Chapter 15: A New Lead — The Key of Oslov

Volume 18: Oslov Unlocked

Chapter 15 A New Lead

Chapter Notes

I’ve now finished the first draft of this story, so I’ll try to post a little faster. But! It will take another full story to finish things. When I’m done posting this, I’ll take a break to make some headway on the last installment, while posting some chapters of “All the Kinds of Broken” in the interim.If you’re still reading, thank you! <3 I can’t believe how long this has gotten. I have to say, writing the tête-à-tête in the chapter after this one gave me much joy.

Chapter Notes

If you’re still reading, thank you! <3 I can’t believe how long this has gotten. I have to say, writing the tête-à-tête in the chapter after this one gave me much joy.

26 October, year 374, 4:30 p.m.

“I’m here because there’s a question you still haven’t answered,” Blas Lindblom said.He and Kai Meirthal were in a private room behind the Patrons’ Lounge of the Sanctioned Brothel, where Ceill Linnett had drunk himself sick on the night of the murder. Blas tried his best to look friendly, almost apologetic about the intrusion.He already knew that Kai was a tough nut to crack, just like the Brothel director. The stream maker had tried to put Blas at ease by playing host—seating him on a cushioned banquette and offering him a drink, which Blas refused.Now, sitting opposite Blas, Kai spread his hands with a frank, almost flirtatious smile. “I’m at your service, Fir.”Blas didn’t smile back. In another place and time, he might have found the older man very attractive. Kai had a rough-and-tumble, no-nonsense quality that reminded him of his friend Vedya from the unsanctioned brothel. This man would know how to put Blas at ease and indulge his proclivities, no doubt about it.But now Blas was working. And he had Mersha to go home to, the pleasant memory of their afternoon activities humming at the back of his mind.He asked, “When Fir Lindahl returned from Harbour, how did you know to contact him immediately about your stream? He wasn’t expected home until several days later.”“I didn’t know he was back, Fir. Fir Councillor was the one who contacted me about getting an appointment with Stefan.”Kai had said the same thing in his previous statements. It had seemed plausible until the evidence disproved it, and now it was time to press him for the truth.“Actually,” Blas said, “Lindahl’s handheld made no calls to the Brothel’s reception desk for nearly a month before the murder. Furthermore, surveillance footage from Government Sector shows that you visited Lindahl’s office, seemingly unprompted, around noon on the day of his death.”Kai’s shoulders stiffened. The smile slipped off his face. “Yeah, I did. I shouldn’t have lied about that, Fir. But—”“I’m not accusing you of anything. I know you have a solid alibi for that night.” Blas was impatient to get to the meat of the interview. “And I know why you went to Lindahl’s office—you’d heard he wanted to shut down your stream. You planned to change his mind by giving him your lead actor to do as he liked with.”“I never said he could hurt Stefan!”“You don’t need to explain. None of that is my business.” Blas didn’t like the role Kai had played here or the position in which he had put Stefan. But his job was finding Lindahl’s killer. “There’s just one thing I need to know.”Kai narrowed his eyes. “You want to know how I knew Fir Lindahl was in his office when everybody else was down south for the recess. Honestly, I’m not sure. One of the other Councillors must have mentioned it—a few of them were here the night before.”Blas swallowed hard. He didn’t want to say his father’s name, but he had to know. “Linbeck, for instance?”“Fir Linbeck?” Kai looked as if he thought Blas were trying to trick him with a bluff a child could have seen through. “Nah, he wasn’t here. I guess you’d know that, being his son.”“I remained in Redda for the recess,” Blas said stiffly. And my mother’s admitted she has no idea where my dad was during that time. “But even if you didn’t see Fir Councillor Linbeck that night, you saw him often, didn’t you?”Kai’s face closed up. “He took his pleasure here, like most of them.”“Yes, but I’ve been told he was a regular guest of yours—a special friend.” Blas gestured around at the room. Based on Stefan’s description, Kai had hosted his father right here. “I’ve even been told that Fir Councillor Linbeck was responsible for getting the questionable episode of your stream past the censors in the Bureau of Diversions.”Kai sat up straighter, and anger winked in his eyes. “Who told you that, Fir? And what does any of it have to do with Lindahl’s murder?”