Matabar-Chapter 65 - 64 - Autopsy

Ardan sat there, twirling a pencil between his fingers — an annoying habit he’d picked up from Kelly, who often spent his evenings in the kitchen, working on documents and reports — and stared at the half-finished design of a seal. His mind was elsewhere entirely.

A Tazidahian chimera, a weird, shadowy Order, demonologists… His head was spinning. The tangled threads he’d been trying to unravel over the past few months now seemed more like a twisted web with a spider — or perhaps the Spider — sitting smugly at its center.

Was there a link between what Selena had said she’d somehow retained the ability to speak, thanks to shadows that had replaced her damaged tongue and the scene Ardi had witnessed in the palace? Or was it simply a coincidence? The problem was that, these days, far too many "coincidences" seemed to be popping up.

"Today, my lovely audience, I stand ready to present one of the classical varieties of seals," came the honeyed tones of Professor Talis an Manish from somewhere in the background. "Back in the days when I had no need to imbibe a special tea before meeting my beloved — ah, how times have changed! —these seals were called ’delayed action’ seals. Rest assured, I’m not referring to the sort of… physical delays one might face after a hearty meal…"

As always, the squat and somewhat plump, but exceedingly kind silver-haired native of Al’Zafir was delivering his lecture like a lively oration. He paced at the front of the auditorium, letting his eloquence shine through.

Ardan cast a sideways glance at the seat where Selena usually sat. It was near Elena’s spot — who also happened to be absent. Five days had passed since the events in the sewer (a laughable description of such things, but no less true). By all appearances, everyone else had already forgotten how they’d once quivered in terror amid the city’s darkened gloom.

Ardan had not.

He kept flicking the pencil around his fingers, trying — at the very least — to find a spot where he could begin unraveling the knot of questions in his mind.

"If you’d please look right here," an Manish said, tapping the board with his pointer. It was displaying a nested, freeform array of a dynamic type. Ardan recognized the concept from the assigned reading Convel and Aversky had given him. "This particular subtype of arrays is referred to as dynamic. Perhaps that’s the case because its nuances often slip through the tender minds of our first-year students. Please, do take notes, and may the inventors of these convenient writing devices be thrice blessed. A dynamic array can contain up to four properties, activated separately or simultaneously, depending on internal or external structural conditions. Now, what does that imply…"

Resting his cheek on one hand, Ardan doodled aimless scrawls in the margins of his notebook. A dynamic array… like the one that, for example, had stopped the Cloaks from shooting Selena in the sewer until she’d been too preoccupied fighting him. If she’d had an invisible shield with a free dynamic array instead, it might have triggered under certain conditions and wiped them all out on the spot. That was why the various security forces always kept a few mages around — to deal with other mages.

But in truth, for all its complexity, there was nothing all that overwhelming about a free dynamic array… unless you had to craft one yourself. Then it became a matter of meticulous planning, calculation, and analysis of runic interactions in a geometric progression.

To illustrate the point, one only needed to look at two similar shields, side by side: the first could contain, for example, the most straightforward fixed static array, with up to two properties described by 32 runes. But the second, a shield that would have a free dynamic array, might require a sudden jump to 128 runes. Sketching that many runes on paper — without making even one mistake — was difficult enough, let alone memorizing them and weaving them together with your own Ley energy before you grew old.

And that was all presuming that you’d only used a single Star in that spell.

A complex, three-Star shield with a free dynamic array wasn’t tricky because of the number of runes that could be used (the Faе "alphabet" only had a 142 of them in total) but the endless combinations you might create with them, all of them bound by special Ley transitions. That was a topic for the advanced courses of the university’s Military Faculty.

After all, nearly three quarters of those who graduated from the Grand did so wearing a green cloak. Only a handful would wear blue ones, with the most notable exceptions usually coming from the Military and Healing Faculties.

Unlike the other departments — where a second Star was not a requirement until the end of the third year, and a third Star was needed for one to graduate — both the Military and Healing Faculties required one to ignite a new Star every two years.

Why was Ardan pondering all of this right now?

Because of Selena.

No matter how quick-witted she’d been, Ardi still held firm to the belief that when she had first enrolled at the university, her knowledge of Star Engineering — and especially the restricted domains of Demonology and Chaos Magic — had been minimal at best. And yet, that seal she’d drawn on the floor had definitely been strategic magic, and so advanced that even a top-tier graduate of the Grand might have struggled with it. Ardi honestly doubted that most Magisters or even Senior Magisters could have pulled it off.

Which meant someone had trained Selena. Someone of at least a Senior Magister’s caliber. And they’d trained her specifically in demonology.

But if you accepted that as fact, the next question obviously became: why would a person so well-versed in forbidden knowledge need the Staff of Demons at all? He was asking himself that because Selena had used certain nodes in her spells — the same ones Ardi had tried to decipher from his copy of Talia’s seals.

