The bell tower of the Cathedral of Our Lady struck the hour, the deep tones rolling out over the rooftops of the Clocktower District.
Set into the side of the tower was a great steam-driven clockface, its gears and springs ticking along beneath the bronze, and as the bell sang out, its long hand swung to rest on the five.
Vera had just finished her last class. Her school sat inside the Clocktower District, only a short walk from the cathedral itself.
Unlike Scarlett's neighborhood school — the one that ran on the honor system and let students leave the moment they'd banked enough credits — Vera's church school came with that special horror known as cram sessions, weekend classes included.
So when the day finally let her go, she made the familiar walk to the cathedral: evening prayers first, and then, as always, a visit to her Aunt Isabella.
She looked nothing like the girl who'd once sat at that stone table in the Nightmare, the night she'd first crossed paths with Thea. Today she wore her school uniform — a long-sleeved white blouse beneath a black pinafore cut in imitation of clerical robes.
If she'd once carried herself like some hot-blooded idiot fresh off the docks, she'd since rounded into something else: a girl who looked, at a glance, rather bookish and sweet.
If she was honest, ever since that night the Nightmare had dragged her through the cathedral's doors, she'd felt something different toward the place. A kind of fondness that hadn't been there before.
—That feeling didn't survive the next five minutes.
She was rounding the corner toward the side entrance when she caught sight of a familiar back disappearing through the cathedral's main doors.
Familiar. Maddeningly familiar. She couldn't place it.
Not until she found her Aunt Isabella in the nave and asked.
"That girl who just left — the one with the black hair. Who was she?"
Isabella's face cleared with recognition. "That's the Bureau's newest recruit. Thea Sorelle."
It really was that woman.
Vera's pupils contracted to pinpricks. She hadn't expected Thea to walk straight into a church, of all places.
She doesn't already know about my family, does she?
Before she could chase the thought any further, her aunt was looking at her with the particular weariness of someone who had asked this question many times before. "Don't just stand there gawping. Have you done your assignments?"
"You should learn from that girl. I hear Thea's only eighteen — about your age — and her marks are excellent. She'll have no trouble at all getting a recommendation to St. Roland's. And look at you. Always going on about your precious transcendence. If you don't get into university, don't think I won't tell the Bishop exactly what 'path of alchemy' you've been walking."
That Thea Sorelle!
"Sorry, Auntie — something's come up, I have to get home!"
Earl Mercurie's estate and the Cathedral of Our Lady both sat in Great Harbor, not far from each other at all.
By the time Thea made it back to the station, Scarlett had only just arrived herself.
The two of them were promptly summoned upstairs by Roman for tea.
"How's that business with the Powder Works debt coming along?"
"It's my first day on the job. Pushing this hard already?"
"Can't be helped. The station's short on funds." Roman poured tea for both of them and settled into his chair. "I noticed you spent the morning pulling files in the records room. Made progress?"
Thea lifted her cup, took a sip, and her brow folded instantly at the assault of sweetness. "What in the world is this?"
"Black tea."
"How much sugar did you put in, sir?"
"Seven or eight spoonfuls, give or take."
"Into the pot?"
"Hardly — into the cup. There's a touch of saccharine in there too, for good measure."
Seven or eight spoonfuls, plus saccharine — a sweetener some three hundred times stronger than sugar. Thea suspected the man could kill with this stuff.
"...You finish it yourself, sir." She slid the cup back across the table.
Sir Roman, ever the gentleman, slid it onward to Scarlett with a shrug. "Wouldn't suit me. Scarlett, be a dear and finish Thea's for her. Or pour it out, whichever."
Scarlett, deeply honored, accepted the cup and took a small sip. Her face folded in on itself like crumpled paper.
What should have been fragrant and mellow on the tongue — gone. Even the silk and aroma of the milk — gone.
Only one flavor remained, overwhelming everything else.
For a moment she lost the thread of Thea and Roman's conversation entirely, her whole skull occupied by the taste filling her mouth.
Water. She needed water. Just a little. She felt like her brain was dissolving.
She took another sip—
So sweet. So sweet. So unbearably, achingly sweet.
Sweet to the point of bitterness!
"There's progress, certainly." Thea looked at Roman. "I have his real name now."
Roman raised an eyebrow. "How? I don't recall the records room holding anything of the sort."