“You’re not denying it?”“No, and I’m not confirming it, either!” Kai’s cheeks had gone red. “How would I know what goes on inside the Bureau of Diversions? If you think Fir Councillor Linbeck was involved, that’s a question you better ask him.”Kai must be afraid of his father’s wrath. Blas tried a different tack: “You don’t deny that Fir Linbeck took a friendly interest in your stream?”“He took an interest, sure! A lot of our patrons do.” The man looked really flustered. “But he wasn’t the one who told me Lindahl was back from Harbour, Fir. I remember now who told me.” His eyes darted away from Blas and back, as if visualizing a past scene. “It was Tilrey Bronn.”Another name that Blas disliked hearing, and he hadn’t expected to hear it in this context. “Why was Gádden’s secretary here? He’s not even an Upstart.”“No, but he has friends here. You know.” Kai gestured vaguely as if to say that all whores were friendly with each other. “He drinks with us sometimes. Anyway, he came back from Harbour that same day—the twenty-second—and he saw Lindahl on the flight. Lindahl was obviously in a bad mood, and he told Tilrey he planned to do something about the stream. That’s how I knew I had to go to the Councillor and, well . . .”“Bribe him,” Blas said sharply.“If you want to use that word, Fir.” Kai didn’t look ashamed.“So Bronn is how you knew. He’s the reason you made your plans.” Blas was grateful that his father wasn’t in the middle of this mess—as far as he could tell, anyway. But something itched at him. Something wasn’t quite right. “Was Bronn here the night of the murder, too, by any chance? We know that his—uh, Fir Gádden’s—son was here. Perhaps he was looking for him?”“Nah. Tilrey never wants Ceill anywhere near the Brothel, but the kid has a mind of his own. No, Tilrey wasn’t here that night.”All of this made sense, and now Blas’s question was answered. “Thanks again for your cooperation,” he said, rising from the banquette. And then, before he could stop himself, “What did you think you were doing, provoking someone like Lindahl with your stream? Was it just because he’d, er, had you tattooed?”Kai rose, too, to see Blas out. “Your mother also had me tattooed, Fir,” he said, hitting the door button. “I don’t hold petty grudges, and I don’t create my art to piss people off. I follow my characters where they lead me.”“They seem to have led you into dangerous places.” Blas wondered if Kai had any inkling that the disruptors in Ring Eight had taken Darius as their role model.Kai ushered Blas through the door. “If Lindahl happened to see himself reflected in a character who’s a hypocrite—well, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.”Blas had no rejoinder to that, because the stream maker was right. It still annoyed him to give Kai the last word—annoyed him so much, in fact, that it took him until he was out of the Brothel and halfway to the Judiciary to realize why Kai’s testimony about Tilrey Bronn had set off alarm bells in his head.Tilrey hadn’t returned from Harbour the night before the murder. He had rushed back to Redda because of the murder. At least, that’s what Blas’s mother had told him when she was complaining about his father’s delayed return. Tilrey, she said, had understood the gravity of the situation enough to cut short an important diplomatic trip.It was a small discrepancy. Maybe Blas should ignore it.Maybe not.When light flooded the cell and the door hissed open, Stefan braced himself. He clenched his fists so he wouldn’t flinch when the two guards seized hold of him.This time, though, they didn’t taunt him or feel him up. They manacled and blindfolded him, quickly and efficiently, and led him out of the cell and down the hallway, flanked by a third guard.They went up in a lift and down more hallways—he soon lost track of the turns. Another door hissed, and he was tugged into a room and forcibly sat in a chair, his ankle shackled to it.Another interrogation? When the guards had removed his blindfold and left the room, he saw no table and no examining magistrate pretending to sympathize with him. Instead, facing him was something he recognized all too well—the cold black eye of a camera.“You’re a good actor, aren’t you, Stefan?” a woman’s voice asked.Stefan jerked around. She was behind him, in a chair against the wall—a tiny woman with limbs like twigs, older than his grandmother. Harmless looking. Like everyone down here, she wore a gray uniform that told him nothing about her status. But he knew from the way she held herself, sipping from a steaming tumbler, that she was an Upstart, probably high up in the Funnel hierarchy.