the one wingless clan that claims nobility, where all scourges and syndic administrators have been wingless — where all those statistics about disproportion and underrepresentation fail to hold. Where, you might guess, the Heaven Slayers never once attacked.”

“Duskroot,” Awelah guesses.

“So you can see why the guess, that the girl wearing terrorist paraphenalia is from there, has a certain parsimony to it,” Yanseno concludes. “Might want to find something to cover it up.”

“If my cousin thought —”

“I advise you don’t finish that sentence.” Changing the subject, the maverick says, “Karat. What are you doing here? You never explained.”

“Miss Ruby told me to get my musty rear end out of there and quit bothering her. Only she didn’t say rear end. I don’t smell, do I?”

Yanseno glances back at the nymphs. “She’s here, then. May as well wait inside.”

“Can I come with you?” he asks. “She’d listen to you, right?”

“Why? What were you bothering her about?”

“I was waiting for Boleheva. I wish to interview him for a story I’m writing. But he keeps turning me down. But at some point saying yes has got to be easier than to keep refusing. Thus I persist.”

Yanseno sighs.

Karatikale accompanies them when they step through the dark wood doors of the town hall. Inside, a few ants (swaddled in distinctly less messy cloth) and some roaches are scurrying around; among them, they see one mantis in gold-trimmed syndic robes. Around them, the interior is formed of sloping ramps rather than ladders and handholds, for the benefit of the roaches.

“Here, door should be right under this overhang.”

Almost in reply comes the discordant sound like a harshly harmonized chorus, one voice through many spiracles as only a roach could speak. “I just told you to— oh. It’s you. I don’t know where she is, so don’t even ask.”

Stepping into view of the doorway is a roach. Her chitin is a brilliant red, but so much of it is hidden by a tight dark robe covering her back and legs, buttoning close underneath her. Under the coat is a light pink shirt secured by a little bow at her neck. There’s no wrinkles or frays or even dust on any of the cloth.

Her eyes — a sky-bright blue — look on past Yanseno. “And who’s are these?” Her antennae extend outward before jerking back straight in the opposite direction. (Roach antennae are almost as long as their body.)

“Boleheva wanted them here. She’ll be around to answer that as soon as you might expect.”

“They smell like they haven’t bathed in two shades.” Her eyes lower as she regards them, no doubt scanning the layer of grime. “They haven’t, have they? Well don’t leave the door open, you’re letting the fresh air out. Need all I can get if those animals are going to be waiting here.”

A foretarsus is wrapped around a pen, clicking the cap off, then she turns and walks away.

Inside the room, several perches for mantis to wrap feet around and rest on are lining the walls, while on the floor between them sit a few cushions. Ruby goes forth to rub a leg across a cushion, then sits on it. Beside her, there’s a stack of wasp-parch. She takes a sheet, and lowers her pen to it.

“You’re working in here? Isn’t this some kind of lobby?”

The pen pauses. “Boleheva doesn’t like me to be in the office when she’s not there.” In a lower tone like a murmur, she says, “Wonder if she thinks I’m going to walk out with the money or something. Can’t trust me not to do that, but can trust me just fine to do all her paper work.”

“But I thought,” Ooliri starts, glancing back to Yanseno. “Didn’t Boleheva send for you to unlock this door? Why would you even have the key, if she doesn’t trust you?”

“I was thinking out loud, boy. Don’t mind it. But if you must know, I have the key because there’s dozens of other settlements in Entcreek that she visits throughout the year. Can’t keep all the keys straight, so she leaves a handler to manage it while she’s gone. Keys would probably get lost when she’s out wrestling with anteaters or whatever, anyway.”

Not moments later, they hear tapping at the door, trying the handle. Makuja, having walked at the rear of the group, is the closest to the door. She gets up to get it.

“About time she shows up,” Yanseno murmurs.

The bug behind the door shrinks back as soon as it opens, seeing the red nymph standing there. Blue cloth wrapped around a square head, it’s the One Who Bites Water.

