“You’re right—you are my engraver. You are here to look, and see. So be down in the atrium first thing tomorrow, and be ready to look and see! And bring your sword. For if my conjectures prove true, we shall unmask a murderer—and a great deal more than that. Or we shall get all our throats slit.” She grinned again. “Now sleep, boy—if you can.” Then she shut the door.
CHAPTER 37
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IT WAS DAWN WHEN I heard the first footsteps from the tower entrance. I looked up from where I stood before the adjudication chamber, my hand resting on my sword, then relaxed when I saw Captain Miljin stumping up, his long scabbard swinging by his side.
He nodded to me. Then his eye danced down to my fingers, which still tarried near the grip of my weapon. “You’re jumpy, Kol…What’s all this about, then? Got a message from Vashta to be here. I thought it’d be about poor Nusis, but…something about an attempt on Fayazi Haza’s life?”
“Or one that’s coming, sir,” I said. “Ana seemed sure of it. Fayazi Haza herself will be here shortly to be interviewed.”
He gazed up the tower stairs. “But Ana’s not here yet.”
“Still in her rooms. Before you ask, no, I’m afraid she hasn’t told me her plots, sir. I’ve no idea what she’s playing at.”
He snorted. “Perhaps today’s the day she finally tells us what’s been bubbling away in that brain of hers.” He turned as six Legionnaires trooped into the atrium. He shook his head. “Just had to happen as the leviathan grows perilously close. Let us hope we all survive it.”
We entered the adjudication chambers, the Legionnaires taking position at the doors and windows. We waited in silence, and then there came a rumbling of carriage wheels. Commander-Prificto Vashta swept in, followed by Fayazi Haza, attired again in her silvery robes and delicate veil, and flanked by her engraver and her axiom. Fayazi looked nearly as shaken as she had when I’d seen her staring down on me as her carriage had taken me away. Her Sublimes, as always, were utterly inscrutable.
“Where’s Dolabra?” Vashta demanded of me. “Is she not here yet? I thought she would be waiting!”
I opened my mouth to speak—but then I heard a door slam in the tower beyond, followed by small, careful footsteps. I bowed, excused myself, and exited to see Ana slowly, carefully descending the stairs, blindfolded as always, one hand trailing on the wall.
“They all there, Din?” she asked softly as she came to me. “Vashta, Fayazi, and her two Sublimes?”
“They are, ma’am.”
“And how do they look?”
“Rather rattled, ma’am.”
A grin. “Good. Let us rattle them more.”
She took me by the arm. I glanced up the curling stairway, wondering what she had left behind in her room, and why I was not to enter it. Then I led her into the adjudication chambers.
The Legionnaires shut the door behind us and locked it. I glanced around, taking in their positions: two soldiers on either side of Fayazi, one at each of the two windows in this chamber, and two on either side of the door. Fayazi herself sat at the prosecutor’s table, with her axiom on her left and her engraver on her right. Vashta had taken up her usual spot at the high table, and Miljin slouched on a bench behind Fayazi, hand on his sword. I led Ana to the first row of benches opposite Fayazi, who watched with narrowed eyes as she sat.
“So,” said Fayazi. “We are here, as you have asked, Dolabra…You claim my life is being threatened, again?”
“So I have concluded, ma’am,” said Ana. “And I thank you for being here to discuss this.”
“I thought Jolgalgan was dead,” said Fayazi. “And her crackler. That was the news being bandied about.”
“They are. But the conspiracy against you goes beyond that, I am afraid. An immunis in the Apothetikals was murdered in her office last night. The threats continue.”
“Immunis Dolabra,” explained Vashta to Fayazi, “wishes only to interview you and your staff personally to attempt to identify the threat. It is purely a precautionary measure.”
“Before I ask any questions, however,” said Ana, “I would like to review all we know about the circumstances thus far—about the movements of Jolgalgan, your father, Kaygi Haza, and even Commander Blas—for I have had discovered many revelations in the past few days. Only once the nature of those crimes is established might the threat to you be made clear, madam. Would that be acceptable?”