“I don’t know anything more!” said Vartas.
“You sure, boy?” said Miljin.
“I promise, I don’t!” Then a faint pout of horror crept into his face. “Why are you two asking about this? Does this have anything to do with the breach?”
There was a long silence. Miljin picked up one of Vartas’s unlit shootstraw pipes and sniffed at it. “You keep yourself in this bed, Signum,” he said. “You keep your fucking money. And you keep your mouth shut. Otherwise, I am going to come back here—and this?” He pointed to the gash in the bed, between Vartas’s legs. “I shall do the same again, but six smallspan higher. And then six again, and six again. Am I clear?”
Beads of sweat came boiling out of Vartas’s brow. “As mountain water, sir.”
“Good.” He pocketed the shootstraw pipe and swatted my shoulder. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
* * *
—
MILJIN AND I stood in the medikkers’ halls, thinking in silence as the attendants swarmed around us.
“So,” he said.
“So, sir,” I said.
“We got mysterious meetings of Engineers, meeting about…something. Don’t know what yet. But all with Commander Blas involved.”
“Correct, sir.”
“And now we’ve got an Apoth who might be a part of it,” he said. “Except—her name ain’t on the list of the dead.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Got to get ahold of her quick,” he said. “And press her to tell us what in hell happened in these damn meetings. I’ll tell the Legion lads to start a lookout for her. But maybe she’s dead, too. Tree-speared out in the middle of some fucking field somewhere, and we haven’t found her yet.” He sighed and rubbed the back of his head. “Meanwhile, we’ve got black-clad assassins in Daretana.”
“We do, sir.”
“This along with, you know, people sprouting trees from inside theirselves, and all that’s brought about.”
“Yes, sir.”
He snorted and spat on the floor. “Fucking hell. What a mess.” Then he chewed his lip, thinking. “You know, if I had some magic coin that could let me into some secret meetings, well…”
“…you wouldn’t take it with you to the sea walls, sir?” I suggested.
“Hell no. Sure wouldn’t. I’d keep it somewhere safe.”
“I agree, sir.”
We stood there in contemplative silence. Then two attendants wheeled by a wooden cart, one wheel squeaking wildly. The cart carried a large glass tank, like an aquarium—but as it passed before us, we saw it did not contain any conventional fish. Rather, a massive, rippling, purplish starfish was gripping the bottom of the tank—and growing from its back was a human hand.
The hand’s fingers flexed and twitched very slowly as it passed before us, as if exulting in the flow of the water. It had a feminine look to it. Something delicate in the nails and knuckles.
We watched in silence as the tank went by, the one wheel squeaking in protest.
“Looks like Topirak’s getting a replacement,” said Miljin.
I cleared my throat. “Looks that way, sir,” I said hoarsely.
Miljin waited to speak again until its squeak had long faded. Then he grunted.
“Let’s go check Loveh’s quarters for that fucking coin,” he said, “before someone wheels one of them starfish by with a prick growing from its back, and I faint and crack my head open and wind up in one of these goddamn baths.”
* * *
—
WE FOUND LOVEH’S quarters on the west side of the building. A small chamber with a single bed, trunk, closet, bookshelf—but if you had the eye for it, the suggestions of wealth could be found all around us. Bedsheets fine and silky. Jar of soapdust on the windowsill, frothy and fragrant. Closet full to bursting with clothing far beyond what most Iyalets doled out.
I walked across the floorboard, taking in the room. “Such a small coin,” I said, “really could be anywhere—”
Then Miljin’s green-bladed sword was in his hand, and he went to work.
His sword bit through the bed, the clothes, the walls of the room, chewing through the fretvine, through the planked wood, carving up everything in sight.
“Sir?” I said, alarmed. “What are you doing?”
“Looking,” he grunted. His sword slashed open the lock of a trunk, and he dumped clothing from it. “What else?”