“Another one?” Ruby says. “What is it this time?”

“Um. [Inquiry] for [[death]] in [guests] of [colony].”

Ooliri starts translating, “They said —”

“I can read, boy.” Addressing Bites Water, she says, “This one will just have to wait. The vesperbane isn’t here.”

Bites Water remains in the doorway until Makuja has stepped back, returning to her perch. This one gives her a wide berth, looping around to follow after the gray nymph.

“Hello, ant,” he says. “Are you mourning the ants who… we found yesterday?”

“The one who [lacks] an [accompaniment] is [seeking] and [asking] for [location] of the one who is [[Quessa]].” Chirping intermittently, it taps words pinned to a held sheet of cloth, even as it adjusts the connections.

“She went with Boleheva to go put our bags away. I don’t know what’s taking them so long.”

The ant bobs a head. This one taps an antennae against Ooliri before looking away, black eyes settling on Makuja. Bites Waters chirps high, repeatly, until the red nymph turns a curious head toward the ant. “This one has [inquiry] for [[death]] in [guests] of [colony].”

“The ants were dead when we found them,” she says.

“[Inquiry] of [death : vast and furry]. Erm. Of the [thing] of [devourment]. And [inquiry] of [location] of [death].”

“We were walking among old farmland. No bugs seemed to live there.”

“[Abandonment] due to [death : furry].”

“Indeed. We didn’t know why it was abandoned at the time.”

“[Signage].”

“No warning signs.”

Bites water taps antennae against the ‘signage’ label again.

“Come to think of it,” Ooliri starts. “Those ants could only have died if they weren’t from here, otherwise they’d have known about the anteaters. But then how were you expecting a message — earlier you said it was a response to a request you sent out? But if you had sent runners, they would have to come back, and they could have guided the party, so… what am I missing?”

“[Messengers] of [colony] are [dead : poisoned, assassinated]. [Conveyance] of [request] by [bee] from [merchants : traveling].”

“What!” Ooliri glances at Yanseno. “But… one mantis dying was enough to get an investigator called in. You said multiple ants were killed? And nobody looked into it? That seems…” (On the other side of the room, Karatikale is leaning forward as if about to say something, but Yanseno beats him.)

“Coincidental. The Wisterun colony has the ability, if not the will, to hire a vesperbane investigator of their own. They didn’t. And you’re wrong on one count. Wasn’t ‘called in’ for this — doubt the council would have had the means to contact me normally. I happened to already been in the area when they wanted to hire me.”

This catches Awelah’s attention. “What were you doing here before, then?”

“Hired out for my sensor abilities, needed to give the lake a close look.”

“Who hired you?” Makuja asks. Her initiative gets a glance from Awelah.

“Don’t know.”

Ooliri tilts his head. “What? How can you not know?”

“Whoever it was paid enough for me to forget it, so I did.”

“Quessa said you had a perfect memory!”

“She exaggerates. Perfect memory doesn’t mean you remember everything — don’t need a record of every grain of sand that slides across your feet. Just means you remember everything you want to remember. And this client convinced me I didn’t want to remember.”

“So the knowledge is just… gone? Erased?”

“Not quite. If they ever want me to remember, they know the trigger phrase. Doubt they’ll ever use it. Most don’t.” He smirks. “Or they do. How would I know?”

Awelah frowns. It’s then that she understand’s Makuja’s curiosity. If the bug who hired Yanseno is the same one who hired Unodha… With atypical restraint, Awelah doesn’t say anything. What could she say? She glances at the arquebuses strapped to the bane’s back.

It’s moot, because a moment later, there’s another set of steps at the door. This bug doesn’t need help opening it: here is a diamantid, garbed in a tanned and waxed chitin that looks worn down by the years. She smells like she climbed out of the lake. That her antennae droop so much doesn’t hurt that theory.

