KRONA
The gold in the cave wasn’t part of a highwayman’s hoard. The glint I’d seen was off a quintbarrel needle. Six of them lay in the dirt, catching the thin shafts of light that sliced between the stones. I recognized them for what they were—I’d seen Papa polish his needles and clean his quintbarrel many times, but he’d never allowed me to touch the ammunition or the gun. Papa will be so pleased if I bring these home, I thought. He’ll pat me on the head and tell me I’m his favorite daughter. I know he liked to tease us, telling us each in turn that we were the favorite—he thought it amusing—but I truly believed it was a competition. I gathered the needles as quickly as my little limbs could scramble. Clutching my treasure, ready to race you home, I made to climb back out. But that was when I heard a deep rumble in the cave. A growl.
Ascending the stairs was a chore. The air around Krona’s legs felt sticky and thick—like wading through honey. She stopped at a neighbor’s door—a retired healer on the ground floor of the building, who was often up with the first spikes of daylight.
The woman wasn’t much for human company, preferring instead the parrot from Asgar-Skan she let roam around her apartment freely. But she accepted Krona’s offered time vials in exchange for a quick stitch job over her sand-sealed wound.
“Still too early in the sand process to tell exactly what I’m looking at,” the old healer said. “Remember to get yourself to a working professional once the sand has worn off.”
She set a fresh bandage over the spot to catch any stray blood that might appear, and sent Krona on her way.
When Krona came to the deep-brown door of the apartment, she sighed heavily before managing the lock.
Acel Hirvath was used to her daughters coming and going at unholy times. Her husband had been in the elite heavy-pack Borderswatch, and it only made sense that her headstrong girls would inherit his need to serve Lutador.
So the elderly woman didn’t so much as blink twice when Krona came in, helm under one arm, expression like warmed death. Krona was not surprised to be hit full-on by the smell of burnt coffee and frying squab eggs when she strode through the door.
“I take it the party was a lively one,” Acel said, gaze flickering from frying pan to her youngest daughter’s face for a fraction of a second. She brushed her long, thick braid of gray hair out of the way as she plated the eggs and set them in the middle of the table. The rickety thing shifted, the barely-there weight of the eggs forcing it onto a different combination of its uneven legs.
“Livelier than it should have been.”
“Where’s De-Lia?”
“She hasn’t come home? Still at work, then.”
“But you threw in for the night?”
“It’s morning, Maman. And De-Lia sent me home.”
“So it is.” Acel was always direct, no matter how far a little graciousness might go. She sat down in one of the mismatched chairs that rounded the table, tucking a stained fabric napkin into the neckline of her housecoat. “Breakfast?”
Krona’s stomach turned over. “No, thank you.”
“Suit yourself.”
Wobbling slightly, Krona headed for the curtain that cordoned off her room. “Maman,” she said, drawing the thin drape back. “Please don’t hassle De-Lia when she comes home. It was a long night. It’s turning into a longer day.”
“Hassle? When have I ever hassled either of you?”
Krona bit her tongue and left the question unanswered.
Pulling the curtain flush with the wall, she lit the candle by her cot. A small, round window near the slanted ceiling let in a feeble glow from the morning sun, but not nearly enough for her tired eyes. The room—if it could really be called that—reminded her of the cubbies they kept the masks in: small, but comfortable, and specially formed to its occupant. A twin flame flickered in the mirror on her nightstand, and she glanced at it for the briefest of moments, catching a glimpse of her exhausted form. Her high cheekbones looked sharp instead of rounded, and her eyes puffy. Her full lips were overly chapped. All proof she needed sleep.
On a level shelf just under the window, a line of small clockwork items sat, ready to be dispatched into the world. She’d been collecting them for years now—a special currency for a nation of two.
She tore open both envelopes—the one from Rodrigo and the one from the jailhouse—with her teeth, placed them side by side on the bedspread, and proceeded to peel off her uniform as she read.
While gingerly tugging at the remains of her left sleeve, she realized her maman hadn’t asked about the bandages.
The first letter was a cypher. The second was written in code.
The message was short. It said the shopkeeper’s records were incorrect and had been altered. It insisted Shin-La HuRupier did not exist, and was likely not even the name given to the owner when Belladino’s mask had been rented.
How that could be possible, Krona wasn’t sure. The shop owner’s catalog was enchanted itself, and no one but the shopkeeper should have been able to alter it.