Maybe the people behind Selena and the ones who’d attacked the train were two separate groups? If so, why were both sides chasing after demons? Or maybe Ardan was missing something, and the seals related to the Staff of Demons had some other value that yet eluded him? That might’ve been true if it was only one group pulling all the strings. But if it really was two groups, then their motives were a genuine mystery to him.

"And for the next two months," the professor continued, "we shall spend our time not gazing into the reflections of our souls in one another’s eyes, but studying the properties and principles of the fixed static array. It is far simpler than the free dynamic type, but it will still open up new heights for us in our Starry craft."

Ardan flipped a page in his notebook and scratched at his head.

All right, he would presume that there was an undefined number of groups in play. Then… how did Boris’ medallion fit into all of this? It hadn’t been used for Selena’s plan, right? The statuette from Baliero had indeed been part of her ritual, but the Staff of Demons and Boris’ medallion did not fit comfortably into this pattern.

Actually, wait.

They were linked — both artifacts had once belonged to Lady Talia.

Which meant that… That…

Ardan buried his face in his hands. His head throbbed from all these disjointed theories.

And if he took a further step back, remembering how bandits had tried to abduct both him and Boris last summer… For a while, Ardan had assumed that they’d wanted to set him up as the scapegoat for a terrorist attack. But as he was coming to realize, in order to do what Selena had tried to do, a person had to go along with it willingly. This meant that Ardan would never have made the right kind of pawn.

Which only made the entire puzzle collapse like a shaky house of cards.

That scheme in the sewers had not been a trifling ritual designed for a novice Star Mage to enact. Attempting to turn a city of millions into a Dead Land was unheard-of. Beyond monstrous.

"You’ve already encountered fixed static arrays before," Professor an Manish said, rocking in the chair behind the podium. "But you couldn’t always identify them on sight. Today, I shall lift the veil a fraction so that you might see them more clearly. In short — like a young romantic’s first love — a fixed static array does not change a seal’s properties after the seal takes shape; rather, it adds them during its formation. Meanwhile, the dynamic array can adjust them after the seal forms. Like sending a letter to the future."

And yet, to facilitate Selena’s attempt, they’d only provided her with a single chimera, however fearsome it might’ve been. Apart from Selena herself, there’d been no one else down there at all — just the Cloaks who’d followed her trail. A single mage and one chimera had surely not been expected to pull off a plot that had threatened to flood the Imperial capital with demons. It all seemed so… foolish.

So much effort invested, so many lives lost… And yet they’d done practically nothing to guarantee their villainous plan’s success. It was as if her handlers had never had any real faith that she’d succeed. Then what was the point? A distraction? Possibly.

But a distraction from what?

Again, that Tazidahian chimera came to mind. If the puzzle’s designer had wanted to mislead the would-be solver of it by introducing random elements, it could very well be a deliberate red herring. But Ardan then had to consider the most recent incident on the train — foreign infiltrators had been involved there as well.

So maybe it really was multiple organizations?

And what about the Order of the Spider and the Homeless Fae that he’d encountered in the Palace of the Kings of the Past? A coincidence?

Ardan dropped the pencil and ran his fingers through his hair, half-hoping he’d discover some hidden switch on his scalp that he could flip and put his racing thoughts in order. If their attention had indeed been diverted twice now — once by Selena and once by the chimera — what were they covering up? No mention of anything suspicious had surfaced in the newspapers, or even in the rumor mill at "Bruce’s." The winter solstice had brought its usual surge of petty banditry and break-ins around the outskirts of the city, but nothing beyond that.

So then… Why?

What was it all for?

And most importantly, who? Who was behind it all?

A faint, barely-audible tapping came from a spot near Ardan’s shoulder. He whirled around to see a plump-looking pigeon perched atop a heap of snow on the narrow ledge beyond the window.

A pigeon? Maybe they were watching him through that bird. Or maybe the pigeon itself was the piece he was missing. Could there be a hidden Pigeon Sect working alongside the Order of the Spider, its members lurking…

Ardan waved a hand and hissed under his breath at the "winged rat," as city folk called them due to their fondness for dumpsters, but the bird simply ruffled its feathers and refused to budge.

No, this was just his overstressed mind going off the rails.

"Student Egobar."

Ardi stiffened, rising from his seat so abruptly he almost knocked the desk over. Professor an Manish stood at the podium in front of the amphitheater, eyeing him with a squint and a challenging smirk.

"Since you seem so engrossed in your battle with our feathered observer, perhaps you’ve already solved the formula that I, in my negligence — unaware of your far more pressing struggle — wrote on the board a quarter hour ago?"

Ardan shot a quick glance at the chalkboard. Scrawled across half the board was the formula for calculating the rays required for a given volume of kinetic energy. It glowed faintly under the Ley-lamps.

It was nothing complicated, not for him. He’d been solving these ray calculations since his second month of classes, and doing it almost as easily as Skusty devoured pinecone seeds.

