Matabar

Book II. Chapter 24 - Old riddle

They were sitting in the “Eltir” again, in that same familiar spot close to the Markov Canal. Alexander and Din had been called away for work. They were operatives, not investigators, and so they were sometimes dispatched as reinforcements, or for operations to capture or detain particularly difficult targets. It was a thing worth remembering: in a city of twenty million souls, its troubles did not begin and end with the Puppeteers.

“Perhaps,” Milar began, his voice muffled as he chewed on an eclair, “we should address the elephant in the room we’ve been so diligently ignoring.” He was sipping on some strong tea as well, and a smear of cream had already found its way across half his chin. “What the Shanti’Ra shaman said, then the elf in Shamtur, and now Mariandat.”

Ardi, who was crunching on a pinecone soaked in lingonberry juice, looked at his colleague with a profound and heavy sort of weariness.

“Go on,” was all Ardi said.

“You do understand what they’re trying to do, don’t you?” Milar’s eyes narrowed.

“More or less,” Ardan replied with a shrug.

The captain muttered something that was either a curse or a crude joke; with his delivery, the two sounded nearly identical. He wiped his face with a napkin and pushed his half-eaten eclair aside.

“For almost two centuries, the Conclave has been feeding its followers the same nonsense.”

“Just like the Tavsers,” Ardi noted, and it was a reasonable point. “Their pamphlets are basically different sides of the same ideology.”

“You wouldn’t believe it, Magister,” Milar sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “But I said almost those exact words to Arkar not so long ago… Fine. That’s not the point. You know the Conclave is trying to use that old rumor about the Dark Lord’s return for its own ends.”

“It’s not a rumor, it’s a prophecy,” Ardi corrected him.

“One that was spoken who knows where, when, or by whom,” the captain said, spreading his hands out. “And it’s as abstract as it is incomplete. You could fit anything and anyone into it. Which is exactly what the Conclave is doing. Look, in just two centuries, they’ve managed to create a whole pseudo-religious branch among the followers of the Dream of the Sleeping Spirits, and all of them are trying to see signs of the Lord’s return.”

Ardi had heard of this. Some of the orcs at “Bruce’s” would sometimes discuss signs of the Lord’s return and other such occult-adjacent topics. But in truth, these delusions had no more to do with reality than the nobility’s fascination with horoscopes and spiritualist séances (Great Princess Anastasia had told him stories about them).

If Star Magic and the art of the Aean’Hane agreed on anything, it was this: the dead are dead. It was an immutable fact.

“The Second Chancery could simply reveal the Dark Lord’s true identity and all the speculation would die at once.”

“The old speculations would indeed die, Magister. But new ones would then appear. Not to mention that if the public learned the Dark Lord’s true identity, it would lead to a lot of issues. There’d be unrest among the Conclave’s followers, among the Tavsers’ adherents… and among the general population, too.”

Ardi raised his gaze to Milar, then immediately turned to the window, beyond which the black waters of the Niewa churned as the occasional car drove by along the cobblestones.

“I already know that they’re trying to portray me as some kind of omen of the Lord’s return.”

“If not the Dark Lord himself,” Milar nodded. “Though that’s doubtful, of course.”

“That’s-”

“It’s a fact,” Milar cut in, his tone like iron. “And the longer this goes on, the easier it will be for them to do it.”

Ardi shrugged again.

“They think that because I’m Aror’s great-grandson and a Speaker, it means something.”

“For many, it does.”

“Well, let them think that,” Ardi shrugged for a third time, and the motion sent a fresh ache through his wounded collarbone. “Maybe this foolishness will help me fix things with the Conclave and get my ban on visiting the Firstborn Quarter lifted.”

Milar pointed his half-eaten eclair at him so sharply that he nearly splattered cream all over the tablecloth.

“The Conclave isn’t a state organization, and the Firstborn District is part of the city. Not a separate entity. Part. Of. The. City. They can shove their bans in that place Eord was so passionately talking about. And if they don’t agree, then…”

Milar trailed off meaningfully, and Ardi was too tired to argue.

“Alright, Magister, let’s come at this from another angle. If the Conclave wants to include you in their machinations with the prophecy and all that nonsense, then guess who will automatically wish to counterbalance their aspirations?”

Ardi turned slowly, very slowly, to face Milar. A thought had just come to him, one he hadn’t considered before.

“The Tavsers,” Ardan said, the name tasting like ash on his tongue.

“Exactly,” Milar nodded. “At any other time, I’d even suggest that you support the Conclave’s attempts to use you as much as possible, Magister. That way, we could draw out the truly radical bastards from among the Firstborn and the followers of Tans Tavser. We’d swat them all at once.”

“You’d use me as bait?”

