Moving into the house didn’t take long.

  The house I was currently in, not the one dowreet which was also there’s but served as a way to keep attention off of themselves. There was a tunnel linking the two, which meant dedicated observers had puzzled something out by now.

  Then again, not everyone would think to hire a mage of the earth.

  Most of what I still owned had either been picked up by Voltar and Dawes wheook me to the nobles or was still in that warehouse with my old stash, covered up once again. I’d head there tomorrow to collect it, assuming I was still alive.

  For now though, this meant going through the two bags of evidence I’d collected from that warehouse in Garretsville, id out across a long table iic where I was going to room for now.

  “Voltar’s already looked at most of it, but decided it was inclusive, and that they are all free of trackers,” Dawes told me. “We have made a list out of these to try with the Watd see if anyone used them retly or in the historical records.”

  ‘These’ were the sheets of paper I’d grabbed, all of them being lises, certificates, and other bits and pieces associated with identities. All of them were fake, and after that enter in the warehouse, it wasn’t hard to tell why.

  “I’d have to imagihat’ll be limited in its use,” I mused. “They’re shape-gers, so you’d imagihey could just ge identities if they realized several of them have been burned.”

  “Voltar believed it was not likely to lead anywhere. If they were for identities ihey wouldn’t be in a secret room under a warehouse.”

  I nodded as I shifted through some of them. “True. Some of these are pretty old as well. They might be for ohey’ve abandoned. Maybe nostalgia? Sometimes it be hard letting go of an old identity when you’ve ied enough into it.”

  “Speaking from experience?”

  Not discussing that. “If he thinks these aren’t in use, why tact the Watch about them? It sounds like they aren’t on the best terms with you two of these days.”

  “It depends on art of the Watch. Some parts have never enjoyed w with Voltar. But Voltar wants to see if he establish a pattern of behavior for some of these shape-gers,”

  “He thinks they have set personalities?” I asked. “I would think the opposite, given how much they ge form.”

  “Possibly, but if one’s mind was malleable enough to ge whe wao, one would imagihey would get lost in the role. Some personality traits across all their identities to keep their sense of self.”

  I frowhat was a fair point. And had sent another question into my mind.

  “How much do you know about Shapegers Dawes?”

  “Not much,” he fessed. “Voltar doesher. They haven’t been a for a while.”

  “That seems odd,” I said. “You would think a race of people who could pletely ge shape at will would be more of a . Enough that information on them would be more widely spread. I ask a favor?”

  “You wao see if I find a book on them, don’t you?”

  I nodded, a little embarrassed. “I realize asking you to run errands is a little-“

  “Don’t bother, Voltar already asked me to do the same. And it’s not like you’ll have time ter.”

  I grimaced at the reminder of what would be happening this afternoon. “Moving past these to the object.”

  The objects were the vials of clear liquid.

  “Voltar had them tested. Angel’s Sorrow.”

  I picked one up, looked it over, and then decided it wasn’t worth burning the tip of my finger again.

  “I don’t know whether or not this makes the case against Versalicci weaker,” I said. “I could see him keeping them stored in a far-off pce so as not to be linked with him, but Garretsville seems a bit too far out of his fort zone. Uhe shapeshifters are proxies but....that route of logic feels like trying to force a puzzle.”

  “I don’t pretend to know how his mind works and will defer to you and Voltar on that,” Dawes said.

  I ughed. “I don’t think even his paramour ever knew how his mind worked. The tomes are alchemical, and while I want to read through some of them in more detail ter, I don’t think we’ll find as in them. Which leaves these.”

  I gestured to the pile of rocks that I had swiped from the underground room.

  “I’m at a bit of a loss why you put rocks in here,” Dawes fessed.

  “It didn’t seem like they’d have tracers on them,” I said. “And I figured if they were important enough to hide away, they had to mean something. But now, yes, I see your point.”

  “You haven’t checked if they are magic rocks?” Dawes said. “Peered into the are?”

  I gred at him. “No, and until I get my other eye back, I won’t try. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to rebuild one, and I do not want to make it two.”