"Three rays," he answered confidently.

"And the type?" an Manish pressed him.

Ardan turned to the next board over, where a modified version of the classic training shield was displayed. It was likely the focus of today’s calculations.

"It’s a dissipating type," he said with a shrug.

The professor didn’t seem the least bit surprised by Ardan’s quick replies. Instead, he set his chalk down on the corner of the table.

"And your proposal for how to improve it, Student Egobar?"

The Grand gave no grades or test scores for one’s daily performance, only end-of-the-year and monthly exam results. Nonetheless, every class had volunteers (or the volunteered) going up to the board regularly; it was a rare chance to receive direct advice from a professor.

Ardan generally avoided doing so, however, preferring to figure out solutions on his own — his forest friends had taught him that much — but he also knew that an invitation from an Manish was a valuable opportunity. Grabbing his grimoire, he walked down the steps to the podium, took a piece of chalk, and approached the seal diagram.

"What are the requirements?" He asked, studying the layout.

Behind him, the entire first-year group stopped their note-taking and eyed him, waiting to see what he’d do.

"That’s up to you, Student Egobar," the professor replied in a playful tone. "Turn this seal into something that not only dissipates the projectile’s kinetic energy, but also surprises your opponent."

Ardan scratched at the back of his head in his usual manner (lacking his staff, he used the spine of his grimoire instead) and started drawing on the blackboard at a brisk pace.

First, he converted the primary structure from a two-contour design into a three-contour one, allowing room for an additional array. To keep the seal within the limit of three rays, he reduced the density of runes, lowered some properties, and weeded out the redundancies.

Then, to make the shield more versatile than an armored slab of stone, he introduced a free dynamic array. It was apparently the same type of array they’d discussed at the start of class, when Ardan had been lost in his own thoughts.

At some point, an Manish gave a disapproving huff and leaned on his staff, heaving himself to his feet. He stepped up behind Ardan. Meanwhile, the young man, perhaps getting carried away, had added a nested transition seal intended to store energy for a brief moment, so that the shield wouldn’t just dissipate the projectile’s force, but accumulate it — if only for a second or two — at a fixed point in space. If you were quick enough to create your own physical projectile right then, you’d bypass the need to generate any acceleration, using the "stolen" force instead.

He could have tossed in an absorption structure as well, but that would’ve definitely pushed things past a Red Star’s limitations, and Ardan still wasn’t allowing himself to jump ahead. Once he lit his next Star, then-

"Student Egobar," came an Manish’s voice, breaking through the fervor of Ardan’s calculations, "if I don’t interrupt you now, we’ll need another board to finish all of this."

Indeed, Ardan had filled two boards by now and was already crowding the bottom of a third.

"So then, let’s see what you’ve conjured up," the professor said, nudging Ardan aside to take back the chalk. "The load-redistribution node is somewhat — pardon my tautology — overloaded. You might use fewer runes there." The chalk gleamed in an Manish’s surprisingly nimble hand. His stout physique would probably make most people assume he was slow. "Also, your first array is fixed in the wrong segment of the contour. Shift it lower to free up extra space for a smoother energy flow. That auxiliary array may look clever, but it weighs down the entire system. You could remove it if you just added one more contour. Then you’d be able to distribute the runic load between them without requiring an array. True, the shield would be slower and maybe weaker, but we’re not exactly shielding ourselves from real bullets here, just working through a problem."

Ardan cleared his throat and stepped back. Indeed, in his mind, the "projectile" had been a bullet from a revolver.

Professor an Manish spent another ten minutes correcting and explaining his improvements. By the time he’d finished, Ardan’s first diagram had been wiped away and replaced with a new one.

"But if you consider it in the right light," an Manish said, nodding vigorously, "it’s rather good work for a third-year."

Ardan coughed.

"Yes, Student Egobar?"

"Uh, you’re currently teaching a first-year class, Professor," Ardan said gently.

The professor turned around, gazing for a moment at the wide-eyed first-year students who were drifting steadily toward bewilderment. Then he shook his head and set the chalk down on a cushion atop the desk.

"By the Sands and the Temples, Student Egobar," he said in a near-whisper that was quiet enough to ensure none of the front rows could overhear them. "What am I supposed to do with you three years from now, hmm? Hand you a personalized Magister-level syllabus?"

"Is that even allowed?" Ardan asked with genuine curiosity.

An Manish stared at him as though he were wondering if Ardi was messing with him.

"Return to your seat," he ordered, a flicker of annoyance in his tone, then switched back to his usual smile for the class. "And now, thanks to our colleague here, we’ve glimpsed how arrays and contours can lead us into such dizzying depths that we nearly lose sight of the original problem! Who among you would like to help us climb back down from the high peaks of theory to something more practical? You there, young lady…"

"Lina Lill," responded a girl wearing the Biology and Alchemy Faculty’s badge.