“And I wouldn’t even blink, partner,” Milar bit off another piece of the eclair, once again spraying custard everywhere. “It’s the job. Nothing personal.”

“I understand.”

And he did. Not so long ago, he himself had used Arkar as bait, and had then turned a blind eye to him killing Girgarar, even if it was, partially, self-defense.

It was similar to how Milar had done nothing about Mariandat sending Saint Eord to find out just how holy he really was from the Eternal Angels themselves.

“But right now, when we’re locking horns with the Puppeteers—though honestly, it feels more like we’re an annoying mosquito just buzzing unpleasantly in their ear…” Milar grimaced and took another sip of tea. “In any case, the extra trouble with the Conclave is the last thing we need. So, please, try to somehow lower the degree of your involvement in their affairs, alright?”

“You think the Tavsers could cause problems?”

Now it was Milar’s turn to give him a noncommittal shrug.

“Maybe they can, maybe they can’t. But I don’t want to find out. There’d surely be more paperwork to fill out… Alright, we’ve discussed that elephant.”

“Is there another one?”

The captain pointed to the note with the address lying next to them.

“We’ll have to clean up the loose ends we left hanging out to dry after the Spiders case.”

Ardan was almost pleading with him when he said: “Can we manage without the slang, Milar?”

The captain snorted and rephrased:

“We need to deal with Anvar Riglanov’s apartment and the kidnapping of Peter Oglanov, which is clearly connected to the initial incident at Baliero. The place where you, Magister, so conveniently stole a statuette.”

“I had no idea I’d have to steal anything there!” Ardan protested. “I just needed to break the shield.”

“Right. Break the shield. One that passed state certification and was accredited by the Mages’ Guild… Did you know that after you did it, your Professor an Manish was fined almost four hundred exes?”

Ardi choked on a pine nut and, after catching his breath, washed it down with cold water from the carafe.

“He didn’t say anything…”

“Does he know it was you?” Milar asked, a hint of shock in his voice.

“He suspects…” Ardi answered evasively, then added with a note of uncertainty, “Most likely.”

“He suspects it was you… Eternal Angels, Magister, I’m supposed to get my service pension in six years. I was planning to retire and become an instructor at the Second Chancery’s academy.”

“There’s an academy?”

“What, you think all investigators and operatives are trained in the field like you? Our mortality rate would exceed the number of recruits.”

And it was true. Ardi still remembered the Colonel offering to have him expelled from the Grand University so he could have lessons with the instructors of the Black House. However, his lessons would’ve been focused on a very specialized and narrow field, one related not so much to military magic as to solving a specific set of problems.

“You’re still too young for a pension.”

“In the Black House, they let you go early if you want,” Milar waved it off and immediately asked, “Anyway, how old do you think I am?”

“Thirty-three?”

“Close,” the captain nodded. “Thirty-four. I’m not really at an age to be running all over the city and, Face of Light forbid, all over the country after those damned Puppeteers.”

Ardi narrowed his eyes. “What are you getting at now?”

“Aha!” The captain exclaimed, pleased. “Starting to catch on, are you, Magister? What I’m getting at is that your wanderlust is no secret to me, so you’ll be the one traveling for assignments, and I’ll keep an eye on the capital.”

“Milar!” Ardi protested, indignant.

“What, Mr. Junior Investigator of the Third and, I emphasize, lowest Rank?”

“That’s… that’s… that’s…” In his indignation, Ardan puffed up like a turkey, forgetting the words not only in Galessian, but in every other language he knew to varying degrees of mastery. “That’s hazing!”

“That’s my almost-pensionable age,” Milar grimaced, clearly not overjoyed at the prospect of retirement. Even if it was six years away. “Alexander, for instance, is planning to retire in two years. He’s thirty-eight. He’ll get the rank of sergeant for his years of service and then lieutenant as an extraordinary promotion before being discharged to the reserves.”

“And I’ll have a young wife soon,” Ardan stood his ground.

“Oh, don’t you start parodying Din,” Milar waved his hand, once again forgetting that he was holding the eclair. The colorful, battle-scarred waiter was already giving the captain a less-than-friendly look. “From my experience, it’s useful for young families to be apart sometimes. That way, you’ll appreciate the time you spend together more and get less tired of each other.”

“And-”

“And you need to gain experience, Ard. Experience and, most importantly, confidence in your own abilities.” Milar suddenly grew serious, shedding his playful mask. “I’ve already realized you’re no dead weight. You’re in this for the long haul. You have a bright mind and a brave heart, and it’s located in the right place, too. Someday, you’ll make an excellent investigator. And probably an equally-excellent mage. But by then, I’ll be farting louder and more often than I breathe.”

