I shrugged at Versalicci’s ents. “Truth be told, even if it wasn’t suicide for myself trying to hammer through that…well, the Duke certainly made it easier by melting the middle. But it’s only a useful bluff while we’re in this room.”

  “So, ay bluff, then?”

  I put a hand on the quartz. Heat still coursed through it but it had cooled enough I could put fingers on it.

  “irely empty. Even if your reasons for keeping me alive and well all this time have dissipated, I am your best bet for not ending up as the guilty party at the end of this. Voltar doesn’t think you are, but he’s not long from being sidelined, I bet, and has much less reason to see this entire mess resolved.”

  “Ah, the enmity of nobles,” Versalicci rolled his eyes. “Like I have not already earhat a huimes over.”

  “Don’t py the fool,” I said. “Whoever’s framed you will not have this as their only hand, and they want you, and me, as their patsy.”

  “Which doesn’t ge my ability to evade unwatention, but don’t worry. You’ll have the information you want a of here without a scrat you.”

  I looked down at my blistered fingers still lying on the circle, and after a half-sed lifted them. In the end he was right. It was ay bluff the moment I o leave.

  “Why was Golvar carrying around a box full of Angel’s Sorrow?”

  “Why that specifically? I have little idea myself, although it’s clear someohought was a trusted business associate has turraitor. That’s another issue to be dealt with.”

  “Make sure it’s actually that ‘business’ associate,” I warned. “While I wouldn’t stake my life on it, at least one person I’ve met involved with this has shown an ability to shift their form on while quickly and rapidly.”

  Versalicci’s pause before replying was barely a sed, but still long enough to be noticed.

  “Iing. Shape-gers?”

  “That or someone has made some remarkable breakthroughs in Biosculpting with no one else getting a whiff.”

  “Such is the fate of our species, that eveures from myth e to assail is just for being of diabolic dest.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I don’t know what irks me more, the idea you were ever i or that you sider this an assault on all Infernals. But regardless, where did Go to pick up the box?”

  “It was a dead drop set up for the occasion. I’m hardly going to send one of my trusted and knowenants to my source’s home or property.”

  “Then give me their name and address then. It’s a pce to start, at the minimum.”

  Versalicci sighed. “Bismuth, he docks. There’s an alchemical supply store called Maldron’s Herbs. I’d set up an introdu, but if the owners are behind this, o tip them off. I am not sharing what Golvar was supposed to haul back. And they are mine if they end up behind this.”

  “Get in line,” I replied. “Another question, sihe ao my previous one is so little in its worth?”

  He ughed.

  “Then, because solving this helps both of us? The Pure-bloods, have they been a problem before now?”

  He shook his head. “Oh, not really. Not that much more than any other human-only gang does. You’d think as opolitan as this city has bee, they’d broaden their recruitment some, wouldn’t you?”

  “.....yes,” I said. I retty sure he was joking. He wasn’t oblivious.

  “In terms of ret activities, they’ve been making moves for their own k of the underground, but bluntly. Stepping on toes far bigger than their feet. I thought they’d be a self-solving problem, but after their ret offense, I believe it’s time for us Infernals to show the rest of those living down here how it’s done.”

  Again with that speaking for all of us, Versalicci. “That’s iing. They’ve been trying to lean on the Delver’s guilds as well. And where are they located, if you know?”

  Voltar probably knew where their headquarters was, but I had a few people I trusted more on where scum would be living than him. Versalicci was at the top of that list, even if he was the least likely to actually say.

  “No, sister,” he said. “Oh, I know, but they are mine. You do not hurt the Bck Fme without suffering the sequehat’s two questions, which I think is more than we agreed on, but I do have a favor I want iurn.”

  I looked at the melted quartz in the ter of the room. “And what would that favor be?”

  “Tell Voltar that while a truce will exist for now, the moment he uses this as an occasion to iigate my dealings, he will bleed. Now e, let’s see you out, sister.”

  ***

  I jolted awake, hand reag for a knife, before everything came into focus.

  I was in an Infernal Quarter alley, now being stared at by half a dozen other Infernals, three of whom were busy disposing of…something trying to move in a sack.

  “Apologies,” I said. “Been a rough day.”

  Not the best of words, but the struggling sack took their attention more as I hurried out of the alley. Had two of them looked…not scared but apprehensive? I didn’t think only having a single eye would so unnerve people. Or at least people willing to be doing whatever they pnned on doing to the oct of that sack.

  I had more important things to worry about, though.

  Damnations, how had they put me to sleep? The st thing I could remember was that message Versalicci wanted sent to Voltar, and from there…nothing.

  I forced myself to not start searg every nook and y of the alley fns of the Bck Fme. Panig wouldn’t help, but my heart raced regardless. How had he put me to sleep so easily?

