The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)(44)

A shadow of sorrow crossed her face. “M-Misik’s dead, sir,” she whispered.

“I know that, Princeps. Did you know her well?”

She shifted in the milky fluid, her expression pained. The white tide sloshed about her torso, revealing a luminous curve of a breast, blackened with storm clouds of bruises. “Yes.”

“Very well?”

She glared at me. She was waking up now. “We were lovers, sir. But that’s not against policy, being as we’re from different Iyalets, is it?”

“I see,” I said. I was learning to stop being surprised when Ana’s hunches turned out to be right. “How long were you involved with her?”

A slow, sluggish blink as she did the math. “God…three years now.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, and…” I resisted the urge to look down at her missing hand. “…and for what happened to you. I’m trying to learn a little more about how Jilki died.”

“Why?”

Again, I ignored her question. “Would you have seen her the day before her death?”

Topirak shook her head.

“No?”

“No, sir. She was at the walls,” she murmured. “Stayed there overnight, sir.”

“She was there all day?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. And the two days before that.”

“And she went nowhere besides the walls?”

“Not as far as I’m aware, sir.”

“Nowhere with steam, or water, or the like?”

“Don’t…don’t quite know what you’re asking, sir. Has something gone wrong?”

I considered what to say. One of the snails trailed across her severed wrist, leaving a stripe of pink flesh behind.

“When was the last time you saw Jilki, Princeps?” I asked.

“I saw her four days before she died, I think, sir?”

“And what were her movements on that day?”

“She went to the walls in the morning, and came back, sir.”

“And the day before that?” I asked.

“The same.”

I narrowed my eyes as I put this together. “So…just to make sure. For the six days previous to her death, the only places she went were here, at these quarters, and to the walls?”

“Yes, sir.”

I did not like the feel of this. I knew from Uhad’s report that two of the ten dead Engineers had been stationed in Talagray and had not visited either the walls or the Forward Engineering Quarters. Hearing that Jilki had only visited these places before her death would mean there was no commonality among the ten, which would make determining where they’d all been poisoned much harder.

“You’re asking about contagion,” said Topirak. “Aren’t you, sir?”

“What makes you say that?” I asked, perhaps too sharply.

“I’m a medikker, sir. I know the questions. Want to figure out where they’ve been, what they touched, where they got it. Is that the case, sir?”

“Somewhat.”

“I thought Misik had died in the collapse. When the walls fell. Why…why ask about contagion? And why’s the Iudex investigating a contagion, and not the Apoths?”

“We’re just trying to understand more. Is there anything you can think of along those lines, Princeps?”

“N-no,” she said. “When Misik wasn’t at her duties, she was with me.” The weak smile again. “That’s as I liked it.”

She looked to me for sympathy. But I could feel something amiss now, and didn’t give her any.

A drip as Topirak shifted in her bath. Her eyes searched the ceiling, anxious and fretful. She opened her mouth to speak, then stopped. I waited for it to come.

“Did Misik…do something wrong, sir?” she asked.

There it was.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Do you think Jilki did something wrong?”

“No,” she said. She stared up at the ceiling again, her pupils darting about. “But on the eighth night before the breach…”

“Yes?” I said. “What happened then?”

She swallowed. Tears meandered down her cheeks to drop into the white bath. “She…she went back into town, to Talagray. She stayed the night there.”

“What for?” I asked.

“She was…working on some kind of project. Something to do with the quakes. The walls had been destabilized. She…she went back to town for a meeting. Couldn’t tell me what it was about. Wasn’t allowed, she said.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Something about not wanting to start a panic, sir,” she said. “Didn’t want people to know how bad the walls were. It felt very secret.”

“I see,” I said. I let the silence linger, then asked, “Did you believe her?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

I gazed into her face. Eyes wide and fearful, jaw trembling.

“I’m here to prevent other deaths, Princeps,” I said. “Other injuries like yours. If something’s wrong, I need to know.”

“It was just…just a feeling,” she whispered. “When she went to Talagray for these meetings, she was always quiet after. And there was something she said, both times.” She screwed up her face, and said, “The Engineers make the world. Everyone else just lives in it.”