Ardi remembered how, just two and a half months ago, Milar had been musing about feeling old age approaching.

“Did seeing Eord really have that effect on you?” The young man asked directly.

“Him too,” Milar readily agreed. “If I’m right—and believe me, when it comes to this, I’d rather be wrong… Anyway. If I’m right and we really have to extend the investigation beyond the capital, then… Believe me, no one has invented a faster way of, let’s say, teaching a fledgling how to fly than letting him get his own bumps and bruises where no one can catch him.”

“Milar-”

“The Colonel agrees with me,” the captain interrupted him again. “He fully supports my idea. If an assignment comes up, you go alone.”

“What about the Grand?”

Instead of answering him, the captain picked up a spoon and tapped the same straw he had used to illustrate his theory that the Puppeteers’ sights were set on the Emperor.

“If we lose, Ard… If their plan, whatever it may be, succeeds, then there will be no Grand University. And no cozy house number 23 on the Markov Canal, either. And believe me, you won’t be missing Tess; you’ll be thinking about how the two of you can survive. You and your family in Delpas. Because, believe me, the worst thing that could happen to the Empire is the fall of the central government. After that, a bloody mess would erupt between the different factions, one that would make the turmoil after the Dark Lord’s civil war seem like the brightest and most carefree of times to everyone.”

“You’ve already said that you doubt they want to attack His Imperial Majesty. Besides, the Emperor’s death couldn’t possibly have such consequences. So many have come and gone before him, and the transfer of power has always gone smoothly,” Ardi began, then fell silent. He’d suddenly understood something else. “You suspect… You suspect that the Puppeteers aren’t just targeting the Emperor.”

“More like…” Milar sighed, set the spoon aside, and leaned back in his chair. “Eternal Angels, Ard. The extermination of the Matabar. Demonology. All these illegal experiments. And the fact that their threads have penetrated not only the Parliament, but the Black House itself… no, Magister. This is too old and too complex a conspiracy to be aimed simply at overthrowing the Agrovs and replacing them with, I don’t know, any other aristocratic family. Whoever is behind all of this, their goal is bigger. Much bigger.”

Ardan did not take his eyes off Milar.

“I miss the days when I was chasing all sorts of thugs, Angel Dust dealers, or makers of illegal and defective Ley-artifacts. It was a great time, by the way. A little shooting here, a couple of riddles solved there, an occasional swing of the saber, and that was it. I only ever saw mages in action once… Everything was somehow clearer and didn’t make me think that I’d ended up in some stupid, drunken tale about brave warriors of the Kings’s retinue. For fuck’s sake, we live in a civilized, sixth-century-since-the-Fall-of-Ectassus world.”

“Milar.”

“What?”

“That’s why you’re warning me away from the Conclave, isn’t it?” Ardan finally understood. “Because the Puppeteers, in theory, could use the rumors about the Dark Lord for their own purposes?”

The captain, as always, snapped his fingers and pointed at Ardi.

“Told you, partner. One day, you’ll become a terrifyingly excellent investigator.”

They fell silent. Both of them were lost in their own thoughts. Ardan, turning back to the window, watched the Markov Canal. The dark waters of the Niewa were still lashing against the indifferent granite. They were so dark and grim that you couldn’t see the bottom, and if you dipped your arm in up to the elbow, you wouldn’t even be able to make out your own hand. Ardi knew this for a fact—in the winter, before moving in with Tess, he had washed his clothes in a hole in the ice.

And for some reason, right now, he felt like the dark waters of the Niewa were the key to explaining his service in the Second Chancery. He just couldn’t find the right words to describe it.

As Skusty would say—he was once again hearing the world around him poorly, and so he could not see the other side of the tree.

“Alright,” Milar wiped his face one more time and snatched his hat from the table. “We’ll try to get as much done as possible today. First, we head to Anvar’s apartment, then we’ll see what we can find out at the address we got from Eord’s place.”

Ardan nodded somewhat sluggishly and rose to follow his partner, groaning and leaning on his staff as he did so.

This day felt truly endless.

The “Derks,” with another low growl, rolled onto the road. He and Milar didn’t talk much. It wasn’t that a tense silence had fallen between the partners. It was quite the opposite, in fact. The captain was smoking thoughtfully, steering the car calmly with his left hand, and only occasionally placing the cigarette between his teeth to shift gears with his right before turning his gaze back to the road, which was gradually coming to life as the workday neared its end.

Ardi, for his part, had opened his grimoire and, biting the tip of his tongue (a childhood habit he had never been able to shake), was once again going over the various approaches to his idea about transmutational links. Perhaps he could use them in Aversky’s project as well, may the Eternal Angels be merciful to him?

