It was afternoon by the time I’d woken up, and not on the same day as I’d swallowed the sedative.

  I’d gotten dressed and tried to get used to being in my old body once again. Missing the door knob when trying to open the door and the number of times a hoof had hit something told me it would not be fast. Hopefully, it would be faster than it had takeo be used to being Katheryn Fara.

  It’s what you get for having your other body be such a trast to your first. The Imp cackled in my head after I’d hit it against a wooden beam.

  It’d had a whole slew of ents about both the bodies I picked, most of which I ighe Imp also cimed only a day had passed and now wahree cows for being forced to wait so long with no food at all.

  It was getting more insistent, which was not a good sign. I did not in a mood to my flesh.

  I at least firmed the time passage when I’d put a few s into a neer boy’s hands and gotten it across I wao buy o was a day ter, and at least my exploits only made the sed page after a few more hy events. More marches in the Infernal Quarter, including a csh that the neer cimed had resulted in a hundred dead, which I doubted. Then a fire at a factory, rumours of ing with the Drakelords in the south, trouble in the ies in the west, and there halfway down the sed page a mention of an Infernal going on a rampage at Lady Karsie.

  ion of Diabolism. Iing.

  I pulled my hat down to cover more of my face as I walked, sure to keep my empty eye socket as covered as I could. Missing eyes weren’t unon, sidering how many were survivors of being scripted, but the less potential linking of me to that i, the better.

  Especially since I o head out of the Quarter.

  ***

  It took two hours to get out of the quarter ahe Dawes and Voltar’s residence. I kept myself a respectful distance aartially because of a desire for no oo see me here, and partially because it was too crowded to get near.

  It was hard to tell what was worse, the crowd of reporters waiting, staring at the front door waiting flimpse of the great detective, or the crowd of definitely just everyday borers and work people who all happeo be taking their breaks right on this street.

  At least have some css and wait at the end of the street like I did.

  I wasn’t actually on the er, or hells forbid lurking in a doorway or on top of a roof. All of those were eoo difficult to pull off in open daylight, so instead, I sat down by the roadway, a crude sign stating my status as a veteran of the underground wars. I gnced dowher end of the street as I waited out of geniune nervousness. I wasn’t just selling the illusion of an Infernal dreading the moment she got sent scurrying back to the Quarter for solig in a nieighborhood.

  Even if I was taller as Malvia, rger, airely different shade, an altogether different shape of horns, even with all that, an Infernal showing up on Voltar’s doorstep in public view would be too obvious. Especially missing an eye and several fingers. At that point, even Lord Montague would put two and two together regarding who I was.

  Well, perhaps I was being paranoid. But after everything that had happened, I did not want burning my identity as Katheryn Fara to go to waste.

  You couldn’t guard against everything. I could just hope I’d guarded against enough.

  You could t on urs on for a lot of things. Excellent service if you promised payment ahead of time. Generally not being able to read. Knowing to be discreet when paid well. Betraying you when someone else paid even more.

  Because of that, the message retty i as far as messages went. An invitation to dine from Madam Carmelia Rouves to Voltar at a small cafe. I retending to be a servant of hers.

  I couldn’t hide what I looked like from the ur, but I could disguise it as being part of something else. A rendezvous between Voltar and his rumored criminal lover would lead people on the wrong track.

  If not…well, a paranoid enough mind would always make es between things. Mine had.

  Voltar had aire work of urs he relied upon occasionally, so this was a better bet than any other. At a minimum, I was sure the message would reach the detective. He was, despite any of his faults, a very good tipper.

  Of course, I hadn’t seetle gremlin I’d paid off show up at the front door yet. There were other entrao the house, but I could only keep an eye ohat and hope I hadn’t wasted eight pennies and a very extensive written expnation about how Voltar would give him ten pounds.

  I had pany as well, pany I was trying very hard not to stare at. Not that his waxy, discolored skin didn’t draw the gaze, but of all the people to run into on this street, this one seemed a ce too far.

  The front door of the house opened, and a pair of figures emerging from within. I did my best not to stir from my slouch, but those closer perked up.

