“There’s more,” said Kitlan. “More documents. Some in her name, some counterfeit and falsified. Seems she was hoarding up to run. But it’s her.”
Miljin stared in at the corpse suspended in the darkness. “And she just…”
“Had an accident, by the look of it,” said Kitlan. “My guess is something didn’t seal right. There’s a bottle in the back that’s burned dark and still warm. That was likely the source, boiling a bit of water that’s now evaporated, but the steam leaked out, carrying the spores. She’s been dead about a day or two. I suspect the crackler came to check on her and was exposed as well. If we didn’t have our helmets on right now, we’d be dead, too.”
I felt my heart quaking as I realized how close I’d come to meeting the same horrid fate as Ditelus. “How…how likely is such a mistake to actually happen, though?” I asked.
“Very,” said Kitlan. “This is an improvised laboratory. None of this is to Apoth code. And they were handling a very, very dangerous contagion. There’s a reason why we built walls around Oypat, after all.”
I gazed in at the tower. “How much dappleglass could she have brewed in there?”
Kitlan shrugged. “Lots.”
“Is there any way to know if there’s more out there? Planted among the canton, waiting to bloom?”
“No way to tell here, I’m afraid.”
She returned to the tower. We watched her in silence.
“So—the second we get close to Jolgalgan,” said Miljin quietly, “she goes and fucks up and gets herself and her sole collaborator killed.”
Wind ripped through the barren ruins. The corpse within the tower danced and shivered in the trees.
“That feel right to you?” Miljin asked me.
I said nothing.
CHAPTER 34
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I FINISHED SPEAKING, MY voice hoarse, my eyelids aching from the fluttering. My last few words echoed in the adjudication chamber until they finally faded.
Commander-Prificto Vashta peered down at us from the high bench. “So,” she said slowly. “It’s…done?”
Ana shifted in her seat like she’d sat in something wet. “Partially,” she conceded. “Possibly.”
Vashta frowned. Though her Legion’s cuirass was bright and polished and her cloak dark and clean, the commander-prificto’s face looked more beleaguered than ever, so much so that I found myself worrying about the state of the sea walls.
“Immunis,” said Vashta, “could you kindly clarify what in hell you mean by that?”
“I mean, it is possible that the case is solved,” said Ana. “Or that it is partially solved. Or perhaps it is only possibly partially solved, ma’am.”
There was a long silence. I stared down at my new boots, which were now no longer identifiably new, being so caked with mud and stained from the Plains. Miljin, sitting beside me, suppressed a yawn. I sympathized: though this moment felt fraught, we were both exhausted from our ride back and our many debriefings with Ana and Vashta.
“To review, Dolabra,” Vashta said, “Jolgalgan was who you always believed to be the primary poisoner.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Ana.
“And she is now dead.”
“True, ma’am.”
“And the laboratory where she’d been brewing this horrid contagion is now destroyed.”
“Burned with phalm oil, ma’am, whose heat even dappleglass spores cannot resist.”
“And her collaborator is dead as well—killed by the same accident?”
“Yes,” said Ana. “But there is still little we actually know about her. Did Jolgalgan truly wish to kill those ten Engineers? If so, we know neither how she accomplished this, nor why. We have great reason to believe she killed Kaygi Haza—but we’ve no true idea why there, either. For if this is indeed part of her desire to avenge Oypat, why pursue this one ancient gentryman?”
“The Hazas are one of the greatest clans of the Empire,” said Vashta. “They provide incalculable reagents that maintain our very civilization. Surely killing a prime son of the clan would have many ill effects.”
“Perhaps it is so simple. But if so, ma’am, why would the Hazas hide his murder? Why deny the presence of the ten Engineers at their halls? Why deny all knowledge about Commander Blas? We do not know. And then there is Rona Aristan, and Suberek, the secretary and the miller. They are both dead—and not by Jolgalgan.”