Having a method for long-distance communication would be useful not only to the military, but to ordinary people, too. Even Ardi himself would benefit from it. For instance, he could hear his mother’s and brother’s voices anytime he wished, or find out how they were doing without waiting weeks for the mail trains to make the trip from the capital to Delpas and back. And if Milar’s suspicions really came true, then on assignments…

Ardi sighed.

On the one hand, the thought of seeing the other provinces of the vast Empire sparked a pleasant, anticipatory thrill in him, but on the other, the idea of having to leave Tess was paralyzing. Perhaps it was all because the memories of Little Viroeira were still too fresh, and if enough time passed, he might see things from a different perspective, but for now, his heart still skipped beat after beat at the thought, and his imagination painted pictures that were anything but rosy.

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Outside the window, the colorful buildings of the Central District had once again given way to high-rises and skyscrapers that poked at the sparse summer clouds; the Crookedwater Canal had long since disappeared behind them, and the roadway had widened to the point where you couldn’t see the sidewalk past the neighboring cars hurrying about their business.

Less than forty minutes later, they reached the Castle Tower. Milar stopped the car, pulled the handbrake, and let out a low whistle.

“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” The captain drawled, surveying the skyscraper whose top floors looked identical to the archaic castles of centuries past.

It had several towers with narrow windows stylized to look like arrowslits, artificially aged gray brick, and was adorned with the grim, unwelcoming visages of gargoyles twisted into grimaces of fury and malice.

“It’s gotten a bit livelier here, hasn’t it?” Milar remarked, not waiting for an answer to his rhetorical question.

Just a few months ago, the skyscraper of the now-deceased Le’mrity had looked almost abandoned. The tenants had been busy finding new homes, and the owners had also been leaving… And it was all because a Weeper, or a White Woman, had somehow managed to occupy the castle. Exactly how the demon had been placed not in a Ley-artifact, but in a perfectly ordinary suit of armor, and also protected from the artificial Ley field of the generators and Ley-cables, remained a mystery.

No more than thirteen weeks had passed since then, and now several employees stood near the main entrance, constantly opening the doors for an endless stream of visitors. Expensive and not-so-expensive cars rumbled at the exit of the parking lot hidden behind the building, forcing an elderly attendant to endlessly raise and lower the bar gate.

Milar and his partner got out of the car. Ardi was forced to clench his teeth again and briefly closed his eyes.

“Have I already told you not to catch bullets with your body next time?” Milar asked, gently poking fun at Ardi.

Ardan just waved his hand and immediately regretted it, groaning loudly. The captain only laughed and, lighting another cigarette, headed for the glass doors of the main entrance.

“They need to turn off the generators,” Ardi rasped at the captain’s back.

“Alright,” Milar agreed at once, and only then asked, “Why?”

“Otherwise, I won’t be able to see anything in Riglanov’s apartment.”

The captain looked at him over his shoulder and, with a grunt, nodded.

The first-floor lobby, just like last time, looked expensive and pompous. There was lots of brass, many gilded surfaces, lots of polished marble, multiple plush carpets, and employees in ironed and steamed uniforms standing at attention.

Moreover, all the elevators were working now, a light, fresh breeze driven by the repaired ventilation system was wafting through the lobby, and the numerous sofas were not empty, but were cradling visitors and residents on their leather cushions. Ardi’s eyes met those of a young woman in an expensive dress, a light hat, and a necklace sparkling with precious gems. Placing her feet one in front of the other so that the heel and toe formed a single line, with a cigarette holder in hand, she was heading towards a fashionable car parked at the entrance.

And, following after her, literally ten meters behind her, was a middle-aged man, one who was slightly older than Alexander. However, he was much wider at the waist, though not yet so obese as to be compared with the deputy dean of the Military Faculty, Rafael Alirov.

Ardi’s sensitive nose caught the scent of a strong, woody men’s cologne on the young woman, the same as the one that the portly man was wearing… And at that moment, the rotund man was kissing the hand of his wife, who had been waiting for him on one of the sofas.

It seemed like Milar’s stories about the life of the Metropolis’ social elite hadn’t been far from the truth…

Then again, who was Ardi to judge anyone?

“How glad I am to see you, gentlemen!” The former sailor who worked behind the concierge desk greeted them. He had lost a little weight since their last meeting, but he still had the same deep bald spot, the soft gaze of his warm, grayish eyes, and a hand with an anchor tattoo between the thumb and forefinger that was no longer shaking at all.

Milar and Ardi exchanged firm handshakes with the concierge.

“Everything’s gotten a bit better since your visit,” the ex-sailor began without waiting for a question. “We even have a waiting list for new apartments, it seems. But no one’s in a hurry to move out.”

“Were the prices lowered?” Milar inquired.

