Three Parts Dead

4

At Alt Coulumb’s heart, the press of humanity and architecture yielded to a green circle half a mile in diameter: the Holy Precinct, with the towering Sanctum of Kos at its heart. To the north it bordered the business district, where skeletal mages in flowing robes bargained with creatures from beyond the mortal world in towers of black glass that scraped the sky. To the south lay the university campuses, gentrified, upper-class, and comfortably distant from the machinations of Northtown. East and west spread the no-man’s land between the poles, home to residential zones, slums, dives, and vice.

The most notorious of these regions, the Pleasure Quarters, actually abutted the Holy Precinct, a holdover from centuries past when some saint decreed that the fire in the blood and loins belonged to Kos Everburning as much as the fire of hearth and furnace.

“Problem being,” Tara’s taxi driver said as he swung the goad halfheartedly at the flanks of his slow-moving nag, “that Kos is great and wise”—he pointed to the holy symbol suspended from the buggy’s rearview mirror, a stylized three-tongued flame within a diamond—“but not as practiced as a fertility deity in managing diseases. I love our Lord with all my soul, but the Church did well to give up on sex and focus on the burning. Stick to what you know, I say.”

“So the priests got out of the business, but the brothels remained?”

“Well. I wouldn’t say the priests got out of the business. They’re still, ah, joined to it, at the hip as it were. The Church got out, though, and well done, too. Man goes to pray to leave that kind of stuff behind. Nowadays, if the girls and their boys go wild and roll onto the temple grounds, the priests tromp over, round them up, and cart them off.”

Their buggy rattled along, and the basalt tower grew ever larger before them. Tara watched the buildings that flanked their taxi. The closer they drew to the Holy Precinct, the more grooved scars she saw in the towers’ stone, always several stories above street level. “What about those marks on the buildings? Did the priests take up decorating, too?”

Harness jangled and leather creaked. When the driver spoke again his voice was low and strained. “Ah. Those.”

“I’m sorry. If it’s a sensitive subject, I can…”

“No trouble, miss. They’re war scars, is all.”

“I thought Alt Coulumb wasn’t damaged in the God Wars.”

He snorted. “Weren’t any Craftsmen, but it was damaged all the same.”

Tara was confused, but her driver seemed uneasy with the subject. She chose her next words with care. “Shouldn’t someone have fixed them by now? It’s been fifty years.”

“Can’t be fixed.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Stone Men made ’em, didn’t they?” He spit onto the street. “Can’t cover up their claw marks. The building remembers. Put in new stones and a minute later they’re scarred again.”

Tara’s breath caught, but she tried to keep her tone conversational. “Stone Men. You mean gargoyles?”

He didn’t respond, but it was an affirmative silence.

“Some of the … scars … look like writing.”

“Some are. Marking territory. Blasphemous prayers written by mad beasts. The rest are battle scars.”

“Are the gargoyles still around?”

The man glanced back at her and she saw that his face had closed like a door. “No Stone Men here.” He said those words as if they were a curse. “Not since my father’s time.”

“What happened?”

“They left.”

He turned the cab down a broad road leading into the temple compound. Seen from above, the path they traced over white gravel would follow the outer curves of a massive binding circle, large as the Holy Precinct. Tara wondered if the design served a purpose beyond decoration. Without an army of Craftsmen to manage it, not even a circle this size could contain a god as strong as Kos.

“Why’d they leave? Religious differences?”

He didn’t answer, and Tara didn’t ask for further clarification. Arguing war-era politics with a fanatic in a god-benighted city could be trouble. She wasn’t concerned for her own safety, but arriving on her client’s doorstep in a burning taxi with an injured driver would make a horrible first impression.

They approached the black tower of the Sanctum of Kos, tall and polished, an abstract vision of flame trapped in dark and unscarred stone. The same echoed warmth she had felt while falling washed over her again. Was it always like this here? And if the divine radiance was this strong when Kos was dead, what must it have been like when he was alive?

Their road dead-ended in a broad semicircle of white gravel where a double handful of other vehicles lingered, awaiting their masters: a couple ordinary taxis like Tara’s own, five or six fancier models, and even a few driverless carriages.

A young man in brown and orange robes sat at the base of the steps leading into the Sanctum. He was tonsured, smoking a cigarette, and represented the only non-carriage-related life in the vicinity.

