Uhad walked up to the round table, eyes fluttering, and plucked out a handful of parchments with his gloved hands—the engraver’s gift for remembering where you’d laid things. He stacked them up and placed them before Ana as I helped her into the one clear spot at the table, and she seized upon them like a starving hillcat upon a mouse.
“It goes without saying that all that we show you and all we discuss is of the highest secrecy,” Uhad said. “Any who share what we say or review outside of this room will be subject to punishment by the Imperial Legion as an actor of malicious discontent.” He gestured as the others settled into their chairs. “The rest of the crew has heard this, too, of course…”
Uhad’s place at the table, naturally, had no notes or papers, as it was all in his head. Nusis sat on his left, and Kalista on his right, and it was hard to think of two more different people: Nusis nodded pertly before her towers of papers, whereas Kalista lounged and smoked her pipe as she dug through her scattered parchments, like a dozing gentrywoman seeking a piece of jewelry lost in her bedsheets. I sat behind Ana, as per my station. Miljin, however, took a seat beside Uhad, slouching in his chair, the tip of his long scabbard scraping over the floor. He looked more like a gentryman’s bodyguard than an investigator, someone whose contributions were strength of arms rather than the cerebral. He crossed his arms and shot a sour eye at the whole crew.
“I’ll start with the dead,” said Uhad to Ana. “That work?”
“Certainly,” said Ana. She cocked her blindfolded head, listening.
I slipped out a new vial—this one scented of grass—and sniffed at it to ensure I captured the whole of the moment.
Uhad’s pupils danced until they were a blur. Then he said in a low, solemn voice: “Princeps Atha Lapfir. Signum Misik Jilki. Princeps Keste Pisak. Captain Atos Koris. Captain Kilem Terez. Princeps Donelek Sandik. Princeps Kise Sira. Princeps Alaus Vanduo. Signum Suo Akmuo. And finally, Signum Ginklas Loveh.” His eyes stopped fluttering and he looked to Ana. “These are the ten officers whose deaths are confirmed to be attributed to the dappleglass contagion. I have also provided you with all information on their sleeping quarters and movements in the two days before the incident. That is what we’ve managed to amass thus far.”
Ana rocked back and forth in her seat, her hands flittering over the parchments before her like dancers on a stage. “You say these deaths are confirmed to be attributed to the dappleglass contagion, Uhad,” she said, “because we’re unsure if there could be more?”
“Potentially,” said Uhad. “It’s possible some individuals underwent a similar infestation unnoticed, and then were lost during the breach.”
“The term,” said Nusis chipperly, “is bloom. A dappleglass bloom.”
Uhad extended a hand to her. “A bloom, then. Nusis here is something of an expert on the matter. She cut her teeth during Oypat, assisting the Apoths trying to manage the situation there.”
“Really?” said Ana. “How intriguing! It must be quite something to bear witness to the death of an entire canton, yes?”
An awkward pause.
Nusis cringed. “Ahh. I suppose, yes?”
Kalista cleared her throat. “I don’t think more than these ten succumbed to the bloom, though,” she drawled. A lone tangle of pipe smoke slid up her cheek with the final syllable. “Engineers do not work on the walls unaccompanied for this very reason. If someone was harmed and needed help, it wouldn’t do to be alone. We keep a very thorough accounting of our dead and injured. I think the list ends with the ten.”
“Four of the deceased Engineers died within the sea walls,” said Uhad. “Specifically, what is known as the Peak of Khanum. It is one of the thickest and most fortified portions of the entire sea wall, given that it sits close to the mouth of the Titan’s Path, leading inland.”
“And the other deaths?” asked Ana.
“Two perished while traveling to Talagray from the walls,” said Uhad. His eyes danced again as he summoned up his memories. An ugly sight. I couldn’t help wonder—did it look so unsettling when I did it? “One died in bed, having retired after a long shift. Another while taking a meal at a mess tent. Another while waiting for a carriage to take her west from Talagray to the third-ring walls. And the final victim died atop a horse while reviewing fortifications. All perished in the same way. A malignant bloom of dappleglass growth within the torso, resulting in an eighteen-to twenty-span growth of shoots over the course of five minutes, weakening whatever was above and below it. Gruesome, really.”