“Hardly,” the sailor huffed slightly. “It’s just that they’re about to start building an overpass farther down the avenue. They say the city’s getting a road over… a road. They’re going to raise the roadway to the level of the fourth floor by using iron stilts.”

“Yeah, I heard something about that,” Milar nodded.

“And besides, they’ve already opened the underground tram lines a few blocks from here,” the concierge continued. “So no one even thought about lowering the prices. They just didn’t have time to raise them yet! As soon as the rumors started that the Castle Tower was peaceful again, people flocked here like moths to a flame. Snatched everything up in a couple of days. Everything that was being sold for a song was bought at a huge discount. There were even a few lawsuits between former owners and their buyers claiming that they took advantage of the situation and made an unconscionable deal.”

The sailor, just like last time, had a good-natured disposition and loose lips.

“So please don’t tell me, gentlemen, that you’ve come…” The sailor paled, glanced around nervously, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “For the same reason as last time. Because, by the Eternal Angels, the lads and I have only just started getting decent tips.”

“No, my dear friend, we wanted to visit the apartment of the deceased Anvar Riglanov.”

“But you took the key for it last time.”

Milar just spread his hands out.

“Alright,” the sailor sighed and, bending down, opened the doors of a small cabinet. Inside were several inlets for pneumatic mail. The employee placed a container with a note into one of them. “I just called our building manager. He’ll remove the chain from the premises for you. It still hasn’t been restored properly, so it hasn’t been sold or occupied yet.”

“Any interested parties?” The captain asked.

“There’s a whole queue! The management company is even planning to hold an auction instead of selling it at a fixed price.”

“Maybe I should participate,” Milar commented, not without a touch of amused sadness in his voice.

“I doubt any of us could, sir,” the concierge clearly missed the sarcasm in the captain’s tone. “The auction will start at nineteen thousand exes. And that’s considered inexpensive now, because the apartment was completely burned out.”

“Well… the world of the rich is definitely not for us.”

“I believe you said that last time, too,” the sailor winked.

Their conversation was cut short. The sound of work boots echoed from behind them, beating an uneven rhythm on the long carpet, which was unable to muffle the clatter of the wooden heels.

The building manager turned out to be a broad-shouldered young man with a massive jaw. He seemed to be about twenty-four years old and he had a bored look about him, a protruding lower lip, and a dozen different tools had been hung from the loops of his utility belt.

“Nikon, could you please show these fine gentlemen to the apartment that burned down?”

“What for?”

“Just look at their clothing.”

Nikon’s gaze swept over Milar’s black jacket and pants and then he also noticed the glint of the belt buckle shaped like the Empire’s coat of arms. He stood there silently for a few moments, and then, his face paling considerably, he turned on stiff legs and headed for the elevators.

Ardi nearly cried out upon realizing that he would have to use the accursed things for the second time in one day, but he wouldn’t have been able to manage the stairs right now.

“Have a good day,” Milar touched the brim of his hat and said goodbye to the concierge.

The man returned the sentiment and immediately went back to his duties—sorting mail and writing something in a massive ledger.

They hadn’t gone far from the desk when Milar whispered in the building manager’s ear:

“Sir, after we go up to the apartment, would you be so kind as to turn off the generators for the next half an hour.”

The man just gave him a sluggish nod and, still walking stiffly, kept heading for the elevators. Ardi tried to distract himself from his forced journey in the steel box with some now-familiar thoughts about housing.

He would obviously have no chance of saving up to buy an apartment. Especially since the prices in the New City and Old Town were starkly different. Here, sixty square meters could cost anywhere from nine thousand exes to, frankly, infinity. And in Old Town, especially once you got closer to Niewa Avenue or Baliero, not only did the size of the apartments shrink by half, but the price also increased by a quarter or more.

Over the past year, Ardi, thanks to all his bonuses and his side work for Arkar, had managed to add some decent money to his account, but part of it had gone to pay off his debt to the Anorskys, part of it was lost in the attack on the Imperial Bank, and there were also the expenditures of living with Tess, new clothes, and, in a class of its own, the most voracious expense—Star Magic. Yes, he now had private testing grounds at his disposal, but… their maintenance wasn’t free, either. Admittedly, it was still several times cheaper than renting one at the Spell Market.

So, there was no chance of him buying a home in the coming years. As one of the Firstborn, he wouldn’t be able to get a loan from a bank. And the financial institutions of the Firstborn themselves, upon seeing his surname, would find an excuse to refuse his request. And their interest rates were too predatory anyways. That was why most Firstborn huddled together in their own district—only a few could save up enough funds to move.

Just like the human inhabitants of the Tend and Tendari and the factory districts, come to think of it.

