“Though Talagray sounds hardly any better,” Ana said. “I wonder how many horrors are trapped in that head of yours, Tuwey.”
“More than my fair share, maybe,” he admitted. “And though my fits are few, I do have them now and again…I have to keep going to Nusis to get grafts to help me manage my headaches.”
I paused in my labors as I heard that. Engravers, I knew, tended to experience mental breakdown the more information they engraved in their minds: depressions, fits of rage, moments of dislocation. As an engraver myself, I wondered if this was a glimpse into my future.
“I’d settle for a station in the third ring of the Empire, frankly,” sighed Uhad. “Some canton where cow thievery is the greatest crime. And yet…the years grow short, yes?”
“Maybe this will be your last parade, Tuwey,” Ana said. “Save the Empire, get sent to greener pastures.”
I shoved Ana’s trunk into the corner, then sat on its top, panting and puffing.
“Maybe,” Uhad said. “But you—you’ll keep chewing through the world like a crackler’s pick-hatchet, yes?”
Ana grinned. “As long as they’ll let me.”
I wiped sweat from my brow, glaring at them as they laughed. With one final goodbye, Immunis Uhad departed. I bowed and shut the door behind him.
Instantly, the grin melted off Ana’s face. “Odd,” she said. “Odd, Din! What the hell was that?”
“Ahh. Pardon, ma’am?” I said.
“I mean…What was your read on that?” asked Ana. “Wasn’t something missing from all that? Or am I mad?”
I silently reviewed her friendly discussion with Uhad. “Did…did you expect your discussion with Immunis Uhad to go…elsewhere, ma’am?”
“What?” she said. “No! Not that! I mean that whole goddamned meeting down there! Didn’t you notice something wrong with that, Din?”
“Besides your consistent use of wildly inappropriate language, ma’am?”
She glared at me from behind her blindfold. “Come, come. Think. Did that meeting feel right to you?”
I thought about it. “No.”
“Good. Now tell me, honestly—what did you see that felt wrong? This is important.”
I thought about it, my eyes fluttering as I summoned each memory of the meeting: each fleeting glance, each gesture, each turn of the head and twist in the seat.
“They were…nervous,” I said finally. “About the breach, yes. But also about…something else.”
“Go on,” said Ana.
“It was something when you asked if they knew Blas,” I said. “They all went quiet. Nusis stared at the floor. Kalista only watched you. Tried to pretend she didn’t care what you were saying, but she very clearly did. Uhad was all up in his own head. Looking at memories, trying to figure out something on his own, probably. And Miljin…Well. He looked mostly at me, ma’am. Not sure why. But the man stuck his eyes on me and didn’t take them off.”
“Good,” she said. “Well seen, well captured. But you still haven’t noticed what was missing. Before your vomit of words, all those people down there testified that Commander Blas was an upstanding, admirable, studious imperial officer. Brilliant and beloved and all that bullshit.” She stabbed the air with her index finger. “But then you, dear Din, stood up and told them how he’d gotten killed during a fun countryside jaunt to a Haza house to get his prick wet in paid quim! And what did they say about that?”
“Oh! Well…nothing, ma’am,” I said.
“Nothing!” she said triumphantly. “None of them seemed shocked, appalled, or even interested! They didn’t say a damn thing, even when I gave them every chance to do so! Just went on discussing the case! Isn’t that terribly strange to you?”
“Yes,” I said. I summoned my memories of the last days of Blas’s case. “And you didn’t include that information in the letter you sent here, so they didn’t already know it.”
“Hell no. I’m not stupid enough to commit accusations of whoring to parchment. So it should have been a revelation.”
“And you don’t think they were trying to focus on the breach, ma’am?”
“You hear a sordid tale like that, you at least say something. But none of them even reacted to it.”
“And what’s the significance of this, ma’am?”
“Ohh…dunno yet,” said Ana. “But nothing good. I shall have to think on it.” The breeze played with her white hair, and she turned to the window in her chamber. “Window’s open, Din. Please shut it, or I’ll never get acclimated to this place.”