"Step right up," the professor encouraged.

Returning to his seat, Ardan glanced at the pigeon. For some reason, it continued to fluff itself up and tilt its head to one side, blinking its beady little eyes at him.

Ardi, after covertly aiming a rude gesture at the bird, produced from his satchel a small jar of pills that contained painkillers and anti-inflammatory meds from the Cloaks’ physicians. His Matabar blood had already healed his leg to the point it barely throbbed, and his chest only reminded him of his injury when he was lying down. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry…

This narrative has been purloined without the author’s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

The lecture dragged on for another half hour. Afterwards, Ardan followed the stream of students to the atrium, intending to head for the library, when he felt a sharp heat in his pants pocket.

It turned out to be coming from Milar’s medallion. He could only hope the matter didn’t involve Homeless Fae or demons, because the salary of a Cloak plus his apprenticeship with Aversky weren’t sounding quite so appealing anymore if it did.

Hadn’t Din mentioned something about a bonus…

Collecting his autumn coat from the cloakroom, Ardan stepped outside, heading for the spot where the captain had picked him up last time. The snow, as always, continued its lazy dance through the air, drifting down over Star Square. A few scattered students, fewer still professors, and bundled-up workers in scarves and fur-lined coats were sweeping the cobblestones tirelessly with their shovels.

Occasionally, the little tram bell would chime as a trolley pulled in at the stop, spat out its passengers into the open, then — with another ring — trundled off to somewhere else in the city.

Mart had been right when he’d joked that the Metropolis had five months of winter, five months of autumn, six weeks of spring, and two of summer. And, all in all, Ardan liked that.

Holding his staff close, he lifted his face toward the soft crystals of ice drifting down, closing his eyes against the snowfall. Somewhere overhead, beyond those low, gray clouds that clung tightly to each other like fortress walls, the sky itself was hidden. He would’ve liked to at least glimpse those infinite plains of carefree azure where, in his childhood, Ardan had loved flying on Kaishas’ back.

Kaishas would, from time to time, flap his four wings and carry his young companion into a realm far beyond mortal ground, where fluffy giants had replaced the mountains, the winding rivers below would turn into distant, dreamlike brushstrokes, and the stars… Oh, the stars had seemed close enough that you could reach out, tear a pair free, and keep them for yourself.

In Evergale’s school, Ardi had learned that stars were not the eyes of the Sleeping Spirits, but massive orbs of plasma sustained by "thermonuclear reactions" instead. The night sky was not the wings of the Spirit of the Night, but the endless, cold silence of space. He had even peered through their old, many-times-repaired school telescope at the planet’s moon and a few other satellites in their solar system.

Science. It was no less mysterious than Star Magic.

Ardi sometimes wanted nothing more than to stand there with his face upturned, letting the snowflake-kissed air fill his lungs, breathing in a glimmer of that genuine magic hidden among the peaks of the Alkade, and tucked away just as secretly into the twists of narrow alleys and the grand avenues, or reflected, albeit faintly, in the often-rusty rooftops of the Metropolis’ central districts.

"How’s the weather up there?"

"Where?" Ardi asked Milar, and then he shivered a little, remembering that once, long ago, he’d begun a conversation with his grandfather in a similar way.

The captain had stopped behind him, engine still running, then stepped out of his car. He lit a cigarette, which he’d produced from a shiny new case, pressed it between his lips, shielded a flick of his lighter with one hand, and inhaled sweetly.

"Up top," Milar said at last.

Ardan realized that the captain wasn’t talking about the distant foothills of his homeland, but remarking on their difference in height (Milar was barely 170 centimeters tall). Still, Ardi found himself wanting to talk about home.

"At the beginning of the year, when the sun lingers before coming at dawn — we call it the Eye of the Spirit of the Day —the sky catches fire with golden light," Ardi said, eyes still closed, recalling those distant horizons. "The wind is so cold that it can make your teeth chatter. And all around you, for hundreds of kilometers, it’s just the sleeping mountains, too stubborn to wake at such an early hour. Their snowy crests shine brighter than any rainbow. Meanwhile, off to the west, upon the Spirit of the Night’s wings, drift the pale lights of the sky. All you need to do is climb the highest peak, sit down, close your eyes against the glare of the sunrise, and breathe."

"Just breathe, huh?"

"Yeah." Ardi nodded, eyes still shut. "In, out. In, out. It feels like the whole world is breathing with you. In, out."

Milar smoked in silence, taking a few more drags. After a long pause, he finally observed, "Sounds lonely, that place."

"Lonely?" Ardi sounded surprised. "No, Captain. Not at all. The wind and stone are with you, the snow, the sky. The shadows of the clouds, and that endless horizon. They whisper to you, telling stories older than any living soul. The mountains aren’t lonely, Milar. They’re calm. Your heartbeat evens out there."

The captain snorted and spat into a snowbank. "You’re a romantic, Magister."