So all that was left was renting, which also involved spending more than a “couple of kso.” Yes, Ardi knew that if he just asked, Tess wouldn’t even blink before moving into any sort of place with him. She wouldn’t mind even the most run-down, bedbug-and-roach-infested little room on the outskirts of the Tend, right next to the warehouses.

But that was precisely why Ard would never ask or suggest such a thing. He wanted to make the life of the person he loved easier and better, not more burdensome and dangerous. That was what his forest friends had taught him: to take care of his pack.

Rent on the Markov Canal started at twenty-two exes for a one-room apartment without running water.

He could maybe look at some options in the New City along the underground tram lines (he still needed to get to Star Square to attend classes, and Tess needed an easy route to Baliero), but, according to rumors, rental prices in the areas where the underground stations had opened had skyrocketed.

“Ahgrat,” Ardan whispered, scratching the back of his head with his staff.

Milar, over the course of them working together—and, perhaps, their budding friendship—had already learned that this was how a curse sounded in the Fae language, though he didn’t know the translation.

“Are things truly that bad?” He asked, a hint of concern in his voice.

“In a way,” Ardi shrugged. The thoughts of Tess and their upcoming wedding were indeed distracting him from the walls of the cabin, which seemed to be trying to crush its unfortunate travelers. “Tess’ father demanded that I find another place so we could move out of ‘Bruce’s’ before winter.”

Milar nodded.

“Fair enough,” he said sympathetically. “As a father myself, I can understand him. I wouldn’t want any of my children living over the heads of the Jackets either.”

“I understand him too,” Ardan didn’t try to pretend otherwise. “And I fully support the idea, especially after Little Viroeira. But where do I get the money?”

“Ooooooh,” Milar drew out the sound with a sad smile. “Welcome to the world of fathers and husbands, my young partner. Where do you get money? How do you provide everyone with food, clothing, a reliable roof over their heads, and also keep the monsters outside the threshold, not letting them into the house? The standard set of concerns. A classic.”

The building manager, who was clearly eavesdropping on their conversation, nodded involuntarily, then quickly composed himself and tried to pretend like he had nodded for a completely different reason.

Milar reached out to pat Ardi on the shoulder, but then immediately dropped his hand. The young man was extremely grateful to him for that. As was his shoulder, which was already aching from every awkward movement.

“You’ll figure it out, Ard. Just… take it step by step. Don’t try to do everything at once. You’ll break.”

The doors opened, and they stepped out into the corridor. It was bright, well-kept, with a carpet on the floor, walls painted a dark blue and adorned with paintings, photographs, and several lacquered tables that held vases of flowers on their shiny surfaces.

The numbered doors were about five meters apart, hinting at equally-spacious rooms hiding behind the thin, carved barriers.

“It even smells of exes in here,” Milar drawled, taking off his hat.

Despite his “scant education,” as the captain liked to call it, he knew and followed the norms of decent behavior perfectly well. This probably said something about him as a person.

However, in order for him to form an opinion of the captain not from a professional standpoint, but a personal one, it had been enough for Ardi to visit his home just once. And though it didn’t smell of exes and luxury there, like it did here, your head would surely spin from the amount of love, care and familial support that had soaked into every corner of the Pnevs’ apartment.

Ardi sincerely hoped that his future home with Tess would evoke the same feeling…

“We’re here.”

The building manager stopped near… a completely unremarkable door. Like its fellows, it had been carved from several cuts of larch, covered in several layers of stain and varnish, decorated with ornamental plates, and in the center, above the peephole, there were brass numbers.

And if not for the two heavy chains nailed to the hinges, crisscrossing across the door, no one could have guessed that there was anything wrong with it or the apartment beyond.

The building manager took out a set of keys and unlocked the heavy padlock. The links of the chain, having lost their support, fell with a heavy clang.

“Gentlemen i-investigators, I’ll go turn off the generators, alright?” The man asked for permission, clearly still afraid. At least he didn’t seem outright terrified, just unnerved.

“If you would be so kind,” Milar nodded to him.

The building manager was instantly gone, as if blown away by the wind. One moment he was there, the next he was gone. You could be forgiven for thinking that he had suddenly mastered the art of walking the Fae paths and had somehow escaped through the hidden expanses of their kingdom.

Only the closing elevator doors, hiding the outline of the building manager’s figure behind a wrought-iron grille, said otherwise.

“It doesn’t look like anyone set it on fire,” Milar frowned.

Ardan remained silent. He was almost certain that the Aean’Hane elf who’d wielded the True Name of the Flame of the Depths had been here. But for now, as Milar had said, without irrefutable facts, it was all just guesswork and theories. Over the course of the past six months, he and the captain had constructed enough of them for Ardi to become convinced that most theories remained just that—illusions far from reality, ones built on the shaky foundations of false beliefs.