"In the Nightmare."
"...Ah. I see. It seems your harvest from that little excursion was richer than I gave you credit for." He drank his tea without the slightest change of expression, then glanced kindly toward Scarlett — whose small face had gone bitter with the effort of not chewing through her own tongue — and offered helpfully, "Another cup?"
"No — no, no, no, no!"
"A pity, truly." Roman turned back to Thea, choosing his words. "Given that, when do you mean to move? Will you need people?"
Thea wiped her hands and said, with perfect confidence, "Within the week."
Roman couldn't help himself. "That fast?"
"Within the week, I'll have the money back in your hands."
It was a bold claim, bold enough to make even Roman's eyebrow twitch.
Here was a debt the station had been chasing for ages, a tangle of unpaid accounts they'd been carrying for months — and this woman was promising to untangle it inside seven days?
That made the rest of his staff look more than a little useless by comparison.
"Thea, if you ask me — your talents are wasted on potions. You should open a debt-collection agency. You'd make a fortune. Half this city owes somebody money — those wretched factories, those members of parliament, city hall, even Silverkeep itself... ah. Getting off topic."
He sighed, then asked, "And the people you'll need?"
"Scarlett's company is enough. I'll start scouting the location tomorrow afternoon at five, and move the day after, or the day after that — same time, five in the evening."
"Five o'clock? Some quirk of your transcendence? Or does the ritual require it?"
Thea rose, patting the still-mournfully-searching-for-water Scarlett on the back. She turned to the station's director with a smile.
"Neither."
"It's just when school lets out."
The next day, noon.
The Great Harbor station's mess hall.
Miss Thea Sorelle arrived a shameless thirty minutes early and helped herself to a freshly served free lunch.
Scarlett carried her own tray over and sat beside her, looking pained. "Miss Thea, don't you have classes today? Why are you mooching lunch off the station?"
The pay at the Great Harbor station wasn't much to speak of. The food, on the other hand, genuinely was.
Today's spread was pan-fried meatballs, vegetable soup, and bacon rolls, with nut bread and jam on the side, and a small glass of wine to finish.
Thea speared a meatball and said, around a mouthful, "Scarlett, you're from money, aren't you?"
"Eh, I—"
"A school like the one I go to doesn't run from morning straight through to evening with cram sessions tacked on after, the way the noble academies do. We're on a credit system. Bank enough credits, pass the exams, and you've got your diploma."
"Things work that way?"
Thea nodded, then nodded toward the wine glass at Scarlett's elbow. "Not drinking?"
Scarlett said quickly, "Drinking clouds the mind!"
"It's fine. Drinking doesn't cloud mine." Thea took the glass and drained it in one go. "Which only proves my point — you really are from a good family, Scarlett."
North Harbor's neighborhood schools were built on a philosophy of self-direction — teaching as a supplement, not the main event. There was no cutthroat competition, and the rules were loose. Students earned their way through on a credit system: bank enough credits, pass the final exam, walk away with a diploma. As a rule, half a day of class for three years was plenty. No one made you stay until five.
Which meant, if you didn't feel like attending, you could leave at noon and no one would stop you.
Thea herself had banked all three years' worth of credits over a year ago. The only reason she still showed up to class at all was that this morning had a lecture on the law.
For someone walking the edge of legality as often as she did, understanding exactly where that edge sat was no small thing. She never missed those classes.
"By the way — you advanced along the King's path, didn't you?"
Thea sipped her vegetable soup, stirring it idly as she looked at Scarlett. "What branch? You're free not to answer, that's your right."
Scarlett answered without hesitation. "The Legislator. My Transcendent trait sharpens my ability to read the flaws in my surroundings whenever I put my back in the trust of someone I believe in."
A genuinely useful trait. As for the branch itself—
The King's path split into three major branches: the Legislator, the Overseer, and the Inquisitor. Of those, the Legislator and the Inquisitor ran closest in nature.
A Legislator's Transcendent power worked something like kotodama — the spoken word made law, decree following the instant it left the lips. But a Legislator's authority over "law" was rooted in their own understanding of it: their personal moral compass, their grasp of justice. The Bureau's archives held files on Sequence 9 Legislators, and at that stage their power was modest — little more than "enhanced memory." Only at Sequence 8 could they begin to "invoke statutes" outright.