"I don’t know… Maybe. Is that a bad thing?"

"Hell if I know," Milar grumbled, shrugging. "But I’ll say this: romantic types don’t last long in this business. They die — heroically, of course — but they die all the same."

"Is it such a bad thing to die a hero?"

"Heroic deaths, Magister, imply a failure of command," Milar intoned as if he were quoting someone else. "Where the commanding officer doesn’t fail, there are no heroes. Only soldiers following orders."

Ardan opened his eyes. A little streetcar had just rattled to a stop in front of them, its operator bleary-eyed and wheezing, taking weary sips from a thermos at every chance. Milar stamped out his cigarette against the sole of his shoe and, with a practiced flick, tossed it into a nearby trash can.

There was no shortage of bins in the Metropolis, ranging from plain iron boxes huddling at street corners to grandiose, granite urns more suited to a botanical garden. Even in winter (save for the outskirts), the city remained remarkably clean. Throw your trash on the ground within a guard’s line of sight, and you risked a stiff fine — though it was mostly about courtesy, seeing as how daytime patrols weren’t all that common.

"Let’s get moving," Milar said, gesturing for Ardi to hop in. He ducked back into the driver’s seat of his car, shaking loose snow from his boots so that he wouldn’t track it inside.

"Where to?" Ardi asked as he settled in beside him.

"The autopsy," the captain replied, wiping condensation from the glass cover of three gauges showing speed, engine rotation, and fuel level. Ardan was fairly decent on horseback and loved to ride, but he still found the process of driving puzzling despite his adolescent admiration for it.

"Selena’s body has finished its business with the Star Mages. They handed her off to Alice," Milar said, glancing at his watch. "We should make it in time."

They started toward the Black House. Ardan took the opportunity to press his cheek against the window and soak in the sights of the snow-covered homes outside, many of which resembled palaces. Amid these seemingly endless rows of ornate, colorful buildings, it was growing ever harder for him to distinguish a mere apartment complex from someone’s private estate, and Ardi had all but given up trying.

They left Star Avenue for Three Bridges Boulevard, then, after about fifteen minutes, turned onto the Crookedwater Canal, following it along the embankment.

The cityscapes on either side of the frozen water contrasted starkly with each other. On the side Ardan and Milar were on, the buildings looked like they’d stepped straight out of paintings, each of them lovelier than the last. On the opposite bank, the air was already darkened by factory smog, and off to the right, the outlines of skyscrapers rose through the falling snow.

"Milar-" Ardan began.

"If you’re wondering whether Alexander and Din will keep quiet about that… little ’issue’ of yours," the captain interrupted him, "they will. We’re all one department, one team, one squad — call it whatever you like."

"That’s not what I was going to say."

"What’s on your mind, then?" Milar asked.

Ardi cleared his throat, feeling heat bloom across his cheeks, and asked in a low murmur, "Where in the capital might one take a lady out on a… date?"

Milar spluttered, and in his shock, he nearly swerved into the oncoming lane. Fortunately, the road was almost empty at this time of day. "What do you… I mean… That was a stupid question for me to ask," he muttered. Then he cracked his neck and leaned back in the squeaky leather seat. "I can suggest a few cafés with a nice view of the Palace Embankment, but they aren’t cheap."

"I doubt that would impress her," Ardan sighed, remembering the kinds of flashy cars Tess’ suitors sometimes drove. They could probably take her to the most luxurious restaurant in town without even blinking at the expense.

"Ah, so not a simple one, is she?" Milar winked slyly. "Well, if not a café, then… a stroll in the Dawn Garden or any other park isn’t all that great in winter. What does she like to do?"

"She… likes to sing," Ardan said, only now realizing that he knew next to nothing about Tess aside from what she’d told him about her family.

"Then take her dancing," the captain said at once. "I’ll jot down a good address once we get back. It’s a place in a beautiful part of town. My wife and I met there, in fact."

"Dancing," Ardan echoed uncertainly. "Isn’t that a bit… clichéd? Surely everyone takes women dancing."

"Oh, my young, naive partner." Milar’s roguish grin shifted to one of nostalgia. "For a woman, dancing is nothing like it is for us men. We find it equally torturous no matter who we’re dancing with. But for them… it’s a language all its own. I swear by the Eternal Angels, if you let a woman dance two songs with you, she’ll be able to discern truths you’re afraid to tell yourself."

Ardan cleared his throat awkwardly and hunched his shoulders like a pigeon might — maybe even the one that had come to spy on an Manish’s lecture.

"The trick is to make it a surprise," Milar continued. "Don’t play it out too stiffly, but act like you just ’noticed’ it while strolling by. She’ll likely protest — saying she’s wearing the wrong dress, uncomfortable shoes, you can do it next time — but you have to brush it off like it’s some spur-of-the-moment adventure, not just flailing your arms and legs around. Women love little adventures even more than dancing."