Ruby’s antennae are twisting back as soon as she enters, and they’re curling up under her for protection. “Let me guess, you’re here to whine to the vesperbane too?” She sighs out of many spiracles at once. “At this point I ought to take down your names, make a list.” Ruby licks a tarsus and pulls out a blank sheet of paper from the stack. “And we have… Yanseno and those three babes…” She waits. Then the replies: “Ooliri Silverbane.” “Makuja No-name.” “Ah… just put me down as A.A.” “Sure, whatever. And the ant. You are? Bites Water, got it. Your reason for coming? Got it. And you, the one who managed to smell worse than the unwashed travelers right out of the mud. You are?”

“Just call me Fisher. Most do.”

“Works for me. Your reason for coming?”

“Beetles. Fungus beetles crawling all around the lake, and I’m seeing more of them every day. Gots me worried.” The roach scratches this down on the parch. She keeps talking: “And at night, I’m starting to hear howls. That’s not good at all.”

Team Duskborn shares a look.

“Hey! You forgot me!”

“Oh, I tried to. I know your name, and I know what you’re here for.”

“Fine, fine.” That exchange concluded, he glances over to the other mantids, and stands up. He starts, “Would I be interrupting? There is something I wanted to discuss with the nymphs.”

“What?” Awelah says.

“I’m something of a journalist. I seek the truth, even if it takes thorough investigation. I had hoped I could impress Yanseno with my skills —”

“Not a chance.”

“— but even failing that, I’ve noticed a certain… sparseness to the reports regarding Duskroot. If I could get a chance to interview you, I think I could bring a fresh story to the public. What do you think?”

“Our secrets aren’t for the public,” Awelah says.

“Oh, believe me, I would keep you anonymous. Standard practice. I’m not asking you to tell me everything either, I think even the broad strokes —”

Another interruption comes, and this time there’s no pause before the door is flung open.

She takes one look and says, “The hell are all you doing here?”

At last, Boleheva arrives.

“Seems like word of your return has spread fast. You’d think it was the first of Spring Flame with how many there are.”

“Nah, if it were spring flame the line would be stretching out of this room. ” The big yellow imago gestures as he steps in, and behind a certain gray and brown bug is coming.

“Oh, of course you wouldn’t come alone. Name and reason for coming?” She listened to Boleheva’s answer. “Another arrest, how surprising.”

“Where’s Quessa?”

“Back at the tavern. Left her to tie things up because I needed to take care of this one.”

Wordlessly, Yanseno reaches for his sensor ball in his trenchcoat.

“Did you say tavern?” When Ruby lifts her blue eyes from the page, her voice adopts a certain sing-song quality. “Madam vesperbane, did you perchance grab any honeybread while you were there? I’d like some before they’re all gone. Bees only come by every few moons.”

“Didn’t you hear? I was too busy stopping brawls to buy you any treats.” She points at one of the perches. “Mogs, sit there. Wait till she calls you to come in. Yanseno, till then you’re free to shoot her if she makes a move I wouldn’t like.”

“What are you in for this time, Mogs?” Yanseno starts conversationally., sensor ball still her hand, flow of enervate around it darkening the air.

“I think you know damn well.”

“I’m not a mind reader.” Then, he clicks, a momentary smirk flaring up. “Well, I don’t care to read your mind. So why don’t you just tell me?”

Boleheva answers, “Got debt collectors circling around her like vultures. Lured this uncanny sort of bug into town after her. That’s bad enough, but then she decides she ought to grab Quessa and riffle through her bags. She’s lucky your girl didn’t get hurt.”

It’s not a figure of speech to say Yanseno’s eyes darken; there’s a faint coating of aura around them. But other than that, he doesn’t react, not to frown or to curl her antennae.

Mogs shifts under that gaze, then catches herself, and tries to be still.

“All that out of the way,” the ranger says. “Any of these urgent? Or can I get to what I planned first of all?”

“Wouldn’t mind you getting Karatikale out of the way first. And he has been waiting the longest.”