  Dawes hesitantly looked from the rocks to me and back again. “I was uhe impression that peering into the are is not usually that dangerous?”

  I sighed and forced myself to rex. “No, it’s not. Sorry, just…nerves. It should be fine, but best not to risk it. I’m just reminded because…first time I lost one, Versalicci was trying to get the true of a devil he’d summoypically, you try to trick the devil, do research, and things like that. He didn’t want to wait, so he decided to ferret out the true name by fying the creature down to its bones and having me look over them while it was still screaming. I found the true name, which proceeded to leap into my eye and start trying to devour my soul through my pupil.”

  Dawes remained quiet throughout that, a look of disgust slowly crawling across his face.

  “Ah. I see why you are…”

  “So relut to head back there?” I shuddered. “Yes. But since Voltar apparently think I’ll have the best ce of survival…enough on that. Speaking of the diabolic arts, what are the limits on that?”

  Dawes frowned, idly drumming his fingers on one of the rocks.

  “You should be able to practice Diabolism. Gover watched aricted Diabolism, and if you live lohan a month, they’ll expect you to be traio their standards, but fht now they’ll trust our judgment on it.”

  “You’ve got to be detly high up in Imperial govero sign off on this,” I said, looking at Dawes over the bags.

  He sighed, then sidered the ceiling for a bit before answering.

  “I suppose I teically am, but probably much less than you think. You’re thinking this started with someone from Her Majesty’s Gover assigo Voltar to watch over him, but it’s the other way around.”

  I flipped the statement around in my head and frowned. “Voltar assigned you to be part of Her Majesty’s Gover?”

  “No! They approached me after the first dozen or so cases. With the implication that if I didn’t agree, they’d assign someohemselves, but they respected his work and they respected my record.”

  “Still coercive,” I noted. “Act as a monitor and handler for your friend under us or we’ll do it for you. Why?”

  He frowned. “Why assign me as a handler? I don’t know. I wish I did know, because I’m not good at this, and I’m husiastic about Voltar expanding my responsibility.”

  “No, although that’s a good question as well. Why monitor Voltar? Especially if it’s early on in his career. You two didn’t earn muotoriety until the case of the Silver Slipper, which was a year after you two met.”

  “Perhaps they simply saw the potential of what could e of a brilliant and inquisitive mind and how it needed guidance."

  A thought struck me. “He is human isn’t he?”

  Being a non-humay would be a reason to be monitored, depending on what he was.

  Dawes frowned. “He’s human.”

  “Very ving. He’s not some kind of fey, is he?”

  “No, he’s not some kind of fey,” Dawes responded wearily. “Back to the topic at hand. Base rules, Diabolism usage has to be approved by me. Voltar have input, but you are not to use it at his dire alone.”

  “More than fair,” I answered. “Except for the first time when we end up separated, or in a fight, and I ’t check with you what is and isn’t safe to use in that moment.”

  Dawes chewed on that for a few moments while I put my teapot oable. Battered, bent, but not broken.

  “It’s not that I ’t see your point, but any allowance of Diabolism where I’m not there to monitor it…..this will already be a hard sell to the people who made themselves my superiors. Telling them there are ditions that would let you off the proverbial leash would not help with that.”

  That was fair. Hells, if there was another Diabolist near me, I’d want full trol of what they could cast near me as well. That went for about a dozen schools of magic total siny number of spells could have damaged far beyond the caster’s i. Diabolism was the easiest for that to happen, though.

  “Perhaps with some very hard limits in pce? I’m not allowed to kill ah Diabolism, perhaps no perma harm?”

  “Like you did at Lady Karsie? Expining away a temporary portal to the Hells that a Duke peered through and started ughing in public is going to be the brunt of my work. Do you know the panic you caused when that thing opened up?”

  I winced. I…I hadn’t thought of that.

  “I didn’t intend it. Backsh mixed with Infernal magic reag for…familial e,” I said.

  “Yes, that we know about. Voltar wants to sit you dowhis is all done and see if he fully sketch out that side of the family tree.”