Ardan blinked slowly. Fate, apparently, delighted in mocking him, seeing as how he loathed both adventures and dancing. Adventures only made him want to flee back to the comforts of books, diagrams, and experiments (which he still had to postpone, though on the seventh day, he planned to visit the Spell Market right after checking in on Boris and Elena). As for dancing, it mostly inspired a creeping sense of numbness in him. The same trouble he had with his fine motor skills that made it difficult for him to handle utensils or write properly with pen and ink also meant dancing was a challenge.

But such was life…

"The Seventeenth Division’s taken our spot," Milar muttered through gritted teeth as they arrived at the small lot where the Second Chancery agents typically parked. "I’ll pay them back for this."

He spent five minutes circling around, finally found a spot by squeezing in between two nearly identical cars, killed the engine, and pulled a cover from the trunk to throw over the vehicle.

As they approached the grand entrance of the imposing building, Ardan slowed, expecting Milar to pause and light up again. But the captain kept going.

Ah, of course — superstition demanded that this ritual be performed only when three or more people were entering the Black House together. Today, it was just them.

The captain flashed his papers to the bored guards. Then the duo ducked into the wardrobe area, changed into regulation attire, and started wandering the twisting hallways of the first floor.

Much like last time, there was nothing worth studying in detail. The same carpets, the same bland photos and potted plants, the same endless tulle curtains, and all those innumerable doors from which silent staff would emerge only to then vanish again through a different pair of doors.

The difference was that now, in these calmer circumstances, Ardan could pick up more scents: wood, varnish, stale cigarette smoke, and secrets. Secrets so thick and unnerving that Ardi preferred not to think about them at all.

After turning right a couple of times and making their way through a few corridors, he and Milar finally reached their goal. The captain tugged on a tin handle, slowly pushed open the door, and ushered Ardan into a narrow vestibule. Only after closing the first door did he open the second one, revealing a fairly spacious room.

A familiar chemical tang hit Ardan’s nose: a mix of formalin, faint wisps of choking formaldehyde (they were apparently so minimal that humans couldn’t detect them normally), a whiff of alcohol, and the pungent smell of herbal tea. Underfoot, the floor all but sparkled, with its diamond-patterned tiles scrubbed to a dull shine. Along the dark gray walls, rows of glass-fronted shelves held thick folders, surgical-grade instruments, and jars of cloudy amber fluid in which various human body parts had been preserved.

At the far end, near a curtained window, stood a desk bearing little more than a closed thermos and a teacup, around which steam faintly danced.

Along the left side of this long, narrow room, stood three more tables of a different sort. They looked like steel slabs mounted on adjustable mechanisms with pedals to raise and lower them. Low-hanging lamps hovered overhead, and each table sloped subtly toward a drain at the far edge. Next to them, a gurney waited. Farther along, set into the wall, were a dozen square steel doors. Each of them was about half a meter wide, with cardboard nametags resting inside labeled slots.

Alice Rovnev was approaching one of those doors.

Milar shivered a little, as if he were cold, but Ardan felt nothing in particular — maybe there was a bit of a chill in the air, but his Matabar blood made him all but indifferent to it.

"Mind giving me a hand?" Alice called over her shoulder without turning around.

She wore a white medical coat over a thick sweater that lay atop a practical, ankle-length brown dress. Ardan also spotted a pair of fur-lined boots that looked more comfortable than professional. She bore down on the squeaking handle of the door labeled "Selena Lorlov, fem., 18," then yanked it free.

Milar sprang over to assist her in pulling out a long, steel tray. On it, under a grayish sheet, lay a body.

It took Ardan a moment to muster the courage to follow him. He fought off the sudden urge to turn around and leave.

He barely managed to resist it. And when he came to stand next to the captain, he also shuddered. Not from the cold, but from the sight that met him once Alice drew back the sheet: a face whose pallor matched stone.

Her scalp was partially shaved, and her hair had been neatly gathered into a bun. Along her old hairline stretched a hideous, hastily-sewn scar wrapping around her skull; below that, her neck looked bruised and like it had folded in on itself like crumpled cloth; and lower still, there were her chest and belly with a patch of skin slashed away…

Ardan turned aside.

He felt a pang of guilt, as though he were brazenly intruding on the dead.

"She won’t care now, Ard," Alice said softly, though with an unyielding undertone to her words.

"Right," Milar puffed out a breath. He fished his cigarette case from his pocket and lit up again, exhaling smoke like a little locomotive. "Want one?"

"Sure. I forgot mine," Alice said with a nod.

They both started smoking, and surprisingly, it made the air slightly more bearable. The sharp stench of tobacco overrode the lurking smells of this silent domain of death.

"Ard carved up her seal pretty badly," Alice remarked, holding a scalpel in one hand and her cigarette in the other as she pointed to the incisions on Selena’s belly, "but we were able to reconstruct part of it. I’ll give you a copy before you go."