“You let him in? Why?”

“I didn’t. Yanseno did.”

A yellow face turns to him, antennae splaying in exaggerated anguish. “I’m betrayed. How could you?”

Yanseno combs an antennae over his mandibles, and just says, “Should have known better than to trust a distortique.” He shrugs. “Melodrama aside, I don’t see what’s to be so afraid of from a little interview. You don’t have anything to hide, right?”

“I ain’t scared, I just got more important matters, always. But you know what? Send him in. Let me get this nonsense out of the way.”

As Boleheva starts toward her office door, her back to the crowd, Yanseno meets Karatikale’s eye, nods once, and then looks away just as fast.

Karatikale stands, but Boleheva hasn’t opened the door. “Ruby, could ye unlock this?”

“Don’t feel like getting up. Catch.”

In the roach’s tarsus, the key had looked large in a way it seems tiny when held in the ranger’s grip. She unlocks the door, and then drops the key into a pocket of her baneleather barding.

“Come on, let’s get it done.”

The door’s shut behind them, and for a moment, there’s the scratching sound of Ruby doing paperwork.

Again, there’s footsteps by the door.

Ruby doesn’t even cry out a complaint when yet another mantis steps into the lobby. “Name, reason for coming?”

“Tempit,” the mantis in silken blue robes says. “I have business to discuss with this vesperbane.”

“Have a seat or take a perch.” Ruby glances at the six other bugs in the room. “You’ll be waiting a while.”

“I hope you’ll prioritize it appropriately. I sit on the town council, and matters of our security and purity stand above the business of criminals and fishmongers.”

“Don’t care. You aren’t the one who pays me.”

“How much you get paid, roach babe?” Mogs asks. “I bet the bane’s got a damn treasure chest back there.”

“All ill-gotten hoard, no doubt.”

“It’s not a hoard,” Ruby says. “All taxed and accounted for, I can assure you.”

“I’ll wait for an audit.”

“Don’t trust me to do it? I have to wonder what it might be that so compromises your judgment of my reliability.”

“Nothing less than your submission to that foul—”

“I do not submit.”

Before Tempit can say another word, it’s Awelah cutting in. “Quit it. Have some respect for the one who kind enough to get you a chance to speak in the first place.”

Tempit turns to Awelah, antennae fluff raised wide, labrum lifted. “Do you think I’ll be condescended to by a nymph who —”

Awelah’s first instinct would be to reach in her cloak for her folding spear. And she does wrap a tarsus around it. Then she stops, glancing at Yanseno. Then she says, “I think you’ll want to start running before he pulls the trigger, this time.”

The tassels on her pointy hat whirl as Tempit turns to look at the gun-toting maverick. With a lazy flick of his hand, black nerve rushes forth and aura coats his free hand. Tempit keeps turning, looking at the other faces in the room — Makuja, Ooliri, the One Who Bites Water, Fisher, Mogs — but she’s won herself no friends.

“I… see.”

Tempit climbs onto a perch, distant from anyone else.

Awelah catches Ruby glancing at her. The roach holds her gaze for a moment, and doesn’t smile. But she doesn’t frown, either. She looks back down to her paper work.

As they wait, there’s only the faint sound of conversation in the other room. Nothing is discernible, but after minutes, Boleheva’s voice is louder, volume raising until he’s intelligible.

“Ye better not —— ye’re implying —— I would never!”

Karatikale doesn’t (and can’t) raise his voice to match, but with the outside now listening closer, one imagines they can discern something like “I’m just asking ——”

“Get. out.” These last words are clear.

The door opens, and Boleheva is dragging Karatikale by the strap of one suspender. There’s a defeated look on his face, utter disappointment, and he slumps rather than resisting. The pile of mantis is deposited in the lobby.

A moment, and he’s standing. He starts to stridulate, but Ruby sings a discordant note, cutting him off. “If you’re not waiting on an appointment,” she says, “you can’t stay here. Out.”