  That shouldn’t surprise me with everything else they knew. “Well, I’m not the person to ask about that.”

  “You could ask the one who is that person,” Dawes noted.

  “If it es up, sure,” I said. “Otherwise, I’m not b. There’s enough on my pte already, and little to show for it.”

  “You are alive.”

  I grinned. “I suppose I am. Shows how far I’ve e, hasn’t it? If you’d talked to me about eight years ago, I’d have said being alive was one of the most treasured things I had. These days, it’s just an assumption. Not that it might st much longer.”

  “I am curious what happeo the demon? The one he forced you to see the true name of?”

  What escaped my throat couldn’t be called a chuckle, more a strangled ugh. “I think he uses it to smoke.”

  ***

  I’d insisted rowing my fingers before I left, so it was mid-afternoon by the time I reached the underground.

  Did I necessarily hem? No. Did I want the torn-out strips of flesh repced and the two fihat had been shot off back? Yes, and the ck of pain was a bonus.

  Although truth be told, some of it had been time-wasting. Just like I was again by not sending out a signal.

  I eyed the tattoo on my hand, bk in the shape of a rising fire extending from my wrist to my knuckles. All I o do ress it, but ohing held me back.

  There ossibility, no matter how much I’d argued he was too smart to try a scheme like this, that Versalicci was behind this. It made little sense why he would do this, but it didn’t make sense why the Shapegers would do this either. If this was some scheme of his, I was about to venture right into the monster’s den, throat bared and ready to be torn open.

  Then again, if Versalicci was employing Shapegers, I didn’t stand a ce either.

  I touched the tattoo, pressing the three tips of the fme. They glowed a dull e, the new coloration spreading down the fme until the ey of it glowed crimson and e.

  And so y me to the master’s progeny once again, The Imp whined, probably more upset at being dragged to the man who held it’s tract. A fourth cow, student.

  That would get Versalicci’s attention, and he’d dispatch people to e fetch me. Unfortunately, these were all personalized, so he’d know who’d sent a metaphorical bea abze.

  I settled down and waited, just sitting in the middle of the turying to hide would just give off an impression I didn’t want.

  Would it be time to ge masks? It might make it easier to get bato the mi of Malvia Harrow even a year before leaving. It also wasn’t a pleasant mask to get into the habit of wearing.

  Dawes had remarked about Shapegers potentially having a few parts of themselves that they kept sisteweeies so they could keep themselves with a sense of identity.

  I did not want to think about what traits of Malvia Harrow were core to my identity.

  No. I’d not put that mask on just for this.

  Ten minutes passed before six other Infernals walked dowuowards me.

  They hadn’t bothered with nterns of their own, and I was once agai cursing my ck of good night vision. Trying to sculpt my eyes to be capable of it had resulted in one of those other times I’d o rebuild an eye from scratch.

  They stopped just at the edge of my ntern’s light, close enough that I could tell the one in the middle was the same woman who’d tried to fetch me once for Versalicd then delivered his vague warning against visiting my mother.

  I raised a hand iing, the back fag them so they could clearly see the tattoo across it.

  “Harrow rep in,” I said. “I have information the boss will want to hear, reting to Voltar and Angel’s Sorrow.”

  “I know who you are,” the leader hissed, eyes gring at me with more than diabolically ied fire. “Are you saying you fot about me already? Too insignifit to notice?”

  Oh joy, she had a grudge against me. Why did she have a grudge against me?

  “No, I remember who you are, even if we raded names,” I answered. “I don’t suppose I get an answer on why you want the proverbial strip torn out of my fnk?”

  “For the proverbial strip torn out of mine, for failing in my tasks twid now being relegated to this,” she said, her and her crew moving closer.

  I remained sitting. Trying to scramble to my feet wouldn’t aplish anything and showing weakness like that might just provoke one of them.

  None of the other five with her seemed too ined to in my side on this. Three of them looked like they’d been outside my b when I and Tolman had left, and all three bore fresh scars from the fight after with the Pure Bloods.

  Also, it was not my fault, but it retty clear where they thought the bme y for that.