So it was too early to say anything yet.

Imitating his partner, only using his staff instead of a revolver, Ardi carefully pushed the handle down and opened the door.

It opened reluctantly, with a creak, as if the hinges, which looked to be in perfect condition, were only deceiving these visitors, while in reality, they had lost all ability to rotate.

Which was not surprising.

As soon as the door swung open, Milar and Ardi could see with their own eyes that there had indeed been a fire in the apartment. And such a grand fire that, in theory, the entire floor and several apartments above and below the source should have burned down as well.

The walls were not just covered in soot and grime, but had been literally blackened. Not a trace of wallpaper or the wood paneling remained. Along the load-bearing parts of the structure, the concrete had even changed color and had crumbled in places, exposing melted strands of rebar and flame-bitten columns.

“I’ve never seen anything like this after a fire,” Milar frowned, poking at the melted steel droplets and porous chunks of concrete lying on the floor with a pencil.

“That’s because this can’t happen in a normal fire,” Ardan shook his head, trying to spot anything of interest in the apartment. But the two rooms and the kitchen didn’t even have a trace of furniture, any utensils, or anything else for that matter. Only the charred ceiling, walls and floor. “Even if the Ley-wiring had burned out (thanks to Professor Convel’s lectures, he had a superficial knowledge of Ley-cable installations in residential buildings), given the class of fuses that are required by law in skyscrapers, the temperature would have spiked, once, to three hundred degrees at a height of two meters.”

Milar walked over to the… perfectly intact, untouched windows. It was if the flame, possessing some sort of reason, had chosen not to touch the pliable material of the frames and the glass itself. Just like the front door.

“And here?”

“Concrete crumbles at eleven hundred degrees,” Ardi recalled, not without a bit of effort, the fatigue properties for various materials that had been handed out in Convel’s Ley-mechanics classes. “And the steel used in residential construction can stand up to thirteen hundred. And the exposure needs to be prolonged, not instantaneous.”

“So it was definitely not the Ley-wiring?” Milar clarified.

Ardan nodded.

“Yeah,” the captain glanced out the window at the bustling street that stretched out at the foot of the skyscraper. “If it had been the wiring, the door and windows would have been damaged too, but this looks as if the fire was controlled in order to…”

Milar made a deliberately theatrical pause, allowing Ardan to finish the sentence.

“To hide what happened for as long as possible.”

At that moment, the Ley-lamps in the corridor went out—a sure sign that the generators were off.

“Will you need a lot of time?”

“I don’t know,” Ardi answered honestly. “There is no time there.”

Milar raised both eyebrows slightly.

“Where… is there? Or is this once again something that requires you to be able to see a tree from both sides at once?”

Milar still remembered their conversation… The one they’d had on the very same evening they’d fought the demon in this tower.

“Exactly,” Ardi nodded and, after propping his staff between the floor and the wall, then leaning on it with his full weight, he gritted his teeth and carefully lowered himself down.

He sat down as comfortably as he could (he would have to wash the soiled cloak, of course, but what could you do) and closed his eyes.

Inhale, exhale.

As Skusty had taught him, Ardi allowed his gaze to see what the world was trying to hide from him. He sought the things that could only be seen if you turned away, catching for a brief moment, out of the corner of your eye, a fleeting vision that you could never discern if you looked directly at it.

The world filled with colors. Everything around him turned into a kaleidoscope, where there was no place for forms, no silhouettes, nothing of what the ordinary gaze of a human or a Firstborn was so accustomed to.

The colors would sometimes merge into one, sometimes shimmer with a multitude of shades only to converge or divide again, repainting and transforming themselves. They’d suddenly acquire volume, no longer flat, and sometimes stretch out to infinity, only to just as swiftly contract into a point or even something smaller than a point. Something that could exist only within mathematical equations, but at the same time, was capable of dancing, twirling, and singing around Ardi, welcoming his belated visit.

This secret world had missed its young friend, to whom it longed to tell a thousand stories, and Ardi reciprocated the feeling.

He stretched out his hand and called out to a small, fading crimson spark. It reminded him of a lost kitten. It was trying, with all its might, to find its way back home. It remembered that home was among gray and dark colors, behind which lay expanses of all possible shades of red. But it couldn’t escape from this strange captivity of gray and blue colors.

Ardi gently took it in his palm and listened.

In its almost fading crackle, he heard the cheerful gurgle of a geyser shooting up among the rare hot springs of the Alcade. In its at times unruly, playful roar, he discerned the rumble that one could sometimes feel if they lay flat on the stones and tried to hear the mountain. And its heat warmed his chilly palms and kept trying, like a contented dog, to lick his face, trying to give warmth even to one who did not truly need it.

