Page 24 of A Trade of Blood

There was a silence.

I glanced back and forth between the two. “I’m sorry—him? I was unaware we had a suspect.”

Ana extended a hand to Seriv. “Din lacks the background for this. But you, Princeps, appear to have already made the leap…”

Seriv’s face now lacquered with sweat. “I told you, Signum Kol,” he said, “that the Burav clan made a fortune from agrarian alterations.”

“Yes?” I said.

“But I did not identify themainone, for I didn’t think it pertinent!” His mustache quivered. “The vast,vastmajority of all the enormous wealth of the Buravs comes from their alterations done not to a bean or plant, but to a very unusual fungus. They did endless labor to render it harmless—butveryuseful…”

A chill swept across me. “Oh,” I murmured.

“Yes, sir,” said Seriv. “It was theBuravswho developed the guiding web. They are the folk who mastered using it to command the herds of drokha-cats to harvest the fields!” He wiped the sweat from his face and dried it on his shirt front, leaving a dark shadow of a hand on his heart. “And it was not just any Burav. It was Burilishimselfwho achieved this! The father of that very dead girl there.”

Chapter 7

Seriv selected a different innfor us to stay at that night, a place called the Green Drover that he claimed was one of the finest in the city. “The Armentas themselves often stay here, sir,” he told me. “Though, ah, only when they’re on their own business. When they have guests, they put them elsewhere. And those residences, ah…”

“Are too expensive?” I suggested.

“Well, that. And they offer…differententertainments. And I don’t much enjoy the idea of one such entertainer wandering into your immunis’s rooms. I might have another body in an inn to deal with then.”

I realized what he meant, and, shuddering, agreed with him.

Like many buildings of Lacanthim, the Green Drover was adorned with features of the cattle trade: hides pinned to walls, horns above every door, and a good number of windows and shutters were made with braids and ropes fashioned from tendons. Even the mai-lantern shades were wrought of leather and were shot through with veins and other features of dead flesh. I found the effect rather grisly. It had its own pump room, however, with fresh waters, and after a day of walking about my thirst was unbearable, so I gladly and greedily drank from its spigot.

I rushed to move Ana into her chambers, as she had a very specific layout for her rooms: a central stove, her trunk of books and instruments, her mossbed, and a table—not to mention the windows allcarefully veiled. Usually she complained mightily while she waited for me to finish such arrangements, but this time she was quiet, sitting in the entryway with her head bowed and her fingers flitting in the lap of her dress. Though it was peaceful, I liked her silence not at all.

Once all was assembled and her mai-lamps were glimmering, Seriv and I brought Ana to her chambers. As was her custom, she opened her trunk and produced two books and began to read their lines with her bare fingers, which were preternaturally enhanced to sense the scrawl of ink. Seriv did not seem bothered by this—Iguessed the shock of what he’d just learned had rendered Ana’s irregularities quite quaint. He just sat in a chair, scraping out the bowl of his pipe with a tiny knife and staring into the shadows of her dimly lit room.

“I will now suggest,” Ana began softly as she worked, “many uncomfortable things. I must ask fortotalsecrecy from both of you. What is whispered here cannot escape these walls—for otherwise we shall have catastrophe, I am sure.”

“Of course, ma’am,” said Seriv, rather hoarsely.

“Good,” she murmured, and turned over the pages of the two books. “To begin with—we are woefully behind comprehending the nature of this fungus. For example, how is it administered? How does it work? How can we test for it? And how were Castus and Zansay poisoned?”

“The common treatment, when given to the cats,” said Seriv, “is a simple pellet, fed to them once. A highly concentrated dose. Then they are conditioned with pipes and fl—”

“Yes, I know that, but this one conditionshumans,” said Ana. “Thus, it is quite a bit fucking different! Are wesureit is administered the same? Are there even any tests we can use, or symptoms we know to look for?”

“I was a drover once, and though I worked with cows, ma’am, I didn’t wrangle cats,” said Seriv. “Here I am fairly ignorant.”

“As am I. It took me nearly a goddamn hour of playing pipes to get Zansay’s body to react! My ears ring still! We cannot use such aprimitive method to discover other victims.” She glowered for a moment. “And, much more frustrating, we cannot simply go to Burilis Burav and demand to know all the details of how his creation works! Nor can we go to any other provincial expert, either.”

“Ah—why not, ma’am?” I asked. “Surely we could find some authority here who could help.”

Ana sighed. “Now we come to what I dread most…Understand, both of you, that this killer, whoever they are, is a person who haspreparedfor Zansay’s murder—slowly, thoughtfully, and carefully! Yesterday, we had no idea that both Zansay and Castus had been cerebrally infested. Nor, apparently, did they know themselves! So I am given to wonder…” One eyebrow rose up past her blindfold. “…how manyothersmight also be infected, conditioned, and prepared to die—right now—without their ever knowing it?”

There was a silence.

Seriv’s mustache twitched. “Oh, hell…”

“Y-you think, ma’am,” I said, “that if we go about asking too many questions about the guiding web…and if the killer realizes that weknowwhat method they are using…”

“Yes,” she said. “I think they willstopmoving slowly, and start moving very, veryquickly.It may take only a simple tune upon a pipe—one that most folk cannot hear, for recall that the innkeeper said she heard nothing at all!—and suddenly we might have people wandering into rivers to drown, or stepping in front of a charging carriage, or…or, hell, I don’t know, sticking their goddamn heads in the oven to set their hair alight! We are in an unenviable place now, children.”

Seriv stopped scraping out his pipe. “Ah…do…do you think thatI,ma’am, might…”