Karatikale walks out with his head held low. As he passes Awelah, he says, “Um, meet me later? I’d still, still like to discuss — recent events, if you’re willing. I — I’d understand if, if not.”

“You said you had news about Duskroot? What reports from outside are saying?”

A shallow nod.

“We may have information to trade, then.”

It’s not enough to make him smile, but the white mantis lifts his head somewhat as he walks out.

“Awelah. Ye’re next.”

“Just me?” She looks at Makuja, Ooliri.

“Just yerself. Come on, there’s a whole line of people after ye. Don’t want to keep everyone waiting, now. Ruby, I’ll need you too.”

Ruby look up at the yellow imago, looks back down at her paperwork, sighs, and stands from the cushion. She caries it with her as she enters Boleheva’s office behind Awelah.

Inside, it’s observed that Boleheva did not, in fact, think you were supposed to keep your blade in a desk when you’re not using it, but there are plenty of weapons lining the walls. Did they belong to the previous ranger? Awelah hadn’t seen her use any weapons against the anteater. Other than weapons, there are maps and wanted posters — her face wasn’t on any of them, thankfully enough.

“Name?” Boleheva starts, and it seems to be for formality’s sake.

“Awelah of clan Asetari, daughter of Mewla Asetari.”

Ruby marks that down.

“Explain the events that let to ye possessing the antennae-bands of three banes of the Windborne stronghold.”

As Awelah starts her tale, Ruby is jotting down everything she says. Awelah talks a little slower for her sake. “This all began on the sixteenth of Spring Flame, but the parts you’re concerned with start three days later, when I encountered a hostile pawn on the borders of Duskhold.”

Awelah doesn’t get very far into the recounting before they hear, once more, the sound of a new bug entering the lobby. This time, instead of footsteps, it’s the buzz of wings, and it gets louder. The door opens and it’s Yanseno standing there, but as he steps aside, a ragged bee, fur a mess, flutters into the office and lands on the ranger’s desk. The bug is panting — it must have flown here without a break — but in between pants, it reaches into a pouch strapped to it, and recovers a page on which words are hastily scrawled. The bee makes erratic motions with their legs, and pushes the page toward Boleheva.

Though Boleheva had growled at the interruption, now sensing some urgency, she takes the page, flattens it out, and reads it in a moment.

“Damn. A direbeast? And where did you come from?” Boleheva glances to one of the region maps, and the bee follows, darting over there with strained flaps of their wings to point at a place to the southwest of Wisterun, along the course of Entcreek.

“Right.” She gives a glance to Awelah and Ruby, then says. “I’ll get there as soon as I can. Said the cart is stuck? I can try to pull it free too. Here, I don’t want ye flying all the way back. I’ll carry ye.” Stepping from behind her desk, the ranger spares another glace at Ruby, and finally explains. “A direbeast attacked the merchants that just left earlier this morning. The bees are holding it off with what gunpowder they have, but it’s a direbeast. Don’t think they’ve got anything that hits hard enough to get past the regen, if the thing’s in any health. Not even with bee alchemy. Getting there and back will be a few hours, for sure. It’ll eat up most of the evening, and I’ll be beat when I get back. To hell with these meetings, tell all those buggers to go home. See me tomorrow.”

Boleheva doesn’t wait for even a nod of understanding, cradling the bee tight and gentle, then jogging out of the meeting room. Ruby rises from her cushion next, filing the half-finished report into a top drawer. Behind her, Awelah hears the click and the roach sets the door to be locked when it shuts. Ruby’s reminding her to leave, but Awelah sinks further into her thoughts.

If she hadn’t gotten injured — if I were stronger — if that last encounter with the direhound had instead ended with unequivocal victory on their part, would those bees be in danger now? Fisher says she hears howling at night now — howling Awelah couldn’t forget the sound of.

Oooliri. Aaawelah.

Had they put this town in danger by coming here?