Page 64 of The Tainted Cup

I opened my engraver’s satchel. “Is it all right if I…”

“Be my guest,” said Nusis.

I selected the ash-scented vial again and sniffed at it, anchoring this conversation in my memories. “What was wrong with her?” I said. “Something to do with her alterations?”

“No,” she said. “No. It is not that.”

I watched her. Eyes still, mouth fixed in a soft frown. She hadgone somewhere far away in her mind, I felt. I waited.

“You are aware, Signum,” she said, “that I was assigned to be on this investigation team because I served in Oypat.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And whatdoyou know of Oypat?”

“I’d never heard of it until Blas. I learned it had been a canton that had been consumed by dappleglass, the same contagion that’s been wielded as a weapon here. That is all of it.”

“Well…I will tell you now, Kol, that what happened in Oypat made many people fear alterations as much as the titans. With good reason. I was a junior officer then, barely out of Sublime training. Axiom,” she said, tapping her head. “Figures and mathematics.”

“I remember, ma’am.”

“Of course you do. I worked on the environmental monitoring team during Oypat, ensuring that no dappleglass escaped the territory. I peered through a spyglass day after day, watching distant hills being eaten by grass. And then in the afternoon, when I served in the medikkers’ wards, I saw people having the grass cut from them—tangles in their kidneys, in their lungs, in their uteri. Many more died, of course. Especially after we sealed the whole thing up. They never made it out.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Those that did survive were resettled by the Iudex. And some…some of the Oypati say that it wasn’t the dappleglass that killed their home. They say it was us. That we imperials killed them with our lethargy. But that isn’t so. We tried. It was just too complex. The great and heavenly world is just all too complex, sometimes.”

“I see,” I said. “But—what’s this to do with Jolgalgan, ma’am?”

“You have heard that Jolgalgan has a curious look to her,” she said. “Yellow, curly hair. Yes?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“That is because though she has a Kurmini last name, the captain was not born to a Kurmini family. She was adopted. Her birth name wasPrarasta.An uncommon name—mostly because all the peoplewho’d normally have such a name are now dispersed or dead.” She fixed me in a sad gaze. “Jolgalgan wasOypati,you see. She escaped the dying canton when she was a child. Lost her parents. And was resettled. Such a history…Well, it’s no wonder she displayed afflictions of the psyche.”

I felt my skin break out in goosebumps. “I notice, ma’am, that you haven’t told me whether Jolgalgan died with her cohort.”

“I haven’t,” she said. “Because Captain Jolgalgan has been missing for weeks.” She handed the scroll of parchment out to me. “She vanished just a few days before the assassination of Commander Blas, as a matter of fact. And just before so many Engineers suddenly started dying of the very contagion that killed her canton. Curious—isn’t it?”

CHAPTER 19

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IT WAS LATE AFTERNOONwhen I raced across the Iudex tower atrium, Jolgalgan’s parchments rustling in my pocket. I felt I looked quite a sight, but then I saw Captain Miljin doing the same, sprinting across the atrium, though he was going out rather thanin.

He skidded to a stop as he passed me. “Kol!” he breathed. “Where the devil…”

I took in his flush face, his wild eyes. Instantly I knew he had found Aristan.

I fought to keep my voice steady, and asked, “What’s going on, sir?”

“We’ve just found themaddestmess of shit, simply themaddestthing, but…” Miljin looked back out the door. “But I have business to tend to. Go and ask your immunis. She can fill you in!” Then he dashed away, moving surprisingly fast for a man of his age.

I watched him go. I wondered if Ana’s little experiment had yielded results.

I raced up the stairs for the second time that day, my head spilling over with thoughts. Yet when I came to Ana’s door, I paused.

Voices from inside: hers, then a man’s. Soft, not agitated—or at least not yet.

I knocked. The customary singing “Come!”

I opened the door. Young Captain Kepheus Strovi sat in a chair in the middle of the room, dressed in Legion blacks with his legscrossed—a casual pose, like he was perfectly at home here. He looked over his shoulder and his eyes widened slightly when he saw me.