  “You realize that if I know something important and you make me incapable of telling Versalicci that, it’ll be more than the proverbial strip torn out?”

  She grinned. “You don’t o be standing to talk.”

  Very hostile, and with the notion that beating me would not result in anything bad happening to her. Either standards had gone x, or someone had seeded that idea in her head.

  Oh, damnations. This was Giovanni doing a test. Again. Only now, I was on the opposite side of the test, and from her expression, I would not be as good as Golvar was at talking the testee out of it.

  I looked among her panions, and I didn’t find a sympathetie among them. Ah, well. At least they weren’t from the real old days, because those lot might go to knives immediately for my disappearance.

  “If we must do this, let’s just make it quick then,” I said, enjoying the extra fire it ignited in her eyes.

  She’d be paying for that one way or another soon.

  The smug in me died when the first boot tip rammed my nose.

  ***

  Had I fallen asleep? My entire body ached, and gods, what had I been doing the night before? Everything was fuzzy, then it hurt when I tried to move like a thousand needles being driven in. People were talking near me, although I could only make so much of it out.

  “-did you have to smash her fa this much? We’re going to be lucky if the boss make out what she’s saying!”

  “Who cares? They patch her up if they want to. Kanes and Machti both told me this little bitch is a traitor, that she deserves far worse, and that little act of civility Versalicci tells us to put on if his way of seeing how muy of us stand her before smashing her fa. Now help me drag her in.”

  Hands reached for me, pulling me across the wooden floor. I didn’t have the effort to resist, didn’t have the effort to open my eyes. I could hear talking around me, scraps of voices familiar to me. We came to a halt, and then someone spshed somethi in my face.

  I coughed and sputtered, awareness returning as water ran down my face. That little-

  My thought was cut off as two of the patrol from the tunnel grabbed me and dragged me through a door onto a woven w, my face falling into patterns of red and bck. Blood trickled from a half-dozen pces, adding to the red.

  I khis carpet. Oh, nine fug hells.

  I looked up, taking in the wood paneling, the well-stocked bar, the grand piano that was the source of the music, the rge table set up in the middle with a young infernal ink-skinned and in a crimson dress sat, looking at the interruption in a mixture of sdalized shod horror.

  Laurata? No, her face was sharper, eyes not as hard. Laurata’s rept.

  At the piano, the figure stopped pying, getting up and bowing to the pink-skinned woman across the room, who didn’t seem sure whether to politely cp or pay attention to me bleeding all over the floor.

  He bowed to her, then turned his attention to me, his expression that of a member of a family greeting one warmly after a long time separated. In his mind, that might evehe case.

  Giovanni Versalicci was a green-skinned Infernal with a goatee and curling thick horns, giving the impression of a ram which trasted against the suit he wore, silver threads refleg the light of the indoor mps.

  Metal-threaded clothes. Swiftly joining top hats as the bane of my existence.

  He hadn’t aged a day since I first met him. Hells he might even be younger. Depending on if he’d gotten his hands on someone’s soul retly, he may have reversed the ravages of time.

  “Melissa,” he said, addressing my tormentor. “I see you’ve found your quarry in record time this time. Excellent, although for ime, not in here, please. The rug, blood, they don’t mix well.”

  Like he hadn’t sacrificed people on this rug.

  “You were right on who set off the work, boss,” Melissa said as her two goons dragged me the rest of the way inside. “Harrow here cims she has informatioed to Voltar she wants to rey.”

  “I think I may know what that is,” he said, putting his shoe under my and using it to tilt my head back till I could see him staring down at me. “You doing alright, Malvia?”

  “Doing alright,” I said, or at least tried to. Instead, I dribbled blood all over his carpet and boot while something resembling words passed through my beat-up face. Versalicci’s partner looked down in disgust, bag away as more blood dripped onto the carpet.

  “Yeah, that sounds abht,” Versalicci said, as if he could actually hear me. “It is holy o see you again. You should have e on over sooner. You might have avoided something like this happening. Melissa, whie of the sentries decided it was a good idea to beat up my little sister?”