“That’s funny,” her driver said.

“There’s usually a crowd?”

“Place is generally packed with folks, you know, come to pray for this or that or the other thing. Monsters from Northtown come when they’ve got business. If you dream about fire, you visit to pay your respects.” The cabbie frowned. “Fewer than usual today.”

She slid from the cab to the ground, fished a small metal disc out of her purse, and passed it to the driver. A piece of Tara’s soul flowed from her to him through the token. The soulstuff mattered, not the token; metals were just an easy focus. Soon after she paid him, all traces of her would fade from the payment, and only raw power remain, for the driver to trade with others in exchange for food or shelter, goods or services, or pleasure. If he were a Craftsman, and gained enough of this power from others, from the stars, or from the earth, he could use it to resurrect the dead and rain doom upon a nation. If the power remained in Alt Coulumb, on the other hand, some faithful citizen would inevitably sacrifice it to Kos, who kept the city protected and commerce secure and the whole damn system functioning.

Until, that is, a few days ago.

“Be well,” she said to the cabbie, but his frown deepened. With a flick of the reins and a swipe of the crop he goaded his horse into a sloppy canter and left Tara alone in the shadow of the fire god’s tower.

The Sanctum of Kos was a surprisingly modern building, she thought as she approached the broad, black steps. A few architectural peculiarities marked it as a product of a prior era: unnecessary columns around the base, and structurally superfluous buttresses added no doubt by nervous designers when the Sanctum was first conceived, back when twenty-story buildings had been the precinct of the ambitious, and eighty-story plans the product of fevered imaginations.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

The speaker’s voice cracked and wavered, and he drew in a ragged breath as he paused for the comma. Tara looked down from the staggering heights and saw the same young acolyte who had been waiting on the stairs when she pulled into the lot. He was seated, bent forward over his knees. A cigarette dangled from his mouth. Voluminous robes hung from his thin body, and his upturned eyes were set deep in a pale face.

“It is,” she acknowledged.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

She arched an eyebrow at him.

The young man plucked the cigarette from his mouth and exhaled a long, narrow stream of smoke. “Or, I know what you were thinking.”

“Try me.”

“You were thinking that the columns, the buttresses, are unnecessary. That we added them for show, or out of fear.”

Her eyes widened a tick, and she nodded. “How did you know?”

“You’re sharp enough to get fooled.” His attempt at a laugh crumbled into a hacking cough.

“Are you all right?” She reached for him, but he waved her off hastily. The coughing fit persisted, long and ugly and wet. The fingers of his extended hand curled slowly into a fist, and he struck himself in the chest, hard. The cough stopped with a low rattle and he kept talking as though nothing had happened.

“See how the columns are broader than they should be? Same with the buttresses?”

She nodded, though she didn’t, in fact, see.

“Not structural. A disguise. Building the Sanctum, they thought, no sense having big fat steam pipes coming off the central tower. Too ugly, too vulnerable. Hide ’em. Every other building has columns, so we might as well use these.”

“Good idea.”

“Stupid idea,” the young man said, pointing. “Fancy stonework makes it hard to access the pipe joints there, and there. Whenever anything goes wrong, we need to redo all the masonry, and at night, too, to keep people from seeing.”

“Do you tell this to everyone who stops by?”

He drew in another breath. “Only if they’re wearing a suit.” His ragged smile looked out of place, too broad and sincere for his tonsure and his robes and his slender frame.

“Well, I hope you never get attacked by someone in a suit.”

“Hasn’t happened yet.” He returned the cigarette to his mouth and lurched forward. Tara was afraid he would fall on his face, but he recovered his balance and stood, unsteadily. “You’re Tara Abernathy.” He stuck out a thin hand, which trembled in hers as she shook it. Beneath the smile and the rambling mode of speech, he was afraid. “I’m Novice Technician Abelard. They told me to wait for you. Outside.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“The air out here feels too cold, and I haven’t been … healthy. Lately.”

“You might try quitting.” She nodded at his cigarette.

He let his head loll back to the sky, and his eyes drifted closed, as if he was waiting for rain. None fell, and he opened his eyes again. “I started when I joined the priesthood. A sign of my devotion. I won’t stop now.”

“You’re talking about—”

He shot her a look, but she’d already checked her tongue.

“How many people know about our problem?” she asked instead.