  For a moment, then a call rose from the side of the house.

  “They’re ing out the back door!” someone yelled, and immediately half of the group oreet went to the back of the house while the two figures tinued out the front door, drawing even more with them.

  Ah. Body doubles? Illusioher way, it meant even more e not finding the real duo.

  “You know, you are being far too cautious about this,” the other Infernal told me.

  My head spun around, my hand going for a knife in my coat. The other Infernal wi me as I drew it out.

  “Perhaps not do that. Like I said, far too cautious. Caution that is perhaps due, but do you know how many one-eyed Infernals missing fihere are in this city? Too many for you to not just e to the front door and trust a message to the whims of an ur. Door across the way. Just wait a few minutes first, please.”

  With that, he got up and walked across to a modest home across the way, entering as if he owhe pce. If he was who I suspected, he probably did.

  I gave the door a wary gnce. Damnations, how much had I fallen for over the st few days? More than I’d realized.

  In for a penny. It wasn’t like I had much of a choice, it was this or wait till nightfall. And even that probably wouldn’t clear out most of those here. I went up to the door, to the indifference of the watchers who had stayed, and tried to handle. Unlocked.

  “Miss Harrow! Wele to my humble abode!” Voltar seemed to be in a cheery mode, seemingly not bothered at all by what had occurred at the tower. He and Dawes were both seated in a front parlor, a pair of teacups and a pot set between them.

  Oh, how I’d love a cup, but swallowing without a tongue was begging to e.

  Baah, no food? Only that fvored water you desire so much.

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. The damn thing loved me indulging my love for the drink. It only set I didn’t drink something more addictive as often.

  I raised a hand iing. All I could do outside of making some inprehensible him.

  “It seems that you are still missing a few different things,” he said, gesturing to my eye, then to my half-formed figures.

  I shrugged. I retrieved a sheet of paper from inside my coat, on which I’d wrote a brief message.

  I need my Biosculpting tools t my tongue back. I swallowed what it turned into so that’ll be the easiest to fix. The eye will take more time. Where are my tools?

  “Well,” Voltar said after looking at my writing. “I have them, but we never agreed on what the terms of reement would be, so I think-”

  Dawes’ elbow jabbed into his ribs as I rose from my chair, reag for a knife.

  “Voltar, this is going to be difficult enough to expin without adding that you’re bckmailing Harrow besides bringing her into your test case,” Dawes said with a scowl. “Please do not make my life any more difficult than you already are.”

  Iing. I knew Dawes had a leash, gover-issued, around Voltar’s throat, but it must be a bigger ohan I’d assumed. This couldn’t be a regur occurreher, people would notice if the doctor was around the detective this btantly.

  “Yes, yes,” Voltar said before his face sobered. “We will returo you, although I’m too uand repg the fingers and eye will not be easy?”

  I resisted the urge to ram my head onto the table. Could he not just give me my tools back so we could talk about this?

  I gestured for them to return the piece of paper.

  Difficult but not impossible. I’ll o ihe w ingredients of those body parts or have them on hand to work with. The chief difficulty is stru, especially with the eye, the seost plex an in the body. It’ll take the better part of a day to restrue, as opposed to the tongue, which is mostly just muscle. Therefore I’d prefer to start on this now, instead of wasting time.

  “We may not have time for you to do that,” Dawes warned. “Your stunt on Lady Karsies will make things accelerate.”

  I gred up at the two of them. It wasly my fault that they’d left that as my only escape route.

  “She is right about getting this started early,” Voltar said, grabbing the box and sliding it my way.

  I snatched it up, took the lid off, and grabbed the three pieces of silver inside. I looked them over, making sure the inscriptions were id in correctly and that no one had sed out one of the tools.

  For Diabolism, a focus was a tool to aid and help, not a y. plicated ws could be spoiled by errant thoughts or distras. The more powerful castings could cause a backsh if you were distracted or result in effects you didn’t intend. But the simplest castings could be dohout the focus, and more plicated ones as you learn more.

