It took quite a bit of time to get Kasyp out of the tomb he’d been pced in. It had proved too risky to take him through the tunnel we’d dug, so we o remove the pnks. I’d gone under, skinned my leg, and hit my broken one hard enough I think something had broken again.

  After ten minutes of lying on the ground fog on n, I made it over to the pnks.

  It had been such a simple explosive I’d beeed to start yelling at Malstein for sending me dowo disarm it but decided against it. A rope that if yanked would pull a trigger, with the old flint-lock firing meism igniting the bundle of powder.

  I’d broken it with ptuous ease, then waited along with Kasyp for the wood to be broken and then for the two of us to be dragged up. Kasyp wasn’t happy, probably because he’d seen my Bck Fme tattoo and my fad put two and two together, and I wasn’t happy because my leg was throbbing and I’d ruined another set of clothes by wading through ankle-deep blood.

  At least the papers stored with Kasyp had been on a table, well above that blood. I hadn’t looked since I was hardly in charge here.

  Eventually, we got up there and while they looked over Kasyp and fed him and made sure he was okay, I breot of tea, enough for everyone and of course three cups reserved for myself. Just enough to keep me sated.

  After a while, things were arrao start asking questions of the rescued prisoner.

  I passed Kasyp a cup of hot tea and after a moment of hesitation, he accepted it, sipping at the drink.

  We were arranged in a semi-circle around him, Malstein, Dawes, Tagashin, myself, and a few of the more senior Watch members that had been dragged along. The hydrologist was there, grumpily having some tea herself after having to clear all the blood out of Kasyp’s tomb.

  “Who are you?” Kasyp asked, eyes gng between me and Tagashin’s Voltar disguise.

  He knew for both of us. You could see it in his eyes, he just hoped he was wrong on both ts.

  Malstein cleared his throat. “I am Captain Malstein of the City Watch, Mr. Kasyp. If you could please tell us-”

  “Who are they?” Kasyp demahrusting his cup of tea at us and sending half of it to the ground.

  I’m quite sure my eyebrow twitched. Stop wasting my tea! Twice he’d dohat now!

  Malstein sighed, turning to look at the two of us. I gave Kasyp a polite smile.

  “Malvia Harrow,” I said politely, then sipped my own cup of tea. Properly, not spilling half of it on the floor.

  “Voltar, empire’s greatest detective and all that,” Tagashin said casually.

  One of these days I o measure how much gmour she was using daily. To keep people thinking that was Voltar, it must be quite a lot.

  Kasyp shivered. “The City Watch, Voltar, and a Bck Fme lieutenant. Feels like the start of a bad joke.”

  “Former member,” I said. “I do not work with Versalicci.”

  Kasyp stared at me, unvinced. “I am certain you don’t. Where am I?”

  “You are in a hideout of a human supremacy gang known as the Pure Bloods Mr. Kasyp,”

  Malstein said. “And we are all very ied in what you are doing down here.”

  Kasyp shivered. “How do you know my name?”

  “I know who you are,” I answered. “We’ve met a few times.”

  Another deeper shiver. “I don’t remember any of those times,” he said hoarsely, looking like he wao escape this versation.

  Dawes and Malstein both sent me warning gnces. Fine, I would ease up on the alchemist, I didn’t bear him any ill will.

  “Any kind of magic user picks up a noti the quarter Mr. Kasyp,” I said. “If it’s any sotion, the Bck Fme has no particur i in you.”

  Yet. Depending on how much Kasyp was involved in this entire mess, Gi-Versalicci might want his head on a pike.

  “It’s not,” Kasyp said. “I was here because I was kidnapped on my way home and dragged down here.”

  Oh? That might be the truth, that might be c for what I suspected the truth was. Which is that he’d been offered a job by the gers, taken it while giving his work to me, and ended up way over his head.

  Still, I wouldn’t spoil that.

  “The Purebloods kidnapped you?” Malstein asked. “From where and when?”

  Kasyp steadied a little, voice growing firmer. “I was on my way home from meeting a colleague about sharing some work. I’d taken on a few too many ts-”

  “ts for recisely?” Tagashin interjected.

  That threw him off for a sed. Did she know about him providing alchemicals for the Bck Fme? Oh, now his worry about me being Fme made sense, he was worried Giovanni had sent someoer him for the ck of goods over the st few weeks.

  “Alchemicals,” he said carefully. “I have a lise at my home if it o be ied.”

  A fed lise, but ohat would be overlooked if the owner hadn’t done anything egregious.

  Malstein cleared his throat. “Voltar, that is less important than the immediate matter at hand. Mr. Kasyp, were you abducted by the Pure Bloods or someone else?”

  “A pair of men, although I only saw one. Human, well-spoken, top hat, a e he used to club me. His clothes were very fine. I thought I must have wandered into the wrong district before they attacked me in an alleyway.”

  “Any wito this assault Mr. Kasyp?” Tagashin said.

  “None,” Kasyp hurriedly said while I rolled my eyes.

  It was the Infernal Quarter. The ces of no one being around to notice a crime in broad daylight were o zero. The ce of them g enough to intervene was airely different question.

  “Mr. Voltar, please,” Malstein said, gring at Tagashin. “You question him ter to your heart's tent, please stop interrupting the two of us!”

  Kasyp seemed to already be dreading that possibility, while Tagashin gave Malstein a far too wide grin.

  “Of course Captain, my apologies.”