Was this some kind of insurance-related confidence gambit? Could the shop owner have created the forgery and altered his records, all while keeping the real mask in reserve, perhaps for a shady buyer?
Swaddled in her nightclothes, Krona tucked herself under the ragged old blanket, and swiftly set her many fine braids beneath a sleeping scarf. In the next moment her head fell to the pillow, and she slept more soundly than she had in weeks.
The scratch of metal loops against the rod roused Krona, and light from the kitchen flooded in as De-Lia threw the curtain back. “Get up,” she demanded, startling Krona awake.
A vivid image of their childhood home faded from Krona’s memory. “What is it?” she asked sleepily.
“A runner came from the den—he said there’s been a murder.”
Krona’s groggy mind wanted to snap, Not my department, but then she caught on. “Does it look like Charbon’s work—the work of the Mayhem Mask?”
“Yes.”
Already.
She tossed off the blankets, muttering curses. Thibaut’s envelopes caught in the billow and fluttered to the floor.
A sharp pinch and a dull throb had her grasping at her back before she could sit up. Her palm came away slick with blood. The stitching had held, but the old healer had missed the bottom edge of the wound.
Glimpsing blood on the sheets—and not where one might expect to find it now and again—De-Lia startled out of her impatient huff. “What’s that?” she demanded, rushing forward to grasp her sister’s uninjured forearm. “You’re hurt.”
Without waiting for an explanation, she pushed Krona onto her stomach. A red stain soaked her nightdress through, giving a ruby hue to the once light pink flowers that dotted the fabric. The cotton clung heavily to her skin, refusing to pull away at first when De-Lia tugged at it.
“This isn’t from the Jubilee…?” De-Lia asked.
“No. I—” Krona winced as De-Lia rucked up her nightclothes—partially because of the sting, mostly because of embarrassment. She wasn’t a little girl anymore who could be manhandled by her demanding older sibling. “There was … Thibaut was in trouble—”
“Say no more.” It was a demand more than a platitude. She didn’t want to hear about Krona’s “criminal friend,” which was her favorite dismissive. A cut she could handle—gruesome or not. A cut was straightforward, without moral implications in and of itself. How one obtained such a wound, though, spoke volumes. And this cut sang melodies De-Lia did not care for, in a song she wished hadn’t been written.
Official sanctions were neither here nor there in Krona’s arrangement with Thibaut. Regulators were not to associate with the likes of forgers, black market dealers, or con artists, no matter the tactical advantage. De-Lia generally glossed over Krona’s “ill-conceived” associations, as long as Krona remembered not to wave evidence of that association under her sister’s nose.
“How did Utkin only half stitch this?”
“I used salvation sand. And it wasn’t Utkin, I had Madame Ska-Dara from downstairs do it.”
“You should have returned to the den.”
“I was exhausted.”
“You’ve got to take better care of yourself.”
Krona pushed herself up on her elbows. “That’s a gem, coming from you.”
“What are you two bickering about?” Acel chimed from the kitchen.
“Nothing, Maman,” De-Lia insisted, leaving Krona’s side and exiting the cubby.
Clenching her jaw, gritting her teeth at the sharp throb throb throb of her back, Krona dropped her forehead to her pillow. She thanked De-Lia for her discretion—Acel did best when kept in the dark about certain aspects of their lives, injuries being a particularly important point to shy away from.
If their maman could pretend not to see an injury, she would. It was De-Lia, growing up, who’d doctored Krona’s scraped knees and stubbed toes. Anything more severe—anything that reminded her of her husband ripped open on the kitchen floor—Acel could not ignore, with frantic consequences. Worse still, she could not abide the sight of blood. If Acel laid eyes on Krona’s stab wound, De-Lia would have to spend more time soothing Acel, settling her panic, than tending to Krona.
After a brief, dismissive exchange with Acel, De-Lia reappeared, a bottle of whisky in one hand and first-aid measures in the other. “You’ll still have to see Master Utkin, understand,” she said, “but this’ll tide you over.”
A quick splash from the bottle cleared the cut of excess blood and grit. Krona bit into the fabric of her pillow, the line of her back pulling taut with the sudden sting, and she cursed between her teeth. De-Lia patted her shoulder sympathetically.
De-Lia’s fingers were practiced and tender, having attended to many a triage situation in the field. She worked Krona over just as quickly here, at home, as she would have at a park or amongst refuse bins in an alleyway.
As a final precaution, once she’d staunched the blood and pulled the wound closed, De-Lia wrapped Krona’s middle in a long swath of bandage, putting perpetual pressure on the cut.