“As few as possible. Technical staff, mostly. The higher-ups. We’ve put it about that the Holy One is contemplating His own perfection, and must not be bothered by mortal concerns.”

“How long will that hold?”

He started up the stairs. “We’ve wasted too much time already.”

The tower’s twenty-foot-tall main doors were opened on feast days alone, Abelard explained as he led Tara to a smaller side entrance. “Takes too much time. You know, to move these monsters you need about fifty monks hauling on each door.” He patted one of his branch-thin arms. “We’re not the heartiest people around.”

“You can’t get Kos to give a push?”

“Of course not. It’d be disrespectful on a feast day. Plus, we wouldn’t get to see the Cardinals fall over when the doors finally budge. I think Kos finds it as funny as the rest of us.” He looked as if he was about to say more, but pain contorted his features, and he fell silent.

The Sanctum’s foyer loomed over them in the shadows. Somehow the single room, with its vaulted ceilings and tall windows, seemed vaster from within than the whole tower appeared from without. Flames of stained glass rose on all sides, and a hundred yards away the golden fires of the nave flickered in the half-light. A pair of initiates in bright red robes swept the otherwise empty hall.

“Nobody comes here during the workday.” Abelard indicated the whole room by swinging one forefinger in a quick circle through the air. The hem of his robe flared out around his bony ankles. “Bread and circuses, strictly.”

“Expensive bread.”

“You have no idea.”

A sharp left brought them up against a metal lattice worked to resemble a thick growth of ivy. Abelard placed his hand upon the lattice, and the vines parted with a slow clank of gears. He ducked his head low to pass through. Tara just walked.

More abrupt turns, more shadowy doors, and a rap on a carefully chosen brick in what appeared to be a solid wall, which swung open on a hidden hinge to reveal a long winding stair. As they climbed, occasional shafts of light broke the darkness, concealed peepholes peering into meeting rooms and conference chambers: here a break room where tired priests stood waiting for a tea kettle to boil, there a chamber at least the size of the Sanctum’s front worship hall and crowded with pipes, cams, pistons, and gears upon gears, here a tiny room half-glimpsed, where Craft circles glowing blue surrounded a modest wooden altar. She saw these things in eye blinks, shadows on a cave wall as they climbed.

“You said you were a novice Technician. Which means you, what, clean the steam pipes?”

His barking laugh echoed through the stairwell. “We have cleaners for that. Repairmen and machinists. A Technician oversees the Divine Throne, the heart of the city. We design, improve, optimize the devices that keep this place running. Not me, yet, though. I was only promoted to Technician a few months back.”

“You’re low on the totem pole?”

“As low as a Technician gets. The king of the backed-up burners, that’s me, archdeacon of scut work. I’m learning, though. Or, I was learning.” He paused, searching the featureless wall for something, and in that pause Tara caught up with him.

“Did they bring you in on this for training? So you’ll know what to do if there’s ever a problem like this in the future, when you’re in charge?”

Abelard faced her. His eyes were dead as a charred forest. “I was the one watching the Throne when God died.”

He pressed a hidden catch, and the wall opened smoothly on hidden gears.

After her steady climb through darkness, the well-lit office was blinding. Pale wood panels everywhere, a couple leather chairs, and a large desk of polished oak. A glass bookcase stood against one wall, though few of its shelves contained actual books or codices, the lion’s share of space reserved instead for sacred icons, trophies, ceremonial plaques. An aerial picture of Alt Coulumb hung beside it, for comparison, Tara supposed, with the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The city stretched there, a teeming metropolis beneath slate-gray skies, beating heart of commerce, bridge between the god-benighted Old World and the Deathless Kingdoms of the West. Millions breathed, worked, prayed, copulated in those palaces, parks, and tenements, sure in the knowledge that Kos Everburning watched over them. If their faith was strong, they could feel the constant presence of his love, sustaining and aiding them in a thousand ways, breaking fevers and checking accidents and powering their city.

Millions of people, unaware that Kos’s ever-beating heart had been still for days.

Ms. Kevarian stood by the window, engaged in low, earnest conversation with a senior priest Tara assumed to be their client. He sat behind the oak desk, clad in deep red robes and his own authority. Physically, he was unremarkable, silver-haired and thin with age, but his posture suggested that he often spoke while others listened. Never before had Tara seen someone with such presence who was not a Craftsman.

