Jeryd had decided to allow Tuya to stay at his house in the Kaiho district.

Marysa was there still, thank Bohr, though Jeryd felt a pang of guilt every time she looked his way. She accepted Tuya’s arrival without question, so he felt free to return to work.

After spending much of the afternoon thinking about recent developments, Jeryd saw the figure of Tryst walking off through the winding stone corridors of the Inquisition headquarters, heading out into the street.

He followed him hastily into the chill, his cloak wrapped tightly around him.

‘Tryst,’ Jeryd called out across the fresh snow, his voice echoing in the still of the early evening.

The young man stopped to look back and, on recognizing Jeryd, approached. ‘Investigator, you need me?’

Jeryd looked him up and down, rage fluctuating inside him. He felt a strange respect for the levels this treacherous bastard would stoop to in order to achieve his ends. ‘Walk with me awhile, I’ve something important to discuss.’

Through the alleyways of the old city, and down towards the caves. They passed two quiet irens packing up for the day, the street traders looking glum at the lack of business in such miserable weather. A few fires were still lit where women sold fried spiced pastries, the smoke trapped ghost-like in the frozen air. Eventually they came to a neighbourhood where Jeryd felt able to continue the conversation. Graffiti covered the walls, tags and obscenities and protests of love. Moss gathered where it could in damp corners.

‘The councillor murders,’ Jeryd began, ‘has that prostitute come up with anything yet?’

‘Afraid not, sir.’ Tryst’s calm expression showed no sign of any deception.

‘Where’s Miss Daluud now precisely?’ Jeryd enquired.

A flash of anxiety in his eyes?

‘I can’t be sure,’ Tryst replied. ‘Not at the moment. You wish to speak to her? I think if I have a little more time I could get some answers for you. I’m keen to succeed.’

‘Are you, now,’ Jeryd muttered.

‘Sir?’ Tryst tilted his head, his expression still all innocence. ‘I’m not sure I follow.’

Jeryd looked around, at the run-down stone dwellings with their rotting wooden doors and windows. No one else was nearby. The sun had set almost completely, casting a dreary ambience over the scene.

He said, ‘I’ll be arresting her myself tomorrow, so I fear she’ll not be able to help you any more.’ Jeryd saw the panic in Tryst’s eyes, the collapse of a plan, and continued. ‘You know, that clone of my wife you both created, even though you already knew that she was a murderer. Withholding information from the Inquisition. That was particularly low, but there are quite a few black marks mounting up against you. Using banned substances to influence suspects. But it isn’t that which I’m really pissed off about.’

Tryst remained silent, instinctively backing away, nothing but cold stone behind him.

‘No.’ Jeryd looked this way and that. ‘What I’m really annoyed about is the fact that you dragged my wife into your little schemes.’

Tryst finally spoke up. ‘You were the one who struck her-’

Jeryd thumped Tryst in the stomach, doubling him up against the wall. The rumel then bought his knee up sharply into Tryst’s exposed face. Blood flecked the wall as Tryst collapsed into the snow holding his nose.

‘Did you drug me too, that night?’

No response till Jeryd kicked his subordinate in the back. The human arched like a bridge, then moaned.

‘Yes, but…’

Jeryd pulled a blade from his sleeve, stared at the man lying before him. He could slit his throat here and now, and no one would notice. He could move the body to Caveside, where this sort of thing happened daily. But then his rage subsided into something much calmer, much colder. If he did not kill him, Tryst would have to be arrested – but then he might reveal how Jeryd had struck his wife unconscious.

Tryst looked up pathetically, clutching his gut with one hand, his nose with the other. It was in moments like this that Jeryd realized lives could be altered forever.

‘I’m… sorry, Jeryd,’ Tryst gasped. ‘I was angry. I resented you.’

Jeryd looked down at him. ‘There were,’ he snarled, ‘other ways to let me know.’

‘I wanted to make you suffer, so you would know how I felt… I deserved that promotion.’

Both men remained silent for a while as a banshee screamed somewhere in Caveside. Jeryd again looked down at Tryst and could see the fear in the young man’s eyes, as if that sound was a premonition.

Tryst said, ‘What’re you going to do with me?’

What could Jeryd do? He wasn’t a murderer. But nor did he want Marysa to find out the truth.

‘Here’s what I think,’ he said. ‘I could knife you here and now, blame it on the usual suspects. There are plenty to choose from. But I won’t do that because I, at least, have morals.’ He put the knife away. ‘But I don’t want Marysa finding out any of this, either. If she does, you’ll either be a wanted man, or a dead man.’ He leaned forward to look straight into Tryst’s bloodied face. ‘That, I swear by.’

‘Please, I beg you, just let this go, Jeryd. We can put this behind us.’

The rumel grunted a dry laugh.

Tryst continued, ‘What about Tuya? We know she’s the killer. We can get her locked up and we’ll be rewarded for solving the murders.’

Except there’s more to this, isn’t there, something to do with a few thousand refugees being cynically exterminated by their own rulers. And exactly how much do you know about that?

Jeryd sighed. ‘All right, don’t come anywhere near the Inquisition chambers for the next couple of days. When you do come back, you’ll not be working with me. If you reveal any of this mess, your dismembered body will be found in some alleyway. Are we clear on that?’

Tryst nodded eagerly, dabbing his bleeding nose with his fingers.

Jeryd turned away, headed off down the snow-plagued street.

Jeryd stood looking over the city walls to the refugee settlement, the hundreds of campfires looking hopeless and suffocated by the encroaching night. Streams of smoke wafted from between tents. The barking dogs echoed endlessly across the tundra. There were said to be nearly ten thousand refugees huddled down there, in that expanse between the city walls and the beach. The very spirit of the hell they lived in seemed to rise above like a depressive cloud.

He wondered for a moment if the stories he’d heard were true: that the refugees had taken to eating their dogs and cats, and in some taverns a rumour broke out that they had taken to cannibalism, consuming those already dead from disease or starvation. Jeryd knew the Council were the ones manufacturing such talk, being the only ones allowed to distribute the news pamphlets. The gates of Villjamur now separated those who struggled to get on with death from those who struggled to get on with life. The only thing they had in common was struggle.

Jeryd was going to leave Villjamur as soon as he could. Of that he was certain. Life was too short to waste it in a city whose government would stoop to slaughtering its own. He had enough money to risk uprooting to another city of the Empire, somewhere much quieter. Perhaps on Southfjords, or maybe he could even strike a deal with the cultists and build a cottage on Ysla with its milder climate. Whichever way, his disgust with this city, and himself, meant he had to get out of here. With Marysa, of course. Because he loved her, and that was all that mattered. You went through life working so hard and acquiring all the things that you were meant to. Now some way down that journey, perhaps even too late, Jeryd realized he should have gone in some other direction.

He regarded the clustered refugees once again. How exactly did Urtica intend to kill them all? More importantly, could Jeryd stop it from happening?