An Inquisitor, by contrast, drew strength from the law to reinforce themselves — they had no particular need to understand much of it. To them, "the law" was something objective, something that already existed: the codes as written, full stop. Inquisitors had no choice but to believe in the laws on the books; the moment doubt crept in, their power weakened with it.
Knowing Scarlett's temperament, Thea had assumed she'd gone the Inquisitor's way. The girl really was the rigid, by-the-book type...
Scarlett explained, "Director Roman recommended it."
"Roman, was it. Well, never mind — if he arranged it that way, he must have had his reasons. Finished eating? Bring me to the meeting room after. Oh, and grab a copy of the latest Nuremport Weekly on your way."
The temporary meeting room held only a scattering of chairs along the walls.
Thea leaned against the wall and unfolded the Nuremport Weekly. The lead story covered the Royal Council's annual session, soon to convene at Silverkeep — page after page of the ruling party and the opposition sniping at each other, with the Crown smoothing things over and offering its own suggestions for next year's policy.
If the session actually went forward, it would be quite a show. Every year the Royal Council descended into something close to open brawling, with the Nuremport press lined up to deliver their sharpest commentary afterward. Plenty of entertainment to be had.
Thea set the paper down, rubbed a pinch of sea salt from her pocket between her fingers, and called on her Transcendent ability — weakening her own flesh by fifteen percent.
Since her Advancement Ritual, her body had grown considerably stronger. Roughly speaking, she'd gone from finishing an eight-hundred-meter run gasping for breath to finishing it with only a light sheen of sweat; from jumping just high enough to brush the ceiling to jumping high enough to nearly crack her skull on it.
The sudden surge of physical strength still felt strange to her. Weakening it back down by fifteen percent actually helped — noticeably.
And as the body weakened, the soul surged in answer — amplified by thirty percent. Thea felt a clean, electric clarity settle over her, as though she'd downed two energy drinks back to back, her mind as still and untroubled as the hush after release.
That left two Transcendent traits she still hadn't tried: Crimson Cup, and Light in the Blood.
Light in the Blood would have to wait until the Church delivered the holy wood. Crimson Cup would have to wait a little longer than that — her monthly courses were due any day now; she'd counted on her fingers that morning and put it at no more than two days off. She'd give it a try then. No sense cutting herself open for the experience when the enemy wasn't already at the door.
Before long, Scarlett hurried in, a stack of files tucked under one arm.
Thea set the newspaper aside. "You've been through everything on Orlando Duke?"
"I have, but..."
"Go on."
Scarlett gathered her courage. "You mean to use his family against him? But he's already faked his own death — he's cut himself off from his old life completely. Will that really work on him?"
"No, Scarlett. He never cut himself off from anything. If anything, he cares for his family a great deal." Thea lifted her cup and took a sip. "If he genuinely didn't care about them — what do you suppose he'd have done?"
"I..."
The most extreme outcome Scarlett could picture was severing all ties.
Thea spread her hands. "You might not see it in yourself, Scarlett, but you really were raised well. Good upbringing, a good education, a calm and warm life behind you — it's given you a clear sense of right and wrong."
The young constable went red at the praise.
"But that's also exactly what keeps you from being a fully effective officer. If he truly didn't care for his family — he'd have killed every last one of them, the moment he vanished."
"What?!"
"Anyone who passes through, leaves a trace behind. That's his weakness. A man walking the Seer's path could never not know that."
Scarlett sat there, thoroughly stunned. She'd been with the station less than half a year, and most of what crossed her desk was domestic squabbles and petty nuisance complaints. The biggest case she'd ever touched was this very one, riding alongside Thea.
Anyone who passes through, leaves a trace behind...
Coming from Miss Sorelle, even an offhand remark sounded like it belonged carved over a doorway somewhere.
Scarlett tucked the line away to remember later, set the stack of files on the table, and said with crisp respect, "Then what's our next move, Commander?"
A file slid loose from the stack — Orlando Duke's mother, "Mara." Her photograph showed the address where she lived: a woman past sixty, her smile gentle and warm, currently running a flower shop on Alderham Street in Great Harbor.
Thea set her cup down, the base of it coming to rest squarely atop the file.
"Next — Alderham Street."