But Kos’s death must have strained him beyond endurance. His shoulders bent as if they bore a heavy weight, and his face looked drawn and robbed of sleep. Accustomed to power, he was scrambling for purchase on events beyond his control.

Abelard announced her. “Technical Cardinal Gustave, Lady Kevarian, this is Tara Abernathy.” He closed his eyes, opened them again, shifted his feet. “I, uh, assume. She never showed me any identification.”

Ms. Kevarian’s expression darkened, but before she said anything Cardinal Gustave extended a firm, reassuring hand. He had a preacher’s deep voice, quiet at the moment, though Tara did not doubt it could fill a cathedral. “Novice Abelard must have recognized Ms. Abernathy from your description. He’s usually prudent, but the current … situation has shaken him, as it has shaken us all.”

“I’m sorry.” Abelard bowed his head, and with shaking fingers raised his cigarette to his lips. Finding it nearly exhausted, he dug frantically into the pockets of his robe for a fresh pack. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It won’t happen again.”

“See that it does not,” Ms. Kevarian said. “If we are to succeed in this case, we must control the flow of information. The future of your faith depends on your ability to keep secrets.”

Abelard froze, and Tara felt a spark of pity for him. He was terrified to the brink of endurance by his god’s death, and neither Ms. Kevarian nor his own boss were being much help.

So she lied. “He checked my name. I should have remembered to show him some ID. Security only works if both sides are on board, after all.”

Gratitude beamed from Abelard’s face as he produced a new cigarette and lit it from the embers of the old. Ms. Kevarian’s gaze flicked from Abelard, to the cigarette, and back. She watched and weighed him for a silent moment before continuing the introductions. “Tara, meet His Excellency Cardinal Gustave. He contacted Kelethras, Albrecht, and Ao via nightmare courier two days ago.”

“A pleasure, Your Excellency,” Tara said with a slight bow. “Happy to serve.”

“You may,” Cardinal Gustave said, “address me as Cardinal, or Father. Anything more presumes that, at the end of this process, I will still have a Church to lead.” He laughed without a trace of humor. “Have Lady Kevarian and Novice Abelard told you the basics?”

“The basics.” Judge Cabot is dead, she wanted to shout at Ms. Kevarian across the room. Someone’s trying to kill us. Business can wait.

But of course it couldn’t.

Cardinal Gustave stood in a creaking of leather. He was a battered edifice, deep lines on his face and dark circles under his eyes. She recognized the look; the events of the few days had worn joy and certainty from him, like a flood scouring away topsoil to reveal the bedrock beneath. “What do you know, Ms. Abernathy,” he said, “about the death of gods?”

*

Tara knew quite a lot, actually. Her grasp of the underlying theory was probably more profound than Cardinal Gustave’s, but she did not interrupt the lecture that followed. The Cardinal looked to have frayed without the fire of his Lord to shelter him. He was desperate, and lecturing Lady Kevarian’s junior associate (and whence that title “Lady” anyway?) was a chance to establish his knowledge and authority.

“Gods, like humans,” he said, “are order imposed on chaos. With humans, the imposition is easy to see. Millions of cells, long twisted chains of atoms, so much bone and blood and juice, every piece performing its function. When one of those numberless pumps refuses to beat, when one of those infinitesimal pipes gets blocked, all the pent-up chaos springs forward like a bent sword, and the soul is lost to the physical world unless something catches it first.

“So, too, with gods. Gods live and reproduce much like humans, and, like humans, their higher functions (language, pact-making, careful exercise of power, sentience) developed quite recently on the timescale of eons. In the unrecorded mists of prehistory, when mankind prowled the savannah and the swamps, their gods hunted with them, little more than shadows on a cave wall, the gleam in a hunter’s eye, a mammoth’s death roar, primitive as the men they ruled. As men grew in size, complexity, and might, the gods grew with them.

“Gods, like men, can die. They just die harder, and smite the earth with their passing.”

This was basic stuff. It had formed the theoretical foundation for Maestre Gerhardt’s famous (or infamous, depending on which circles you ran in) treatise Das Thaumas, the work that first theorized, a century and a half ago, that human beings could stop begging for miracles, take the power of the gods into their own hands, and shape the course of destiny.