This was a small, dying shard of the True Name of the Flame of the Depths.

“Come on, little one,” Ardi might have thought this, might have said it, or he might have remained silent altogether. “I’ll take you home.”

The spark flared a little brighter, and for a moment, it pressed itself against what could perhaps be called the young man’s cheek, then streamed along the brown thread that Ardi had grasped with his “fingers.” A moment passed, then another, and the spark disappeared somewhere among the riot of colors, and the young man inhaled, exhaled, and opened his eyes.

“Did you learn anything?” Milar asked. He was sitting on the windowsill. “Or did you just burn part of the rebar for fun?”

The captain gestured with his hand at the melted column in the wall.

“You were just sitting there and then… bam! A small ball of liquid fire shoots from your hand,” the captain swept his hand through the air, apparently illustrating the trajectory of its flight. “It disappeared into the wall before I had time to curse. And that, as you know, is pretty fast.”

Ardan, trying to get used to his eyes seeing only what… they were meant to see again (as strange as that sounded), straightened up and pointed to the door.

“The Aean’Hane elf was really here,” Ardan confirmed their, on the whole, obvious assumption.

“Okay, that’s good.”

“But there was something else besides him.”

“And that is fucking awful,” the sparks of enthusiasm that had just lit up in Milar’s eyes died out as quickly as they had appeared. “Could that something else have been your acquaintance, the Sidhe?”

Ardan spent a few moments recalling everything he had seen among the flashes of the Ley and what he had heard in the story of the little spark.

“No. It was something else. Terrible and dark. Cold.”

“I really do not like what you’re saying right now, partner.”

“Me neither…” Ardi walked to the window and looked out at the street. “Remember how I couldn’t figure out where the demon came from before?”

“I remember,” the captain nodded.

“I think I understand now.”

Ardan looked at his palm. He could once again see, as he sometimes did at night, the mutilated bodies of children lying before him.

“Anvar was just unlucky…”

“What do you mean?” The captain asked.

“He was just unlucky, Milar,” Ardan clenched his fist. “The Puppeteers wanted to plant a demon in Le’mrity’s tower, and they needed a room for that. They could have chosen any room. And so they did.”

“It was just a coincidence?” Milar asked with disbelief.

Ardan nodded.

“They performed a ritual of the Dark Aean’Hane here,” he added. “To simplify it into words you can understand—no offense—they tore the boundary between the seen and the unseen with blood and pain. And they summoned a demon.”

“And the Sidhe? You said Anvar freed him.”

“You can’t tear a boundary in only one direction.” Ardi leaned on his staff. He still hadn’t taken his eyes off the city. “Ahgrat… he was trying to tell me that back then.”

“Who was trying that? What was he trying to say? Dammit, Ard! Stop acting like Aversky.”

“Anvar knew the old myths and legends,” Ardan pressed on, relentless. “He wrote books about them. All sorts of stories. He clearly spent more than one month with old texts. He understood what was happening. And he tried to help, as best he could. He used the torn boundary to bring out more than just the one the Puppeteers came here for… The Sidhe, oh Sleeping Spirits, was trying to hint at this when he talked to me.”

“In the end, Anvar freed the Sidhe of the Burning Dawn,” Milar reminded him. “We’ve already figured that out. So, that Aean’Hane elf summoned a demon, and Anvar, seizing the opportunity, pulled that Sidhe out into the light of the Face of Light before he died?”

“No.”

“What do you mean?” Milar repeated, his tone not very kind.

“That elf wasn’t a Dark Aean’Hane,” Ardi shook his head. “And the demon that lived in this tower… It wouldn’t have required such complexities.”

Milar opened his mouth and then immediately closed it.

“What do you mean?” He asked for a third time, now with a certain caution.

“There was a second Aean’Hane here, Milar. A Dark one. And powerful.”

“How powerful?”

The young man shrugged.

“I don’t know, Milar. I don’t even have a clue. But what is clear to me is that Mariandat was mistaken.”

Judging by how quickly the captain’s face was changing, he understood what Ardi was talking about.

“Are you trying to tell me, Magister, that the girl from the Crimson Lady’s place didn’t disappear because of a vampire?”

“Exactly,” Ardi nodded. “Two entities escaped from the Fae prison that day. The Sidhe of the Burning Dawn and one other. One who walks the paths of Darkness. A creature of immense power. A real demon, Milar. The Inquisition was created to combat their type.”

For a time, an oppressive silence hung in the burnt-out apartment, as sticky as the soot on the walls.

“Fuuuuuuuuuck,” Milar drew out the word.

Ardi was in complete agreement.