  “They dragged me underground,” Kasyp tinued. “I don’t know how far, only that we walked for what felt like hours. At one point they put a blindfold on me, and there was this thing there. I could hear it straining against s when they dragged me past it, its breath reeked of deg meat.”

  The basilisk. They had a method of trolling it then if it was ed up. I doubted the Delver Guilds would have lost so many to a stationary one.

  “They took my best, into a room. It wasn’t rge, maybe slightly bigger than a closet. I slept there, lived there. They gave me food and water, enough to keep me going, but I was locked in eaight. I could hear the creature r the first few nights then it stopped. I could still hear it, but only occasionally. That’s when they dragged me to the b, and they showed me the ingredients. They wanted me to make Angel’s Sorrow.”

  Iing. They clearly had the poison before then, so why had they needed another alchemist?

  “Were you the first alchemist they brought in to work on it?” I said, drawing everyone’s eyes.

  “No,” Kasyp said. “I didn’t even know how the make the poison, they had me work off of his, uess maybe her, o make it. I never saw where they got the parts, but they were….fresh. Still bleeding. Very dangerous to handle.”

  I nodded. Celestial body parts, even separated from the celestial creature would be painful to touch for us.

  “They said the other alchemist had died, and I would be paid well,” Kasyp said. “It became clear very quickly I would not. You don’t just have someone make Angel’s Sorrow ahem go away, let aloh a fat sack of . I tried to escape…I did not make it far. Eventually, I fihe doses they asked for, and they took me away. I thought they were going to feed me to that thing, but instead, they gave me to the Pure-Bloods. It was implied I was some kind of reward for them? In that killing me was supposed to make up for something?”

  I raised an eyebrow at that. That was a strange way of phrasing it.

  “They stripped me, looking for something,” Kasyp muttered, looking at his tea. “I think they were looking for a Bck Fme tattoo, and they started using tools to make sure they could see every iny skin.”

  I wihat must have been painful. And did answer why Kasyp would be a reward. If he’d been given to the Pure-Bloods as a supposed Bck Fme member after Gio had killed several of their numbers, expeg them to tear Kasyp apart….well it wasn’t the best method of disposing of him but if they o assuage their catspaws, better an alchemist they no longer needed.

  “After that, they muttered I was lucky and that maybe I’d get a ce to testify their innoce soon,” Kasyp tinued. “Then they sealed me in there with some food and water a me there. I slowly faded, only waking up when they all started screaming and the blood started p in.”

  “Around how long ago?” Malstein asked. “Before you heard us breaking in?”

  Good question. Not much blood had poured in by the time we’d entered.

  “A few hours, maybe longer?” Kasyp said uainly. “It’s hard to tell, I had no way to tell the time and I’d given up on any hope of living past that.”

  Well, that was telling to aent. I gnced over at Malstein, who sidered Kasyp’s answers before turning to one of his subordinates.

  “See that Mr. Kasyp is well taken care of Rory. Mr. Kasyp, I’d like to hold you in Watch custody for a while. For your own prote.”

  From the look on Kasyp’s face, he did not want to accept. However, after a few seds of probably sidering his ce of surviving oreets without a visit from his past employers, he slowly nodded a himself be taken away.

  “The foulhorn was lying,” one of the Watch officers noted, ign my gaze as I looked at him.

  “Definitely,” Tagashin said. “What about is the main point, but he definitely didn’t speak the truth ehrough that.”

  “Miss Harrow?” Malstein asked me. “You were the one who saw him st before his ‘abdu’?”

  I sighed. Well, he’d tried, and I hadn’t said anything till asked. The most I could do for him.

  “He mentioned needio handle his ts because he had fallen into a rather good deal,” I said. “If I had to guess, it was this, although I doubt he had any idea what he’d signed up for till he made it down here. Escape attempts are probably true, once he realized what they wanted he would have tried to make a runner. I find the timing even more important. Looks like there’s a leak among your of and, Captain.”

  Malstein grimaced. “I don’t think anyone below me. Above me perhaps, which makes the idea of holding him in the Coffin troubling. Especially because if anyone knows where the ger's Lab is, it’s him.”

  "We could head right there," Tagashin said. "Assuming he says."

  "He might not remember now," I said. "Traumatic events, plus his dition. Add the fact he's terrified of both me and you and the Watch just a little less. The Delvers might have a better idea."

  "Or we could him time to remember," Malstein said. "You heard him about the creature being led away. He could still hear it, but who is to say if it is close to their b anymore? And the Coffin is too dangerous to keep him in if someone informed the gers."

  “I have an idea,” I said. “We do have another pce. Perhaps not as secure but…” I gave the surrounding Watch members a gnce. And got a series of angry or insulted expressions iurn.

  Well, I hadn’t been the one who’d leaked. “Doctor Dawes, how well could we fit Kasyp into one of your and Mr. Voltar’s houses?”

  He’d left his chair. I remembered him getting up, but hadn’t noted him not sitting down again.

  Dawes had gone over to the stack of papers from Kasyp’s tomb, going through them with an increasingly pale face as he read them.

  “Doctor?” I asked again, ing closer.

  He whirled about, turning to face me, but I caught a glimpse of what y on those pages. A seal depig an armored figure cd all in white. Scales held high in one hand, a fming sword iher. Seal aion of the god Halspus, symbol of his church.

  I looked at the paper and then quietly held out my hand. Others were crowding closer, but no oervened as Dawes ha over. I read through it briefly, instrus and orders to follow the bearer, that it was the beginning of a new crusade to rid the city of it's Infernal Menace.

  I read it thrice, then looked at the seal, then ughed.

  Saithorthepyro