  For Biosculpting, you ools to make it even possible. Every little w was a plicated adjustment, needing to at for biology and making sure it would stay in pce done. You could work Biosculpting if you wao, but it would require rge amounts of energy to vince flesh to shift, and the best you could hope for the aftermath is that it wouldn’t be immediately fatal for whoever you sculpted.

  More plex tools improved what you could do, but these three were the erstone, each matched to a specific part of what magic called the ti parts of a person. Mind, soul, and body. Two were to be kept level as you forcibly adjusted the st.

  This wouldn’t be too difficult. The parts that had once been my tongue were still inside me, swallowed. I settled the three tools oable in a triangle, grabbing a knife from the belt and nig a finger. Drops of blood on each, a chime in my ears for eae I fed.

  With it mostly being inside myself, I didn’t o sacrifiuch. Some additional blood to attuhem to me. Time was the main sacrifice, as I took ahold of the magic beied a it inside myself, searg in my gut.

  They found the ti pieces scattered through my digestive process, and the first step was removing them from parts they’d bee enmeshed or absorbed into, from entire ks to the smallest bits and pieces. The Diabolism that had turned my tongue liquid had dissolved it into stituent chemicals, so for most of this I could only hope I was corred I wasn’t wreg my digestion to make a rept.

  I was reasonably sure. You were taught first as a Biosculptor to keep track of your own body, the stituent parts and the exact quantities within. Of course, I’d been going through five years of wear and tear with these stituent parts in different figurations, but best not to think too hard about that.

  I slowly built it piece by piece, using the magic t stituent parts up my throat and assemble them into muscles, gnds, ahelium. I slowly put them into pce, assembling at a snail’s paside my mouth.

  Over the hour, I restituted my tongue a little piece by piece, building it up, spilling more blood as necessary as Voltar and Dawes watched and drank tea. Occasionally, o, but not both.

  After reassembling it and sc my body for any hints of missing pieces, I released the magic. I took a breath.

  Immediately, I started coughing.

  “Everything alright?” Dawes asked me.

  “Yes, yes,” I said drily, waving them off. “It’s just…euggh. Restituting my tongue doesly make for a pleasant taste. Or do wonder for my throat. Do either of you have any food? Or perhaps some tea?”

  The two traded gnces, and then Dawes felt around in the pockets of his coat.

  “Bit of salted pork and some bread crust?” He offered. “We drank all the tea.”

  Of course they had. I took the offered food.

  Soldier’s rations, but I’d take anything in my mouth besides the taste of restituting flesh. I devoured both, which were gone far too fast, but the taste was…not gone, but at least my mouth didn’t taste of that. They also found me some water, which did wonders for my throat even if it was not tea.

  “Thank you, doctor,” I told him. “You would not believe what the taste of oongue is like. You! How the hell does that disguise work?”

  Voltar smiled. “What disguise?”

  I gred and decided that wasn’t worth pursuing. “What was the pn going forward from this? Since you’ve decided my offer was worth taking?”

  “Well, the first step would be sharing information. As you might guess, I have a better idea of your st few days than you might have thought, but I may have missed something. A full at, please?”

  Ah yes, right after I’d dragged my tongue up through my throat, I o talk extensively. Brilliant. I left little out of my at, mostly the visit to Arsene and anything involving Tolman being pyed down a bit. He did not o know of their e to Versalicci for now. Dawes left partway through, talking about paying the ur for the message and also seeing how much of the watcher’s brigade outside the house down the road was left.

  “An iing few days you’ve had, outside of a few falsehoods, but nothing I didn’t know already. I’d prefer this started with being truthful with each other.”

  “And I’d prefer you didn’t leave me in the dark till the st possible moment on us being in this together to any degree, Voltar. Did you even have a pn if I didn’t start using Diabolism?”

  “That is fair. I did have alternatives, but you are here, and just in time for ohat o be pursued, and you are best suited for it.”

  I khis would e up. It was impossible for it not to e up.

  “If either you or Dawes guarantee I’ll e out of meeting him alive, I’ll be happy to go ask. If not, you’re the Empire’s greatest detective. You figure another way out.”