“Done,” she declared flatly. “How did I do?”
Krona, sitting up fully, twisted and turned, testing the dressing.
“Ah—not too much of that,” De-Lia chided. “I’m no healer and this isn’t meant to last.”
“Thank you.”
De-Lia smiled sadly at her sister, brushing a fallen, curled braid from Krona’s forehead and tucking it behind Krona’s ear. “Of course. Now—” She slapped her knee playfully, standing to retrieve a twine-tied bundle from outside the cubby. “Here. I pulled it for you from the reserve. It might need tailoring, but should do for now.”
It was a new uniform. Krona couldn’t very well go out with a tattered sleeve, and now, a torn side. A Regulator had to be pressed and perfect—imposing and dignified.
“Put it on. We need to go before the trail grows cold.”
“Wait—what happened with the Martinets?” Krona asked as De-Lia turned to leave.
“I will be censured,” she said placidly. “How severely depends on how quickly we can recover the mask and the despairstone. And how much damage they cause in the interim.”
“Did you sleep any?”
“A little.” She ran a hand over the stubble on her head, not meeting Krona’s gaze. She was lying for the sake of brevity; they had someplace to be, now was not the time for an argument. “Hurry, please.”
“What’s the hour?”
“Late. Well after lunch.” De-Lia closed the curtain on her way out.
Wishing she had time for at least a sponge bath, she finished pulling on her boots and knotting back her braids. One quick glance at her bandages to make sure the seepage was minimal, and she was ready to work.
Both sisters kissed their mother, then headed back into the streets.
Louis Charbon had been a killer. And he’d liked it.
Some variation of Death is art was always written next to the bodies. Sometimes he’d written Death is Absolon Raoul Trémaux instead—a grotesque play on the savior’s initials. Sometimes with ink, sometimes with blood, sometimes with worse. He turned his victims into what he called “blooms”—disgusting parodies of flowers, splayed open, spread out in horrifying detail.
After his twelfth victim, the Dayswatch had taken him down. He’d screamed about dissection and conspiracy and the horror of the gods all the way to the noose.
Charbon was not Lutador’s most prolific murderer, but he was the most terrifying. Nothing can stop a man who thinks his violence is not only justified, but the epitome of virtue.
When the Watch hanged him, his “righteous” destruction should have ended forever.
How a Teleoteur, Eric Matisse, had created the mask, no one knew. But the why was both obvious and stomach-turning.
Only one man knew how to cut a body just so. Knew where to break it and where to bend it and how to bind it so that it no longer looked like a person, but a lovely rose or fragile daisy or intricate orchid. And only an equally misshapen psyche could want to preserve that knowledge for later retrieval.
He’d been dead ten years. But now Charbon was killing again.
Once they arrived at the abandoned storehouse, Krona kept back from the body for a moment, steeling herself.
She worked with artifacts. Most of her concerns were straightforward, simple locate-and-retrieve. Sometimes situations devolved into violence. Sometimes people died. But she’d never had to stare at someone whose insides had become their outsides.
Thankfully, a heavy black death sheet had been pulled over the poor person’s body. But it couldn’t conceal the smell. The victim was still fresh enough that the flies had not yet found it, so it wasn’t a stench she had to contend with, just a hint of sour wrongness in the air.
On the nearest wall was the expected message: Death is ART. But, in an unsettling twist, it didn’t stop there. In smaller blood-spatter, a little below the killer’s tagline, were four new stomach-churning words: The truth is coming.
Krona took a deep breath as the Dayswatchman yanked back the sheet for a moment, to let the Regulators confirm with their own eyes that this was indeed a bloom.
Her first impression was not of viscera, but a tiger lily. The reddish-purple petals drew upward and folded out in graceful arcs, and from the center of the bloom, a carpel and four stamens, all tanned, jutted toward the storehouse ceiling.
But the beauty only struck her for a moment, for an instant before her senses caught up with the reality of what lay before her. The petals were the victim’s abdomen, peeled open, and the carpel and stamens were the victim’s limbs, stuck upright in the center of their gory torso, their hands and feet limp and long, mimicking anthers. Somewhere underneath it all, propping up the bloom, angling it for display, was the skull, the face likely flayed to conceal their identity.
Nausea and anger roared inside her, churning together, making her chest grow hot and her jaw clench beneath her helm.
Who could do such a thing? What kind of hands did it take to perpetuate such violence? What kind of psyche looked at another human being and thought, I’d like to break that?
