She caught him as he fell and lowered him to the floor. There was blood on the blouse. He meant to apologize. I’m sorry, he wanted to say. But Linneth, the classroom, the school, all vanished into a sudden night.

Coming back to the capital, even for a week, was a restorative for Symeon Demarch. No matter what happened here—and he expected nothing good from his scheduled meeting with Bisonette—he would have time to draw at least a few unfettered breaths.

He rode a truck to Fort LeDuc, where a ponderous air transport waited on the military runway. The airplane had been outfitted with a padded wooden bench along its steel inner wall, an instant nuisance to Demarch’s spine, and the four smoky engines with their immense blades rattled the fuselage and deafened the passengers. The most reliable air transportation had gone to the western front months ago. But Demarch forgot his discomfort as soon as the vehicle lifted above a plain of cloud and wheeled away from the setting sun. He was going home.

He let his attention focus on the circular window opposite him and his thoughts drift away. Except when the plane banked into a turn there was only the sky to see, a winter blue turning to ink at the apex.

The electrical heating labored and Demarch turned up the collar of his veston.

It was altogether dark when the aircraft circled down to the capital. The city was invisible except for its lights, but Demarch’s spirits were buoyed by the sight. All that grid of electricity was familiar territory. Parts of it he knew by heart. He picked out the stone pavilions of the Bureau Centrality as the plane lost altitude, a few windows shining in the hierarchs’ buildings and watch lanterns burning in the courtyards. Then a landing field rose to meet the wheels.

He shuffled out of the aircraft with the other passengers, a few enlisted men who watched him guardedly as he crossed the tarmac to a waiting car. The Bureau had sent him a vehicle and driver. The driver spoke no English and his French was deeply accented. A Haitian, Demarch supposed. A number of Haitians had lately been imported to fill menial jobs emptied by conscription.

“Neige,” the driver said. “Bientot, je pense.” Snow soon. No doubt, Demarch told him, and let the conversation languish. He was happy with his own musing as the miles spooled past. There was not much traffic even in the narrow streets where the sacral brothels were. But it was late, and of course there was the gasoline rationing. One saw more horse-drawn vehicles these days than before the war. Dorothea had written him about a sugar shortage, too. Everything was rationed. But the fundamental nature of the countryside hadn’t changed, especially here beyond the city center. Telegraph poles lined the cobbled road, and the smell of burning sod was pungent in the cold air.

He was surprised at the upwelling of pleasure he felt when the car came abreast of the house. It was a small house compared to the rambling compounds of the Censeurs farther west, but spacious enough and respectably old. It had belonged to an uncle of Dorothea’s and still did not properly belong to Demarch; it was an extended loan from the Saussere family during his posting to the capital. But he had lived here for ten years. It was as much a home as any place had ever been. More so.

He thanked the driver and walked briskly up the stone steps to the door. The door opened before he touched it. Dorothea stood in a halo of lamplight, perfect and beckoning. Light twinkled from the silver crucifix pinned to her bodice. He embraced her and she offered her powdered cheek for a kiss.

Christof peeked at him from behind a banister, frowning. Well, Christof had always been shy at reunions. It was hard for him to have a father so often absent. But that was what it meant to be born into a Bureau family.

Dorothea whispered, “Father is here.” And Demarch saw the wheelchair rolling from the study, Armand Saussere seeming to smile but as inscrutable as ever behind his vastly old face.

Demarch closed the door on the night air. The smell of home surrounded him. “Christof, come here,” he said. But Christof kept his wary distance.

The same driver arrived in the morning to take him to town. The temperature had dropped but the sky was cloudless. “Pas de neige,” the driver said. No snow. Not yet.

Demarch let familiar sights lull him until the car passed under the eagle gates of the Bureau Centrality. The Centrality was a town of its own, with its good and bad neighborhoods, its loved and hated citizens. The Censeurs in their black hats and soutanes moved across the courtyard between the Ordinage and Propaganda wings like stalking birds. Demarch felt compromised in his simple lieutenant’s uniform. When he worked here he had seldom crossed the invisible line separating staff officers from the hierarchs’ quarters… unless he was summoned, always a frightening episode. Well, today he had been summoned, too.

He left the Haitian driver and crossed the pebbled yard to the Departement Administratif. The halls inside were marbled and high and supported by half-columns set into the walls. This was the heart of the Centrality, part temple, part government. It was a more powerful government, within its sphere, than the Praesidium a mile away. Clerks and pages called it “the capital’s capital.”

Censeur Bisonette waited in a conference room, a tall room with a mosaic floor and a long oaken table. Bisonette was at ease in a high-backed chair, his angular face composed. He didn’t stand when Demarch entered. Demarch stepped forward and bowed. His footsteps echoed from the high ceiling. Everything here was designed to intimidate. Everything did.

“Sit,” Bisonette croaked. They would speak English. It was a concession, or an insult, or both. “I want you to know our thoughts on the investigation.”

Our thoughts: the Bureau’s new doctrine. The investigation: Two Rivers. Among the hierarchs it was always the investigation, a nebulous enquiry whose object must never be named or defined. Demarch had learned the protocol in those first mad months.

Bisonette said, “The inventory and warehousing should be speeded up. Another military detail has been assigned—they’ll be there when you get back. I want you to report to me on their progress.”

“I will.”

“The technical and academic assessments can proceed apace. How is that going, by the way?”

“A great deal has been written. Ultimately, I don’t know how valuable it will be. Copies have gone to the Ideological Branch, but I can have them forwarded directly to the Departement if you’d prefer.”