  Voltar raised an eyebrow. “So soon into our partnership and already trying to fob off what you’d bring to the table onto us? Poor form.”

  “I am ning a retionship with the Bck Fme to the table,” I said. “I bring animosity, at best. I left. I left in a way where Versalicci is uo feel kindly towards me afterward, sidering I robbed him and theed him in his time of greatest need. Most of the old guard he still has would feel even worse about me, sidering only a few of them are in it for the criminal part. Golvar, sad as it is to say, will probably end up being the because he saw the Bck Fme as crimierprise first, revolutionary anization sed.”

  “That’s ign a few things,” Voltar said. “Y a certaiionship to Versalicci. He’s not likely to turn his ba.”

  My tourned chilly. “Those kinds of betrayals are among the worst, Voltar. Take it from one who suffered from them. That makes him even less likely not to cut me up.”

  “Not everyone is you,” Voltar replied. “Versalicci is a pragmatic sort. He will not turn his ba a e because of what would be a retively minor betrayal at the end of something.”

  “I….” I paused. Several people had fed me the same advice, and I kept oing it. And I could hardly say I knew better. Hells, these st few days had proven I did not.

  “He won’t kill you. Ign the personal feelings involved, he still thinks of you as useful. He also hasn’t taken revenge on you yet, and while you’re right about how Versalicci treats traitors, five years are pushing the boundaries of when to do that. If he o maintain his authority, he would have do sooner.”

  “He’s likely not told aside of his little inner circle,” I said. “No need for the rank and file to know. No immediate thoughts of defiance. Hells, if you’re right and he wants me alive, best that way. Which will make this a little easier.”

  “We agree then?”

  I sighed. “I’ll do it. No promises about what I’ll get. And I do not like doing this after the hell that was yesterday. I’m already going into a snake’s den at your hands. For a sed time, arguably.”

  “True. Let me not ask anything else of you then. What do you have to ask me?”

  The truth to this ehing? Then again, if he knew everything, I wouldn’t be heading to Versalicci’s. I should start somewhere small.

  “The warehouse?” I asked.

  “Emptied by the time myself and Dawes got there, and for the Watch as well if my old tacts haven’t turned on me. Magic is likely involved beyond even the abilities you described, which bear a resembo a specific magical creature.”

  “Shape-gers,” I said. “It’s one of the few things that makes sense. Except it doesn’t because why this?”

  ‘This’ could have referred to many numbers of things, but Voltar seemed to cat.

  “Motivation is one of the bigger unknowns at the moment. I say that Shape-gers haven’t operated in these parts for nearly a half-tury. Of course, that’s the official history’s stance, but if they were careful, no one would know. I’ve known a couple, but they don’t work around here, and I could hardly see them doing something like this.”

  “So, just another mystery instead of an answer,” I said.

  “Most mysteries are like that. Threads are at odds until you ect them. There are, of course, the victims, Edward Montague and Desmond Karsin. Heirs to two royal houses that seem to be opposite to each other but with closing ties. One is old nobility with signifit soft power led by a hidebound traditionalist who has fathered many childre is often at odds with them and is perhaps not the most persohe other is led by a socially adroit, non-human in a try where nobility often is not that, has an adopted child, and has strong eic power. They seem quite an odd pick of victims, especially sihe i may not have been to kill.”

  “That’s assuming the people pulling the strings to have me craft the cure were the same as the orying to kill them,” I noted.

  “Yes, and while timing leads me to suspect as such, one ever assume for certain until you establish all the facts. And all the pyers ated for.”

  And we certainly had plenty of those running around. “Nobles. You. Me. Bck Fme. The Watch, taially. The Pure-Bloods.”

  “The Pure-bloods are one of the more iing threads at the moment and are what I will pursue ,”

  “The Pure-bloods? I don’t think it’s that deep. Someone hired them to take the bolvar, and sihen they’ve e after me out of revenge for dead rades. Mind you, they had to spend to find out I was even involved, but I’ve seen people do more for less for revenge.”