She imagined a man in a sleek top hat, striding down the darkened streets, his silver cane tap-tap-tapping along the stones. A woman walked past, caught out alone well after she should have been home with her family. The man watched her go, his eyes gleaming as a smile split his features. His sharp incisors glinted in the gaslight, flashing like the edge of a blade, as he turned to stalk the woman to her end.
A predator after its prey.
Shivering, Krona crouched down, studying the red and purple lines of the victim, noting how they’d been bent and broken so precisely. Yes, those are petals, she noted, and that’s the pistil, there are stamens … But what’s that?
Charbon was known for using all of the body to make his flowers. And yet, there was a portion missing. Off to one side was a small, gory heap.
De-Lia knelt next to Krona. Sliding their glass faceplates upward on grooves in their helms, the sisters made eye contact, shared a look. One equal parts pity and determination. “What’s that look like to you, on the hand?” Krona asked, pointing at one of the limp wrists.
“Yes, I noticed it too,” De-Lia said. “A gash in the center of the palm. A thick needle mark?”
“From the despairstone brooch? Or an injection?”
“Perhaps. Bastard.” She clapped Krona on the shoulder before rising again. “We’ll get him.” They both let their faceplates click back into place.
“We don’t know what it is yet,” said one of the Dayswatch—a woman—pointing to the portion not included in the bloom. “We’ll have it inspected, find out what he removed.”
The body had been found by a ten-year-old boy. He played here often because there were no people, only pigeons. But today he’d heard voices.
“He saw two men,” the member of the Watch continued. “One was masked. That’s why we sent for you.” She led the Regulators to where the child sat, ankles crossed, at the foot of a broken staircase.
The building was dilapidated, as were most of the structures in what the Regulators affectionately called the “non-district” of the north. All the glass in the windows had long ago been removed for repurposing, the doors were gone, and the finish on the walls peeled back like flaking skin.
Another member of the Watch was with the boy, had him gently by the biceps, speaking softly. Tear trails stained the boy’s light brown face. When the child caught sight of the Regulators he cried out, anguished, and reeled backward, trying to scrabble away. He’d already seen so much horror today, and the nightmare figures approaching him were too much.
The Watchman held him all the tighter. “They won’t hurt you,” he insisted.
“Hey, hey,” Krona said, as delicately as she could, already moving to take off her helm, to show him that she was just a person, that she had a face.
“De-Krona,” De-Lia said in a warning voice.
“He’s not going to talk to us like this,” she shot back. “I’m sorry you had to see this,” Krona started, kneeling down and placing her helm to the side, cherry red faceplate turned away. “What’s your name?”
The child hid his face in his own shoulder, still tugging at the Watchman’s hand.
With a few more gentle entreaties, some reassurances, and a recap of what he’d already told the Watch, Krona was finally able to get him to look at her with his big, brown eyes. De-Lia stood by stoically.
“What’s your name?” Krona tried again.
“E-Esteban,” he half sobbed.
“Can you tell us what the men looked like, Esteban?”
“The mask was spooky,” he blurted. “It had horns all over—six big ones—and a huge black tongue behind sharp teeth. All blue and orangey and red and purple and yellow. And white.”
“Do you remember anything about the person wearing it?”
“He was tall?” he said uncertainly, sniffing wetly. “Not as tall as you. Maybe he was short. He had a, a big voice, though.”
“Loud?”
“No—I don’t know. Big. Like he thought what he was saying was proper important.”
“What did he say?”
Esteban lowered his eyes and mumbled, “Rubbish about the Five.”
De-Lia crossed her arms as though impatient. She’d never been good with children. “And?”
“My maman says only halfwits believe in the Five, and I’m not to talk about them.” He sucked in his cheeks, like he’d been popped in the mouth a time or two for exactly that.
Krona prickled, but kept the irritation out of her voice. Atheism was a new fad. Thinking humans were alone and forsaken had become fashionable, both with some of the upper nobility and those in the lowest of stations.
They claimed magic was a natural phenomenon, like gravity. That it didn’t have to be placed on the rim by some conscious beings, it just was. They said the scrolls weren’t written by Absolon’s hand, that maybe Absolon hadn’t even existed. Some scrolls had been forged, that much was true, but they said it was fact for them all. And the Great Introdus? Just a creation myth, a way for early people to explain the unlivable conditions beyond the Valley rim. Krona, personally, took offense to such flippant disregard. “We won’t talk about the gods, just the man in the mask. We need to know what he said so we can catch him. You won’t get in trouble for telling us what he said.”
