“Is this true?” said Vashta, horrified. “Do you really think we have such a conspirator?”
“I do,” said Ana. “And I think they are sitting directly next to me.” She turned to Uhad. “For it was you, wasn’t it, Tuwey Uhad? It’s been you all along.”
* * *
—
VASHTA AND I turned to stare at Immunis Uhad, who wasn’t beaming anymore. Instead he gazed ahead with a curiously closed, serene expression on his face.
He cleared his throat and said, “I don’t know what you mean, Ana.”
“Don’t be coy,” said Ana. “I’ve known since Nusis’s death. Her safe, as you know, is extremely complicated to open. Yet Din himself realized during that day he took his immunities from her…”
I felt my heart grow cold in my chest. “I told her I shouldn’t watch,” I said softly. “Because an engraver could memorize how to open it.”
“Yes,” said Ana. “Only an engraver could memorize how to manipulate her safe. And you told me yourself, Uhad, that you went to Nusis’s offices frequently for grafts to manage your headaches. You had plenty of chances to watch and learn.” She cocked her head. “And then there is the comment you made to Din at the banquet…that he and I should enjoy a cup of tea. Which would involve using my teapot. Which was, by then, poisoned.”
I felt faintly ill. To realize that Immunis Uhad had tried not only to kill Ana, but me as well, was too gruesome for words.
“Why would I need the cure for dappleglass?” Uhad asked, his voice still calm and serene. “Even if I was this poisoner you’ve dreamed up.”
“Because you aren’t done,” said Ana. “You’re still retiring, yes? To the first ring. And who lives in the first ring? Why, the rest of the Haza clan, of course. You hate them, don’t you? They’ve been flouting the law here in Talagray for nearly a century. Sabotage, corruption, blackmail, none of which you could ever do anything about. But then…you heard something from someone. A whisper about a greater crime. I’m guessing from Jolgalgan, yes?”
Uhad was silent.
“She became one of Kaygi Haza’s chosen ones,” said Ana. “And I’m guessing that during some party with him, she overheard him say…something. Maybe a comment about the cure. Some tossed-off remark that made her start digging in her Iyalet, asking questions, until she slowly put the pieces together. And then, well—she came to you. A crime had been committed, after all, and you’re an Iyalet officer. But…what could you do about it? Nothing. If you tried to bring a case about this, you’d likely get sidelined by the Hazas, or worse. But by then, Uhad, you were old. Beset with afflictions. Your days were short. How better to spend them than by eliminating the villains you’d watch carouse and kill and corrupt in your own canton?
“You plotted how to do it. You planned with Jolgalgan and recruited Ditelus—another Oypati. It was inconvenient that Jolgalgan insisted on a most poetic justice, killing them with the same contagion that killed Oypat, but…you made do. You used your sources and resources to track Blas, and you guided Jolgalgan into killing him. Kaygi Haza was trickier, of course, but you helped there, didn’t you? On the day of the party, you attended very briefly—just long enough to toss a blackperch mushroom into the fire and give Jolgalgan the cover she needed to slip inside and poison his bath.”
Ana grinned madly. “But then came the breach. And the ten dead Engineers. And you realized something had gone terribly wrong with your little plot. But then a stroke of mad luck—for you were appointed head of the investigation into your own crimes! How easy it was to send it looking anywhere except at you. Plots to breach the walls, to assassinate Engineers…anything that didn’t lead to the halls of the Hazas, and your brief moment there.”
Uhad exhaled very slightly. “But…but then you came,” he whispered.
“Yes,” said Ana. “You tried to slow me down. At first, I thought you were corrupt, you know. I even had Din test you, with the money. But you weren’t corrupt at all. No, you were quite the other thing—righteous zealot, willing to both tolerate and inflict pain to achieve your ends. But still, I made you worried. You felt me getting close. So you went to Jolgalgan’s little hut out in the Plains of the Path. You sabotaged her equipment. Then asked her to create more poison for you. And when she did so, she breathed in a lungful of contagion. You asked Ditelus to check in on her—and he was exposed to the same.”