"I-"

"Milar, have I ever told you that you have the same bad habit as my ex-husband?" Alice’s eyes flashed sternly despite her otherwise gentle countenance. "Neither of you ever let me finish."

"Right… sorry," the captain said, raising his hands in apology.

"As I was saying," Alice continued, tapping the scalpel over the incision, "the design was placed under her skin with a thin, long needle loaded with special ink — most likely the same kind used by sketchy tattoo artists. I’m afraid I can’t help more than that."

"Not that I was trying to… sorry," Milar broke in, then cut himself off again. "Go on."

"Thank you." She gave him a prim nod. "So, the needles themselves don’t tell us much, but the ink does. It’s an unusual composition." Alice produced a small vial containing a few scarlet crystals. "It’s based on Iashint algae."

"On… what?"

"Iashint algae," Alice and Ardan said in unison.

She glanced at the trainee, then motioned for him to go on. "Iashint algae…" Ardi began, recalling a lecture by Professor Kovertsky. "They grow on the coast of the Anachreon Sea, north of Selkado. They’re bright red. At first glance, they seem pretty ordinary, but they possess a rare trait — they produce negative Ley."

"Negative… what?" Milar frowned.

"They can shield you from the Ley," Alice clarified. "Tribal tattoos often use them or similar flora. Alexander, for example, has tattoos based on a resin from Ragtik trees, which are found in the Brotherhood’s northern regions near N’gia and also up on the Long Peninsula."

"That’s the one west of the Dancing… something…? Sorry, geography’s not my strong suit."

"I’m not surprised," Alice said, waving a hand dismissively.

"All right, let’s pretend I didn’t ask why on earth plants that repel the Ley were used in a flippin’ Ley-based seal," Milar grunted. "I can already guess that you’d hand me over to the mage for a lecture-"

"I don’t know why either," Ardi said thoughtfully.

"Nor do Aversky and his fellow Star Mages," Alice added. "It’s a really tough question. Though maybe not the biggest one we’re facing."

"Which is…?"

"Well," Alice said, "neither Ragtik resin nor Iashint algae take kindly to storage. Their special properties fade within half an hour once they’re extracted from the source, so you apply them to the tattoo as quickly as possible."

Ardan and Milar exchanged glances. Their puzzle just kept producing new pieces.

"Are you saying they whisked a demonologist halfway across the planet and back again under everyone’s nose? That’s an eight to ten-month-long trip!" Milar exclaimed.

"It’ll take a full year, if you’re lucky," Alice corrected, flicking ash into a floor drain. She folded her arms across her ample chest — Ardi immediately averted his gaze, a memory of the Crimson Lady’s establishment flashing through his mind… Damn his hormones. "But I doubt that’s what happened. It’s more likely that these mysterious opponents of ours found a way to preserve the algae’s properties, then brought some here."

"Makes sense," Milar sighed. "Means I’ll have to add the port to my route. Fine, it’s something, at least. Iashint algae from Selkado and Tazidahian chimeras both appearing in the capital might not be proof of foreign involvement, but at least it’s a lead… Anything else to cheer us up with?"

"I wouldn’t have called you here otherwise." Alice nipped at her cigarette and pulled the sheet back over Selena’s remains, sliding the "tray" back into its icy slot and shutting the door. "Let’s go."

Milar and Ardan followed her over to her desk. Alice moved her teacup aside, put the thermos on the windowsill, then hefted a big black microscope onto the table along with two small boxes.

In the larger box, a human brain floated in an amber-colored solution. In the smaller one, something like a caddy full of slides sat, each groove within it holding a pair of glass plates, with thin slices of that same brain pressed between them like some sickly piece of parchment.

"Have a seat," Alice said, placing one of the slides onto the microscope’s stand. "Not you, blockhead." She grabbed Milar’s arm before he could move in. "You wouldn’t see anything in there. Ard, come on."

Ardan settled onto the stool, brought an eye down to the rubber eyepiece, and turned the gears to focus the lens and crystals, waiting for the fuzzy image to sharpen.

After a few seconds of adjusting — he’d had plenty of practice in Professor Kovertsky’s classes — and careful positioning, because these high-end microscopes cost as much as a decent automobile, Ardan spotted the hallmarks of a Star Mage’s brain matter.

He’d learned from History class that when a mage "lit" a Star, it formed a new structure in their brain, which would then burn away at the moment of death, leaving a distinct lesion behind. One could count these marks postmortem to determine the mage’s strength.

Within the tissue sample, Ardan spotted four tiny spots that looked as if they’d been seared into place with a needle.

"She had four Stars," he said slowly, still peering into the viewer.

"That’s all you can see, Ard?" Alice asked, surprised. Then she threw up her hands. "Right, you’re not taught all the nuances. Fine, move over."

Remembering Kovertsky’s instructions, Ardan closed his eyes first, then pulled back from the eyepiece, waited a few moments, and only then opened them again. It was much like letting your vision adapt to darkness, but in reverse.