Gerhardt’s work spread like wildfire through academies and lecture halls around the world; in ten years the shuddering and imprecise research of the former masters of Applied Theology, who became the first adepts of the Craft, laid waste to hundreds of miles of verdant countryside and sparked the jealous gods to war. Cardinal Gustave had been born during the century-long conflict that followed, and raised by an order that cleaved to the old ways and the old gods. Tara’s parents were teenagers during the Siege of Skeld and the Battle of Kath near the God Wars’ end, and fled to the edge of the Badlands to escape the convulsions of their dying nation. Ms. Kevarian, who had lived through most of the story, stood by the window, read her scroll as the Cardinal spoke, and kept her thoughts to herself.

The key difference between gods and men in the manner of their dying was that men possessed only two deep obligations: to the earth, from which came their flesh, and to the stars, from which came their soul. Neither earth nor stars were particularly concerned about the return on their investment. Humans were very good at adding order to the earth, and enlivening the world of the stars with ideas and myth. When a human being died, nobody had a vested interest in keeping her around.

Gods, however, made deals. It was the essence of their power. They accepted a tribe’s sacrifice and in turn protected its hunters from wolves and wild beasts. They received the devotion of their people, and gave back grace. A successful god arranged to receive more than he returned to the world. Thus your power and your people grew together, slowly, from family to tribe, from tribe to city, from city to nation, and so on to infinity.

Nice strategy, but slow. Theologians centuries back had developed a faster method. One god gave of his power to another, or to a group of worshipers, on a promise of repayment in kind, and of more soulstuff than had been initially lent. Gods grew knit to gods, pantheons to pantheons, expecting, and indeed requiring, their services to be returned. Power flowed, and divine might increased beyond measure. There were risks, though. If a goddess owed more than she could support, she might die as easily as a human who shed too much blood.

When a goddess neared death, the needs of her faithful, and of those to whom she was bound in contract, stuck like hooks in her soul. She could not desert her obligations, nor honor them and remain intact. The tension tore her mind to shreds of ectoplasm, leaving behind a body of inchoate divine power that a competent Craftswoman could reassemble into something that looked and functioned like the old goddess. But …

Well. Much like Tara’s revenants back at Edgemont, a being once resurrected was never quite the same.

*

“How did he die?” Tara asked.

Cardinal Gustave frowned. “I defer to Lady Kevarian’s judgment here.”

“It appears,” Ms. Kevarian said, setting down her scroll, “that as Novice Abelard undertook his routine prostrations two days ago, a complex set of agreements fell due. Kos”—Abelard flinched at the casual tone with which she said his deity’s name—“was unable to satisfy these agreements, and unable to back out of his pacts. The strain seems to have killed him.”

“Seems?” Cardinal Gustave asked.

“Seems.”

“What else could have happened?”

Ms. Kevarian clasped her hands behind her back. “Ms. Abernathy, please list some of the other possibilities for our friends.”

“Kos’s willing abandonment of his responsibilities. Some fundamental inconsistency in his pacts with the city. A mass crisis of faith.” She took a breath there, and searched Ms. Kevarian’s face for some sign of approval, no matter how vanishingly swift. Nothing.

“Not to mention,” Ms. Kevarian said, “death in battle. As happened with Seril.”

The Cardinal’s face was firm, fixed, and ashen.

“We must rule out other options in the early stages of the process and assemble our case before the adversary asserts his claim.”

“Adversary?” Poor Abelard. He sounded like he wanted nothing more than to return to his engines and pipes and altars.

Ms. Kevarian let the question hang. Cardinal Gustave stared out the window into the overcast sky. Tara’s turn, apparently. “The Church is not the only group interested in Kos’s revivification. Your god was one of the last in the New World, and his influence extended around the globe. The pantheons of Iskar draw power from him. His flame drives oceangoing vessels, heats the sprawling metropolises in Koschei’s realm, lights the caverns of King Clock. Gods who wish to deal with Deathless Kings pass their power through Kos to do so, and Deathless Kings who deal with gods do the same. People around the world are invested in his survival. When these groups realize Kos is no longer alive to honor his agreements, they will choose a representative and send him here, to ensure Kos’s pacts are fulfilled. If the representative discovers something we didn’t know, some sign, say, that the Church made unwise bargains in Kos’s name, he’ll use that to gain more control over your god’s resurrection.”

Abelard’s expression clouded as she spoke. Cardinal Gustave stood with his back to her, and it was impossible to see his face. His shoulders were squared off ready to resist a terrible wind.

