Page 26 of The Tainted Cup

“What d’you mean, ma’am?”

“I mean…the Empire spends endless amounts of blood and treasure defending a whole continent from sea beasts the size of small mountains. But it can’t save a canton from one damned plant?” She cocked her head as a faint chime sounded behind her: her quake instrument was ringing again. “But then, the Empire’s only defended usthusfar. There’s always another wet season, Din.”

She closed the door with a snap.

CHAPTER 6

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I RETURNED TO THEHaza estate one final time to pick up the material from Gennadios. She beckoned me into her own room to hand it over—a furtive, guilty handoff—and I took it from her and examinedit.

It was a slim little tome with a red leather cover. I opened it up and squinted hard at the letters. Like every piece of text I saw, the letters tended to wobble and shake and dance around—but I was pretty sure it was all in shorthand, readingCV.—4.1127and the like.

“Is this code?” I asked Gennadios.

“It’s dates!” she snapped at me. “If you’re too stupid to read it, your investigator should be able to! She asked me for the book, and now she has it.”

She gave me the boot and I wandered around back. There a whole swarm of Apoths were draining the boiler and searching the gutters, all clad in leather warding helms and suits: protective gear their Iyalet had developed to safeguard them from contagion.

One Apoth saw me from a distance and waved. He lumbered over and removed his warding helm, revealing the flushed, sweaty face of Princeps Otirios.

“Found it, sir!” he said. He jerked his head backward toward the drains. “A slender slip of grass. It’d washed down the drains just as your investigator suggested.”

“How big was it?” I asked.

He held up his hands about eight smallspan apart. “Not big at all. Odd to think such a small thing could kill a man so horribly. But it must be a different breed, perhaps altered or grafted. Dappleglass normally spreads everywhere, and if it does get in people, it only grows in small clumps.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Can’t make conclusions yet, sir. But if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say this plant had been altered to release fertile spores only when it encountered hot water—and then those spores would only grow when they entered living tissue, human or otherwise. What’s more, the plant that growsfromthat tissue is incapable of creating spores. Otherwise, well, the whole household would have been dead and every bit of fernpaper blackened. It all appears very targeted.”

“You’re saying someoneweaponizeda contagion?”

“It seems very likely. Made to kill in one swift burst. It wouldn’t be the first time such a thing has happened in the Empire. I’ll be able to tell you more once we’ve had a look at it.” He stuffed his helmet back on his head. “In the meantime, sir…might want to tell anyone you know to give their bath a thorough looking over before hopping in. If you’re fond of them, that is.”

I left through the side entrance. I passed the groundskeeper’s hut as I did so, and tarried to look at its fernpaper walls. All of them were blackened and molded over, the thick, dark clouds of stain splashed across the walls. They seemed to be spreading before my very eyes. I carefully engraved the sight in my memories—one of many unpleasant things now preserved within my head—and departed.

CHAPTER 7

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I’D THOUGHT THAT THEcase of Commander Blas would change my life in Daretana, but I was quickly proven wrong. The next thirteen days passed in stupefying torpor.

The rains of the wet season came, bringing intolerable humidity. There was no escape from it, unless you were rich enough to purchase a kirpis shroom and find some insulated place to keep it dry. The only moment of interest was when I finally got an answer back from Commander Blas’s secretary.

“Her name is Rona Aristan,” I said as I stood in Ana’s meeting room. I pretended to read her letter aloud just then, but in truth I’d spent twenty minutes squinting at it and memorizing each word when I’d first gotten it from Stephinos at the post station. “She says she was shocked to hear the news of the commander’s murder, that she was aware he had taken personal time to visit Daretana, but claims to be ignorant of the nature of the visit beyond that, ma’am.”

A derisive snort. “Indeed,” said Ana. “Go on.”

“She said she would very much like to come to testify before you regarding his movements, but with the coming wet season…”

“All members of the Engineering Iyalet are ordered to stay put,” said Ana dully. “Is that the measure of it?”

“Correct, ma’am.”

“Typical,” she said. “Roads in the Tala canton get so clogged withtraffic when the leviathans approach that I’m sure they can’t afford anyone unnecessary out there.”

“She did send a transcribed copy of the commander’s schedule,” I said, sliding it out. “It covers the last four months of his movements.”