"Postmortem Star marks typically have a diameter that corresponds to each Star’s number of rays," Alice explained. "And each ray is roughly a hundred micrometers wide."

"Micro… what?" Milar asked, just as confused as before.

"It’s a unit of measure that’s one thousandth of a millimeter," Ardan recited automatically. "It was first used during the Fatian Massacre for calibrating artillery range scopes."

"A walking encyclopedia, you are," Milar grumbled. "Sure, let’s say that’s enough detail for now. But why’s it matter to us?"

"It matters because Selena’s first Star left a four-hundred-micrometer mark," Alice said, gently locking the expensive microscope away. "But all the others only measure a hundred each."

"So, she somehow managed to light three new Stars in half a year, all with a single ray apiece?" Ardan marveled.

"Not exactly," Alice corrected. "Postmortem Star lesions also have density, depth — lots of elements I won’t clutter your investigation-focused minds with. The bottom line is, my colleagues and I concluded that Selena never lit those Stars herself."

"What do you mean?" Ardan and Milar asked in unison.

"Exactly that," Alice said with a shrug. "They were implanted artificially, like accumulators in a generator. How? We have no idea. Probably no one does, other than the very people who performed the procedure. By the way," she turned to Ardan "we checked your demonization theory, cross-referencing old archives from the early experiments in that field, but found no sign that she ever made any progress in that direction in Selena’s body."

"So that means…"

Alice turned away, eyes closed, and nodded once.

Milar cursed under his breath.

Ardan’s heart lurched. All those children, those dozens of innocent souls… had been slaughtered for nothing. They’d conned Selena into believing she could grow more powerful from the blood spilled, but in reality… they’d simply used some unknown method to grant her partial Stars.

So why kill the children at all? Another question that still had no answer.

"The process, however, doesn’t last long," Alice said after a pregnant pause.

"What do you mean?" Milar asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Whatever method they used to implant these additional Stars caused severe side effects, including a necrosis that spread across the surrounding tissue," Alice explained, closing the small box of slides. "That might account for her confusion, mood swings, aggression, and even her cruelty. Regardless, even if she hadn’t broken her own neck, she wouldn’t have survived for more than a couple of weeks. And that death would’ve been long and painful enough to make a crippling migraine seem like a party by comparison."

A bleak hush fell over the lab, heavy with the reek of tobacco and faint whiffs of alcohol.

"Wonderful," Milar finally sighed. "We have Selkado algae, Tazidahian chimeras in the capital, artificially lit murder-Stars, and a grand pseudo-ritual that served no practical purpose. Perfect."

Ardan snapped his gaze to the captain. He wasn’t surprised Milar had pieced it all together. If anything, the young man felt a twinge of pride at the fact that his own thoughts mirrored a seasoned investigator’s.

"That’s why the Colonel hasn’t escalated our alertness level," Alice said, leaning back in her chair. "After the recent reforms, we’d have to present the Inquest Department with solid proof of a terrorist threat, and right now…"

"We’ve got nothing," Milar said with a helpless sigh. "A big donut-hole of nothing. Just a rancid stink."

"And you can’t jot down a smell in a case file, Captain," Alice added, putting out her cigarette. She dropped it into the overflowing ashtray she kept in a drawer, then produced a folder and the vial of red crystals. "I’ll be poking around another couple of days with what we’ve got. Maybe I’ll find something, but don’t expect too much."

"Oh, we won’t," Milar said, taking the folder and pocketing the vial. "Alice."

"Milar."

The captain turned on his heel and strode for the door. Ardan quickly followed. He paused at the threshold and looked back.

"Miss Rovnev-"

"You can just call me Alice."

"Right, yes. Alice, how do you pick flowers for a lady if you don’t know what kind she likes?"

Alice raised both eyebrows for a moment, then answered, "Pick the ones that make you think of her instead of the price tag."

"Thank you," Ardan said sincerely. "Alice."

"Ard."

He hurried out to join Milar in the corridor. Together, they went back down to the cloakroom, retrieved their things, bade farewell to the still-bored security staff, and emerged onto the street, returning to the car.

"I’ll think it over, Ardi," Milar said, resting his chin on one hand and drumming an uneven beat on the steering wheel with the other. "But I’m guessing we’ll have to start from scratch. Which means paying a visit to that diehard theatre fan."

"The Dandy?"

"You remembered. Good. But not today — we’ll probably do it next week."

"I-"

"If things were urgent, we’d see clearer signs," the captain cut him off. "No, this is a slow game. Selena was only a single move in the match. There’ll be more moves, though likely not anytime soon. What worries me, Magister, is that the enemy’s already placing pieces on the board, and we haven’t answered in kind — we don’t even know what game we’re playing yet."

This chapt𝓮r is updat𝒆d by ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom.

Milar turned the key in the ignition. They headed back toward the Central District.