“We should begin work as soon as possible,” Ms. Kevarian said. “Ms. Abernathy and I require a staff, until the rest of our firm’s complement arrives.”

“Whatever you need,” Gustave replied.

“Security is of the essence. We must keep the number of people involved to a minimum. Perhaps you could loan us Abelard?”

Gustave glanced over his shoulder at Ms. Kevarian, as if he were about to argue. At last he decided against it, and addressed the young priest. “Abelard?”

“Yes, Cardinal?”

“Will you serve Lady Kevarian?”

Tara hoped he would refuse. The Craft involved would be hard enough without Abelard scuttling along scattering ash in her wake. Sure, he understood his faith better than Tara did, but the Craft was the Craft. What use had she for local mysticism?

Besides, the death of his god seemed to have struck the young priest deeply. Working with the divine corpse might be too much for him to bear.

He looked at Ms. Kevarian, and she looked back. He did not quail, or turn away.

“Yes, Father.”

*

After that, the meeting dissolved into logistics. Ms. Kevarian waved her hand through the air and produced a long list of components they required: candles made from blood wax, a box of bone chalk, various thaumaturgic implements of sterling silver and copper and ironwood. They were to room within the Sanctum, on a floor reserved for guests. Tara asked for a wig stand for her room, and pointedly ignored Ms. Kevarian’s questioning glance. She’d explain later.

Cardinal Gustave had things to do. “You are here to save our Church, but in the meantime I must prepare for its demise.” Abelard led them upstairs to their rooms, which were surprisingly posh when compared with the Gothic complexity of the worship halls below, and with the bright, spacious offices. Tara’s chambers would have satisfied a merchant prince. Pale walls and plush carpet set off the luxurious red leather upholstery of her armchair and the clawed golden feet of her vanity table. The bed was a four-poster, complete with gossamer curtains, like something out of an old novel.

Someone had even found her a wig stand.

Abelard produced a wrench out of a hidden pocket in his robe, opened a panel concealed behind one of the room’s full-length mirrors, and did something that involved a lot of swearing and banging. Minutes later, he announced he had connected her bell-pull to the call box in his quarters, in case she needed anything. He then retired, tripping over the hem of his robe on the way out. Ms. Kevarian remained with Tara to drink a cup of tea and discuss business.

Tara sat on her divan, watching the gas burner’s flame lick the belly of the small iron kettle, and counted to ten before Ms. Kevarian said, “How is Judge Cabot?”

“Dead,” Tara replied. “Murdered.”

Ms. Kevarian blinked, once.

“You don’t seem surprised,” Tara said.

“I won’t say I was expecting his murder, but it was a possibility.”

“You think it has something to do with the case? With Kos?”

“Cabot was one of my oldest contacts in the Craft in this city. If someone tried and failed to kill me, it stands to reason he might be in danger as well.” She stood, and began to pace. Her shadow and her mood sucked light from the room. “He was destroyed, I take it?”

“No hope of raising him. Most of the organs gone. I couldn’t have pulled his memories even if the Blacksuits had left me alone with the body.”

Ms. Kevarian said nothing. The darkness around her deepened.

“You said you knew the man?” Tara asked.

“He worked on the Seril case. Fair judge. That was forty years ago, and he wanted to get out of the game even then.” She stopped pacing and stood, eyes closed, hands at her side, for a moment that stretched. “Tell me the circumstances.”

She told her everything. The butler’s screams, talking her way in to see the body, its condition. Ms. Kevarian asked Tara for exceptional detail there, and she described the corpse, its expression, its disposition, and especially its vertebrae. But the gargoyle interested Ms. Kevarian most.

“Here?”

“Hand to any god you want to name.”

“You’re sure?”

“One minute, seven and a half feet tall, big beak, wings and talons and teeth.” She raised one arm to its fullest extent over her head. “The next he turns inside out and becomes a six-one kind of handsome guy. Dark hair, green eyes. Definitely not a golem. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“Is he alone? His Flight—his group—have they returned?”

That question came a little fast. “Is there something I should know?”

“Answer me.”

Her tone chilled the air in Tara’s lungs. She took another breath. “He didn’t say much.”

“He’s in Blacksuit custody?”

“His body is.”