  I moved out of the alley, only to realize something had been added to my ensemble.

  I didn’t know what was worse, that Versalicci had stuck a coat on me while I was asleep or that it looked exactly like my old ones when I’d been part of the gang.

  Wait. I checked the interior pockets and cursed when I found a pair of surgical knives with a pair of familiar initials carved in. This was one of my old coats.

  He’s going to burn if he thinks he get me bato the Bck Fme, I thought to myself, hurrying out of the alley.

  At least it might expin why those two had seemed frightened. With my old body back, the symbol visible on my hand, and if those two had been around five years ago.

  Well, they’d have a good reason for looking the other way.

  I put the offending hand inside my coat pockets and wished I could do more. Having the human side of my heritage be from so far away did not help with being less reizable.

  Nothing I do about that right now. Which left me either heading to Voltar’s or handling something else while I was here. I was ined towards the tter since I didn’t want to return with only the one lead. Not when I could get a sed o a retively low cost.

  It was time to visit Varrow.

  ***

  I waited in the darkness.

  Varrow had certainly gone up in the world. Or, more accurately, everyone else here had gone down, since if the District was more crowded, he would never have been able to live in a pce this nice.

  Back when I’d run with his gang of pickpockets, -people, and urs, we’d lived oreets or in whatever warehouse we could break into. Not a wo-room apartment that had funing water. It robably han my apartment was-had been. My apartment had been. It even had a window big enough for a person to fit through!

  I tried to put that out of my mind. I’d already been here on a house call, so I hadn’t o search out where Varrow lived. The lo his door had been a simple thing to pick, which meant this wouldn’t be his true refuge, but he must visit it.

  Now I just o wait in the darkness for him to e back.

  I couldn’t see in it, but having the single mp in this room on when Varrow got home would give away someone being here. Meanwhile, I sat in the darkness and ged masks.

  Being more like Malvia Harrow would be called for here if only to not give him a heart attack from having friendly Katheryn Fara in Harrow’s body. It would be te first, but not too bad. Our retionship had always bee when I’d been with the Bck Fme.

  Although it would still be best to wait till he’d closed the door to reveal me.

  The darkness helped some with getting into the right mi. Malvia sidered the darkness a friend. Not when trying to read or write, but other times it helped tet what she, no I’d done. An easier cloak than wilful blindness.

  Holy, it was as dark as the underground in here. It’d been ter in the day than I thought when I’d awoken, and the sun had disappeared fast.

  The underground. The ultimate pce to hide, given how extehe tunnel and caverworks were down there. For the Pure-Bloods to expand down there, there was strao put it mildly.

  I toyed with the idea of that being where the poison was being made. Points in its favor, isotion and the underground would not be good for celestials, separated from the sight of the sun. The ives, with the Delvers' guilds active, the ce of a random group finding it and being capable of esg? Very high unless you had a very nasty guard dog. Or a monster.

  Monster. I leaped to my feet, realization strikihose rocks I’d collected from the warehouse, I’d have to examihem. Why keep stone fragments that had no magic to them?

  If they were the fragmented remnants of someone who’d beerified you wao be brought back, they were essential. What was roaming the underground, with the Delvers' guilds thus far uo beat it? A basilisk. The Pure Bloods had tried to lean on them, but what if they’d also been trying to find out how the guilds knew of the basilisk?

  Other parts didn’t fit yet without firmation, but made a modicum of sense. Shapegers could remove their eyes, meaning such a beast would be less of a dao them. The basilisk was a silent killer, and gained sustenance off of leeg the life force of petrified victims, meaning less biological mess and less han other creatures.

  A basilisk might also be the only safeguard against a celestial if it broke free as well.

  I o examihe fragments first though, so I sat back down, f myself to be patient.

  Sounds came from outside. Singing of the non-drunken variety which was a good sign. o sober him up.

  The door opened, and someoepped inside, mumbling to themselves. Definitely Varrow.

  “-getting too old for this, you daft fool. Watch going easier these days isn’t a reason to risk their wrath. o find a new line of work-”

  The mp lit up, casting light over the entire room. Includiting in an armchair.

  “Varrow,” I said. “It’s been a few years since we st talked.”

  I’d thought his skin had gone pale when Voltar had shown up at my apartment. Now it resembled milk. His jaw opened and closed a few times, nothing ing out and in but air as anythiried to say died in his throat.

  “Malvia,” he finally gasped out, bag towards the door. “You’re alive? When? How?”

  “Not relevant. I’ll answer eventually, but first, Varrow, we have busio discuss.”

  He sidered my words, gave me half a nod, and then sprinted for his apartment window.