Doves cooed in the rafters as though voicing their skepticism.
Wiping his nose, Esteban continued. “He said the Five were angry and he needed to be rid of the people who made them angry. And that he had to show people beautiful things. And something about proving himself to a lady because he was sorry. Or something. His talk was pretty—you know, proper. Like a rich man’s talk. And he had white gloves on his hands. But I didn’t see … I don’t know anything else.” The child fell silent.
“And the second man?” De-Lia asked.
“White. Pale like flour. But I never saw his face. And he wore a black cloak. I didn’t…” His lip quivered. “I didn’t truly see anything. I don’t know.”
Krona patted his knee, and Esteban surged forward, throwing his pudgy arms around the wide expanse of her shoulder.
“I want to go home,” he sobbed into her shoulder.
What he’d seen could not be unseen, no matter how many Emotioteurs poked and prodded at him with their needles and their jellies. They could take the terror, or revulsion—numb the trauma—but his innocence was done for.
Without hesitation, she encircled him in her arms, forcing the Watchman to let go. “We’ll get you home. A Watchman will take you home.”
Heaving him up and away from the steps, she carried him to the door, where the Watchwoman they’d spoken to stood. The Watchman trailed her. When Esteban was squared away, Krona returned to De-Lia, who was scouring the dirty ground for anything the Watch might have overlooked.
“He spoke well,” Krona noted. “Could the man in the mask be a noble?”
“Hard to say.” De-Lia kicked at a fallen beam, half eaten through with rot. Black beetles scurried out of the wormed holes.
“We need to look into Charbon’s past. We might be able to better decipher what the current murderer intends to accomplish using the mask that way.”
“He intends to sow terror, discord, and mayhem,” De-Lia said bluntly.
“But, couldn’t he do that on his own? What does using the mask mean to him? We can’t know unless we understand what Charbon means to him. If nothing else, that might help us guess when and where and who he’ll kill next.”
She imagined now not what it was like to be the victim, stalked in the streets, but what it must be like as the killer, inside the mask. What corruption could Charbon’s echo visit upon the brain? She’d wrangled many, many echoes, had dealt with viciousness and callousness and desperation. But the echo of the man who knew how to do that? Make that out of the human form? A man so depraved that his mask couldn’t even be legally rated?
Encountering him had to be like encountering a varg. Wanton violence, utter carnage, even if it was only mental.
And then the aftereffects …
She shuddered, sure they would be hell. Perhaps even for someone as skilled as her.
“Who he’ll kill next…” De-Lia repeated.
The truth is coming hung in the air between them like a bloated mosquito—ugly and blood-filled.
“But we have a victim. And we have your false varg,” De-Lia said firmly. “Isn’t it more important to find out who they are? Rather than go chasing ghosts?”
“We can’t dismiss the mask’s role. I know echoes. I know that they want to travel the same paths they did in life. If the murderer in the mask cannot suppress Charbon’s, it will consume him. Charbon’s desires will become his—that may be what he hopes for, to embody Charbon. If I can predict—” She bit her tongue.
De-Lia looked at Krona squarely. “Time does not allow for soothsaying. Her path is steady, is it not?”
“It is not soothsaying,” Krona said sharply. “It is perfectly linear to assume that someone might behave as they have before.”
“And you believe discovering Charbon’s motives means recovering the enchantments more quickly?”
“Yes.”
De-Lia sighed. “Fine,” she said, the word tumbling reluctantly from her lips. “But you must admit that your not-a-varg is a more salient lead.”
“Is he conscious?” Krona asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, black-gloved hands sliding over her faceplate in frustration. “He wasn’t when I came home this morning. But I suggest you find out.” De-Lia paused. “Unless you’d rather someone else question him? For his sake?”
Krona tensed. She was a Regulator, damn it. She could control herself—he’d make it out of the interrogation alive. “No. I’ll do it. Let me go to the Hall of Records first, collect what I can on Charbon and bring it back to the den. Then I’ll interrogate the prisoner. Me.”
De-Lia stared at her for a moment, stationary as a statue. Krona wished she could see her face, decipher her expression. After a moment, De-Lia relaxed, giving the beam another kick for good measure. “Don’t be too long. If the man is awake, if his mind is sound, we cannot dally.”
No, Krona thought, dallying will only lead to more death. All Charbon ever wanted was to terrorize and torment—we can’t allow him to sow mayhem all over again.