“I’m very good,” he said, raising his chin.“How lucky for everyone.” The woman blew on her tea. “I have happy news for you, my lad. The Judiciary has reviewed the evidence in your case. Exile won’t be your sentence.”“No?” Remembering Blas Lindblom’s suspicious eyes, Stefan knew this was a trap. That tight-ass would never let him off without airtight evidence that someone else had knifed Lindahl. “So the verdict is innocent?” he asked cautiously, hoping they hadn’t caught Einara.The woman shrugged as if she neither knew nor cared. “‘Not guilty by reason of mental disorder’ sounds about right. A few years in moral rehabilitation, a lifetime prescription for mood stabilizers, and you’ll be ready for release.Stefan knew what kind of drugs they called “mood stabilizers” in moral rehab. He’d seen a few veterans of that treatment shuffling around the city—the walking dead. Even if Janta had never existed, even if there had been no plan, he’d sooner die than consent to that.But he had to know what she wanted. It might give him a clue to the situation outside. “What’s the catch?” he asked, his own voice sounding strange to him after all the hours of silence. “What do I have to do?”The woman sipped her tea and indicated the camera with her other hand. “We turn it on. You open that pretty mouth and talk.”“And say what?”But he could already guess, even before she explained in a dry, amused tone: “You will, of course, confess. You will explain that you committed the murder in an unhinged moment of rage at all Upstarts, and you regret the act and are eager to be treated and cured. You will cry—you can do that, can’t you? Yes, I think you can. You’ll make a sloppy mess of yourself, and then you’ll beg anyone who happens to be watching not to commit acts of violence in your name.”Right there, that was what Stefan needed to know. “Are people committing acts of violence in my name?”Another swallow of tea. “You aren’t here to ask questions, love. That’s not your role. You’re here to say yes or no.”“And if I say yes, then I have to play the role you’ve written for me.” Stefan didn’t hide his disgust. What was the point? “I confess to a crime I didn’t commit, I cry, I beg people not to take up arms for me, and in return I receive mercy. The mercy of being a lifelong addict—and eventually back in the Brothel, I’m guessing.”His interlocutor’s shoulders twitched in the slightest shrug. “You’re a young man. Are you ready to die?”No. No, I’m fucking not. Stefan squared his own shoulders, though it was hard to show dignity when you were shackled to a chair. “I’m not afraid of the Wastes. I’ll take my chances there.”“At fifty below zero? With no protective gear? Believe me, it’s not a pleasant fate. In fact, it’s so unpleasant that some prisoners accept our offer of an early dispensation—a painless, fatal overdose of vexonil.”Stefan twitched at the words—couldn’t help himself. “I wouldn’t take that offer even if the alternative were being burned alive, thanks.”“For some, it’s not an offer.” Her eyes stared into his, as blue and pitiless as he imagined the skies above the Wastes would be.“You’re threatening to poison me? Just make me disappear?” Stefan swung back around to the camera and glared at it, wondering who else was watching. “You must be really scared of this ‘violence’ you keep talking about. Why don’t you kill me now and be done with it?”“If it were up to me, that’s exactly what we would do.” She didn’t sound apologetic. It was a simple fact. “But there are others who prefer to give you a more attractive choice. So, am I hearing you correctly? Your answer is a no?”Stefan opened his mouth to say, Not if I had a thousand lives to lose.The words wouldn’t come, though. Cold gripped him around the middle, making his whole body quiver. He wanted to prostrate himself at her feet and say, Please, I’ll do anything. Just don’t pump me full of poison. Don’t leave me in the Wastes. Let me live.He bit down on his lip until he tasted blood. In his mind’s eye, he saw Einara looking steadily at him. They were in that room again, with Lindahl’s bloody corpse on the floor, and she was saying, They will rise to your defense.The people were already rising. The guards’ careless chatter had been the first hint of that, and the woman had confirmed it. And if they were rising for him—or the person they imagined him to be—then he had to be worthy. He had to play his role to the end.A tear trickled down his cheek. There was no point in pretending to be braver than he was, not here with only her and the camera watching, so he didn’t wipe it away as he turned to look straight at his captor.“It’s a no,” he said.