  “I disagree. Let us take your statement earlier about the Bck Fme. The membership is split between those who see it as a gang and those who see it as a political movement. That is by design, si’s part of how Versalicci maintains loyalty, but at its core, you believe it is a crimierprise. Ah, Dawes!”

  The doctor had e back, carrying a fresh pot with tea in it, the smell immediately perking me up.

  “You like tea, Miss Harrow?” Dawes asked.

  “I prefer a ow and then,” I answered. “I wouldn’t say I feel strongly about it.”

  The Imp started cag inside my head.

  “It’s just your tail is…” the doctor hesitated.

  “Wagging,” Voltar said.

  The Imp was howling now with ughter as I deliberately held my head still. And my tail, frozen mid-swing. The hells, I hadn’t done anything like this since I was ten!

  “Involuntary muscle spasms caused by the ret ging of my body back,” I blurted.

  “Ah, well, that’s a shame because putting ood a at risk is something I ot abide, so perhaps you’ll have to go without-”

  “Your a will be fine,” I said, gring at him. “You were talking about the Pure Bloods?”

  I accepted a cup from Dawes, taking a deep and delighted sip while Voltar went back to his point.

  “The baween ideology and profit. Versalicci’s group is quite the exception to this in how he operates because he attempted something radical and recruited for it. Most groups, while they make for nice bindings of members, there are roups for them to join if political beliefs are their primary focus. So would be the case for the Pure Bloods, especially given their small size. Small, weak groups are not oo be so brazen about their politics, or they meet quick, messy ends.”

  I deliberately paced myself as I draihe cup, not following the example of that tea-gulping lunatic Gregory. “I’ll admit to little experieh the group, but you could be right.”

  “I didn’t pay them any miher,” Voltar said. “Small-time docks gang, involved in smuggling and prote racket, and a bit of a reputation for brutality, all of which I learned from Dawes.”

  “I sometimes do charity work in districts closer to the house,” Dawes expined. “I’ve patched up some of their victims in the past. The description was of a bunch of ihugs with a racket and some standards enforced by their founder before he choked to death on his own fist. He couldn’t trol his mouth around a half-ogre about their ‘nature’, and the half-ogre took offense. And never got a scrat her iurn. Until yesterday. They dredged her body from ihe Nover.”

  Probably from on top of the Niven the season and the river’s resembo a sludge pudding instead of a body of water.

  “Sounds like a fitting end. For the gang boss, I mean. I think I see the bones of what you’re ying down. Their behavior. Sure, it sounds like they didn’t think well of other races, but getting hired to ambush and knife a Bck Fme member is a bit out of their wheelhouse.”

  “Far out of their wheelhouse,” Voltar added. “The watch found the bodies of four more members iunnels a day after their fight with you and Golvar. All indications are Golvar was the one who khem.”

  “I said probably,” Dawes interjected. “The wounds match the bde, but anything more than that is jecture.”

  “Nonsense. He’s exactly the right height and build for where those knife wounds were, and-“

  “Pardon,” I said. “But we’re a little off track. I think I see the pattern being reached here. They’re doing things far too big for their britches, and with resources they shouldn’t have. They don’t sound big enough to have a mage. Certainly not big enough to throw their weight around with the Delver Guilds.”

  “That is iing. I did not know before your at of the case, and it seems like a major overreach.”

  “You didn’t know?” I asked. They had visited, and it seemed strange for him not to have ferreted such things out.

  “The guild master seemed off-bance when I visited, but that appeared to be more because of ret tragedies within his own guild than anything else. I also kept my visit there short. You have not been the only one spending the st few days running about.”

  “Well, not only have they been putting pressure on the guild, they’ve been approag nobles, asking for funds, patronage. Bluntly, from the sounds of it, and not successfully. Most nobles have other horses they ba that race.”

  “Oh, that’s true, but not every noble is intelligent enough to realize they have that other horse. Or perhaps they know that such a group of individuals is more easily trolled than a broader movement.”

  Ah. Of course.

  “They’ve found themselves a patron,” I said. “Orong enough they feel like they take on Versalicci. One who is paying enough that they expand their ranks and hire better talent. And that same patroher is a Shape-ger, or also has a grip on them as well.”