Ms. Kevarian stopped her pacing. Something welled within her chest, a cracking, burbling sound that Tara realized with shock was laughter. “His body. You brilliant girl.”

Tara felt a fierce rush of pride, but by now she knew better than to stop and bask in her boss’s praise.

She opened her purse and reached for the book within. Before she could produce it, Ms. Kevarian laid an iron-cold hand on her wrist. “You’ve done well, but I must be able to answer truthfully when Justice asks me about this.”

“Got it.” She released the book and withdrew her hand. “I was just looking for a pen.”

“Under no circumstances are you to attempt to ascertain whether Cabot’s death was connected with our business here.”

“Of course not,” Tara replied with a knowing nod.

“You are certainly not to pursue this line of inquiry on your own. It seems unlikely that his death has any bearing on our case. Cabot’s death, and our own troubles, and Kos’s demise, are clearly related by no more than coincidence.”

“Clearly.” The kettle screamed. Tara poured some tea into her mug. “And I’m not supposed to start at once?”

“Actually, no,” Ms. Kevarian said. “I need you and Abelard to begin document review. Go through everything we have, and see how complete a picture you can assemble of what happened to Kos. Get a report to me by tomorrow morning.”

“Boss…” That book with its silver-traced binding felt like a lead weight in her purse. Every minute it sat there, the trail grew colder. “Don’t we have more important things to worry about?”

“Extracurricular matters do compete for our attention, but we are obliged to serve our clients.” Ms. Kevarian ran her thumbs down the lapels of her jacket. “In your case, the obligation is personal, as well as professional.”

Tara frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I have a great deal of influence and seniority within our firm, but I am not all-powerful.” Ms. Kevarian paused. Tara waited, and at last her boss found the words she sought. “The circumstances surrounding your graduation from the Hidden Schools convinced me that you had a place with Kelethras, Albrecht, and Ao. However, those same circumstances disturbed some senior partners at the firm.”

Striking at her teachers and masters with fire, with lightning, with shadow and thorn. Laughing as they threw her from Elder Hall into the void above the Crack in the World. Tara swallowed. “I didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

“So I said, when Belladonna Albrecht challenged my recommendation. Nevertheless, my colleagues’ reservations prevailed. For months I advocated on your behalf, without success.” Ms. Kevarian glanced back at Tara, her face composed. “At last, this case came across my desk, and with it my chance. The firm chose me for this assignment, and due to the sensitive nature of the case, they gave me staffing authority. I chose you.”

Tara counted back the days, the hours, since Kos died. Hiring a new associate took time. Ms. Kevarian couldn’t have left for Edgemont more than a day after word of the god’s death reached her, hardly enough time to ink the complex contracts and pacts binding Tara to the firm. “This isn’t settled, is it? You have me for the moment, but they haven’t decided whether to let you keep me.” The language rankled: keep, give, as if she were a possession, or a prize.

“You are on a, shall we say, performance plan. If you perform to my expectations, your position with the firm is assured. If you fail, or compromise our clients, then our time together will be cut short.” She shook her head. “I do not appreciate working under such conditions. I do not wish to threaten you into obedience. I would not have told you, but that I want you to understand the risks you face, and the gravity of the task we were called here to perform.”

Tara’s tea tasted of bergamot and ash. Ms. Kevarian didn’t need to say any of this. She could have waited and watched to see if her new associate flew or failed. Her admission was a gift—a confession of respect, an invitation into confidence—but also a curse. In addition to gargoyles and assassins, now Tara had to fear her own superiors. From their distant stronghold, the senior partners of Kelethras, Albrecht, and Ao settled their fiery gaze upon her, weighing, probing, seeking every flaw and imperfection. She felt like a tightrope walker forced to gaze into the yawning gulf beneath her feet.

The drop made little difference, Tara told herself. She did not intend to fall. Then again, few women fell on purpose. “So, what are we supposed to do?”

“Our jobs,” Ms. Kevarian said, “with care, professionalism, and speed. Time is of the essence.” She turned to the window. The sky, though pale in the morning, had darkened in the intervening hours and drawn closer to earth, as if to crush the city. “I don’t like the look of those clouds.”

“Tea?” Tara offered.

“Later. Work now. For both of us.”

Before she left for her own chambers, Ms. Kevarian grabbed the long red tongue of Tara’s bell-pull and tugged. It produced a hiss of steam.