There was an uncomfortable silence, then Saurizin took hold of the meat plate and offered it out. Glokta looked at the red slices, glistening on the plate. He licked at his empty gums. “Thank you, no.”

“Is it true?” asked the Adeptus Chemical, peering over the meat, voice hushed. “Will there be more funds? Now that this business with the Mercers is settled, that is?”

Glokta frowned. Everyone was staring at him, waiting for his reply. One of the old Adepti had his fork frozen halfway to his mouth. So that’s it. Money. But why would they be expecting money from the Arch Lector? The heavy meat plate was beginning to wobble. Well… if it gets them listening. “Money might be made available, depending, of course, on results.”

A hushed murmur crept around the table. The Adeptus Chemical carefully set down the plate with a trembling hand. “I have been having a great deal of success with acids recently.

“Hah!” mocked the Adeptus Metallic. “Results, the Inquisitor asked for, results! My new alloys will be stronger than steel when they are perfected!”

“Always the alloys!” sighed Chayle, turning his tiny eyes towards the ceiling. “No one appreciates the importance of sound mechanical thinking!”

The other three Adepti rounded fiercely on him, but the Administrator jumped in first. “Gentlemen, please! The Inquisitor is not interested in our little differences! Everyone will have time to discuss their latest work and show its merits. This is not a competition, is it Inquisitor?” Every eye turned toward Glokta. He looked slowly round at those old, expectant faces, and said nothing.

“I have developed a machine for—”

“My acids—”

“My alloys—”

“The mysteries of the human body—”

Glokta cut them off. “Actually, it is in the area of… I suppose you would call them explosive substances, that I am currently taking a particular interest—”

The Adeptus Chemical jumped from his seat. “That would be my province!” he cried, staring in triumph at his colleagues. “I have samples! I have examples! Please follow me, Inquisitor!” And he tossed his cutlery onto his plate and set off towards one of the doors.

Saurizin’s laboratory was precisely as one would have expected, almost down to the last detail. A long room with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, blackened in places with circles and streaks of soot. Shelves covered most of the wall-space, brimming with a confusion of boxes, jars, bottles, each filled with its own powders, fluids, rods of strange metal. There was no apparent order to the positions of the various containers, and most had no labels. Organisation does not appear to be a priority.

The benches in the middle of the room were even more confused, covered in towering constructions of glass and old brown copper: tubes, flasks and dishes, lamps—one with a naked flame burning. All gave the appearance of being ready at any moment to collapse, dousing anyone unfortunate enough to stand nearby with lethal, boiling poisons.

The Adeptus Chemical rummaged in amongst this mess like a mole in its warren. “Now then,” he mumbled to himself, pulling at his dirty beard with one hand, “blasting powders are somewhere here…”

Glokta limped into the room after him, glancing suspiciously around at the mess of tubing that covered every surface. He wrinkled his nose. There was a revolting, acrid smell to the place.

“Here it is!” crowed the Adeptus, brandishing a dusty jar half-full of black granules. He cleared a space on one of the benches, shoving the clinking and clanking glass and metal out of the way with a sweep of his meaty forearm. “This stuff is terribly rare, you know, Inquisitor, terribly rare!” He pulled out the stopper and tipped a line of black powder onto the wooden bench. “Few men have been fortunate enough to see this stuff in action! Very few! And you are about to become one of them!”

Glokta took a cautious step back, the size of the ragged hole in the wall of the Tower of Chains still fresh in his mind. “We are safe, I hope, at this distance?”

“Absolutely,” murmured Saurizin, gingerly holding a burning taper out at arm’s length and touching it to one end of the line of powder. “There is no danger whatso—”

There was a sharp pop and a shower of white sparks. The Adeptus Chemical leaped back, nearly blundering into Glokta and dropping his lighted taper on the floor. There was another pop, louder, more sparks. A foul-smelling smoke began to fill the laboratory. There was a bright flash and a loud bang, a weak fizzling, and that was all.

Saurizin flapped the long sleeve of his gown in front of his face, trying to clear the thick smoke that had now thrown the whole chamber into gloom. “Impressive, eh, Inquisitor?” he asked, before dissolving into a fit of coughing.

Not really. Glokta ground the still-flaming taper out under his boot and stepped through the murk towards the bench. He brushed aside a quantity of grey ash with the side of his hand. There was a long, black burn on the surface of the wood, but nothing more. The foul-smelling fumes were indeed the most impressive effect, already clawing at the back of Glokta’s throat. “It certainly produces a great deal of smoke,” he croaked.

“It does,” coughed the Adeptus proudly, “and reeks to high heaven.”

Glokta stared at that blackened smear on the bench. “If one had a large enough quantity of this powder, could it be used to, say, knock a hole through a wall?”

“Possibly… if one could accumulate a large enough quantity, who knows what could be done? As far as I know no one has ever tried.”

“A wall, say, four feet thick?”

The Adeptus frowned. “Perhaps, but you’d need barrels of the stuff! Barrels! There isn’t that much in the whole Union, and the cost, even if it could be found, would be colossal! Please understand, Inquisitor, that the components must be imported from the distant south of Kanta, and are rarities even there. I would be happy to look into the possibility, of course, but I would need considerable funding—”

“Thank you again for your time.” Glokta turned and began to limp through the thinning smoke towards the door.

“I have made some significant progress with acids recently!” cried the Adeptus, voice cracking. “You really should see those as well!” He took a shuddering breath. “Tell the Arch Lector… significant progress!” He dissolved into another fit of coughing, and Glokta shut the door tightly behind him.

A waste of my time. Our Bayaz could not have smuggled barrels of powder into that room. Even then, how much smoke, how great a smell would it have made? A waste of my time.

Silber was lurking in the hallway outside. “Is there anything else that we can show you, Inquisitor?”

Glokta paused for a moment. “Does anyone here know anything about magic?”

The Administrator’s jaw muscles clenched. “A joke of course. Perhaps—”

“Magic, I said. “

Silber narrowed his eyes. “You must understand that we are a scientific institution. The practice of magic, so called, would be most… inappropriate.”

Glokta frowned at the man. I’m not asking you to get your wand out, fool. “From a historical standpoint,” he snapped, “the Magi, and so on. Bayaz!”

“Ah, from a historical standpoint, I see.” Silber’s taut face relaxed slightly. “Our library contains a wide range of ancient texts, some of them dating back to the period when magic was considered… less remarkable.”

“Who can assist me?”

The Administrator raised his brows. “I am afraid that the Adeptus Historical is, ah, something of a relic.”

“I need to speak with him, not fence with him.”

“Of course, Inquisitor, this way.”

Glokta grabbed the handle of an ancient-looking door, studded with black rivets, began to turn it. He felt Silber seize his arm.

“No!” he snapped, guiding Glokta away down a corridor beside. “The stacks are down here.”