I chewed my bean cake. “Yes, but—how did you do it, ma’am? What…”
“Ahh. What suffusion do I have?” she asked. “What augmentation? Is that it?”
“Just curious, ma’am.”
“Curious to know what makes me me. What keeps me indoors and makes me muck about with my blindfolds and my books. That’s the problem with the damned Empire these days…All these complacent bastards think the only thing that matters is which tiny beast is dancing in your blood, altering your brain, making you see and feel and think differently. The person an enhancement is paired with is just as important as what enhancement they get. And we get some say in what kind of person we are, Din. We do not pop out of a mold. We change. We self-assemble.”
I had no idea what that meant, but I sensed she wasn’t willing to talk on it further.
“How are we going to pursue this, ma’am?” I asked.
“Well, first off, Blas surely had a secretary,” said Ana. “Someone to manage his day-to-day affairs. We need to get ahold of them, whoever they are, and get them in front of me. Then I take them apart.” She ripped out a piece of parchment and began writing. “This will take time—I’ve no doubt his secretary is stationed in the next canton, and it’s the wet season, so things must be hectic as fuck-all for the Engineers—but it must be done.” She shoved the message in my hands to take to the post station. “Next, I want you to get in touch with the Apoths. Have them check the pipes of the bath. The dappleglass might have been washed away into a drain. I’ll want to confirm that and have them examine it, if so.”
“Understood, ma’am.”
“I’ll also need you to get the materials from Gennadios,” she said. “All the dates for Blas’s visits. Whoever killed him knew exactly when he was coming here, so they’ve been watching him for some time. The bigger issue being, I bet Blas spent a lot of time at the sea walls in the next canton—Tala. A very busy one, with its own Iudex division, and its own investigator. Our abilities to trot over there and start kicking over stones are limited, unless we get something really good.”
“Something really good?”
“Yes—something really solid indicating this badness with Blas extends to Tala. But I’m guessing it does. Blas was in bed with the Hazas…and the Hazas definitely have a foothold in the capital of the canton, in Talagray. If we follow this all the way, it may take us there. I’m just not sure when.”
I watched her. There was a queer ferocity in her face now.
“Is there something personal with you and the Haza family, ma’am?” I asked.
“I am decidedly impersonal with all persons, Din,” she said. “Makes it easier when I have to send them to the scaffold. But the Hazas really are a bunch of rotten bastards. I wouldn’t mind seeing all their progeny rotting in the ground like a bunch of fucking dead dogs.”
“I…” I coughed. “I see, ma’am. I was just wondering if that was why you’d asked me to bring Gennadios.”
“Oh, partially. I didn’t really need her to confirm my hunch. I mostly wanted you to bring her so I could fuck up her day. She sounded like such an awful turd.”
“Then why did you also ask for the servant girl, ma’am?”
“Dunno. I needed Uxos to feel comfortable coming. And three just feels better than two, doesn’t it?”
“And your claim about sending two Iudex guards to check on Uxos’s hut? I don’t believe you asked me to arrange that.”
“Ah, that bit was just a lie,” she said. “I just wanted him to move. And he did!” She grinned triumphantly. “How fun it is, when things work out!”
* * *
—
AFTER WE FINISHED, I readied to depart to make my formal report to the Iudex Magistry. I noticed that Ana looked very relaxed, and far less manic than she had in the last few weeks, and commented upon it.
“Of course I feel better,” she said, slipping on her blindfold to see me out. “Fiddling with something interesting is a very elating thing. And this murder is proving quite interesting.”
“I thought, ma’am,” I said as I stood on her porch, “that our purpose was to deliver justice. The Legion defends the living. The Iudex defends the dead and the wronged.”
“Don’t be so moralistic, Din, it’s boring. And justice is a tricky thing. I mean, Blas sounded like such a shit, didn’t he?”