7:20 p.m.

Blas had searched his whole apartment twice—the desk drawers, the side table, the sofas, the headboard shelf, even under the bed. The copy of the Council Record that he’d taken from Lindahl’s apartment wasn’t in any of those places, or in his work satchel. Grumbling under his breath, he went out to the coldroom to check his coat pockets, but it wasn’t there either.He’d snatched the journal on impulse, not thinking Lindahl’s doodle of Tilrey Bronn had any bearing on the case. But now, after having checked the manifests of the flights from Bettevy to Redda on October 22, 23, and 24, he was having second thoughts.His way too long detour to Detmer’s place hadn’t given him time to return to the Judiciary, so the journal couldn’t be there, and he was sure he hadn’t removed it from his satchel when he was at Mersha’s. During those delicious hours, work had been the last thing on his mind.He messaged Detmer, just in case. Did I leave something at your place? Copy of the CR?His handheld buzzed while he was in the kitchenette, heating up a dinner he had no appetite for. But instead of his boyfriend, it was a voice call all the way from Harbour.“Ambassador Ludtten! Thank you for returning my call.” Blas wedged the handheld under his chin, trying to sound as authoritative as if he were in the office. “I just wanted to verify something with you. I’m constructing a time line of the last forty-eight hours of Councillor Lindahl’s life.”“Of course, Examining Magistrate! Whatever I can help you with.” The ambassador sounded friendly and appropriately somber. “Fir Councillor was here so recently—I still can’t believe it. Did the actor really kill him?”“We’re working on clearing that up,” Blas said smoothly. He wondered if the ambassador knew what had happened in Ring Eight; how high was her security clearance? “I just wanted your help with a small discrepancy. I was hoping to talk to someone who saw Lindahl on his flight back to Redda—Tilrey Bronn, for instance. It was my understanding that they returned at the same time.” So Kai claimed, anyway. “Then I learned that, according to passenger manifests, Bronn never flew back to Redda at all.”“Oh, right. No, he didn’t.” Ambassador Ludtten sounded relieved, as if she’d expected him to ask her a harder question. “Tilrey left the same night as Lindahl, all right, but he was too late to catch the flight. He called in a favor at the garrison and got a ride home with a fighter pilot.”The fighter pilot part dovetailed with the story Blas had heard from his mother—but she’d said Bronn returned early on the twenty-fourth, after hearing about the murder. “You’re sure he returned the same day as Lindahl? The twenty-second?”“That’s right. He messaged me from the base—let me look it up.” After a moment, she added, “Wait, no. There’s no message; Tilrey must have voice-called on a public comm. Anyway, he said he had an emergency at home—something to do with his son? I don’t remember.”Blas’s throat closed. As far as he knew, no emergency had befallen Ceill Linnett until the morning of the twenty-fourth—unless there was something he didn’t know. Unless Ceill’s presence in the Brothel on the night of the twenty-third and Lindahl’s death there were related.Bronn could have been in the Brothel on the night of the murder, as well as on the preceding night when he’d talked to Kai. Clearly he hadn’t been in Harbour—though Blas would be sure to cross-check the ambassador’s story with the garrison.Late on the twenty-second, Bronn had alerted Kai to Lindahl’s return to Redda, setting off the cascade of events leading to the murder. And that cascade might begin even further back.“Thank you so much, Fir’n Ludtten,” Blas said, being sure not to betray his excitement to the witness. Speculations were mounting in his brain. “I’m glad to have that cleared up. There’s something else I’m curious about, though, as I try to establish Fir Lindahl’s state of mind.”“Fir Lindahl returned early because the climate didn’t agree with him,” the ambassador said stiffly. “But you probably already know that.”“Yes.” Lindahl had messaged his wife before he left Harbour with precisely that explanation. “It’s an interesting coincidence, though, that Lindahl and Bronn both cut short their stays. I can’t help wondering—did you see them interacting at the Embassy?”“Oh yes. We dined together each night.”“Was there perhaps any . . . friction between Lindahl and Bronn?”This time, she took a moment to answer, and she sounded wary. “Is Bronn a suspect, Fir Examining Magistrate?”“Not at this time.” Relaxed. Friendly. “Again, it’s Lindahl’s state of mind I’m concerned with, and I wanted to get your read on the situation. Did you see them quarrel?”“No. Bronn never quarrels with his superiors; his manners are impeccable. But Lindahl . . . well, on the night of Bronn’s arrival, he expressed surprise that Tilrey would be dining with us.” The ambassador cleared her throat, clearly uncomfortable. “To be honest, I didn’t take it seriously. Fir Councillor had been touchy since he arrived.”Lindahl’s bad humor was well known to all. Still. “Did he express a particular reason for not wanting to eat with Bronn?”“I think it was simply a matter of wanting to be in Upstart company.”“And how did Bronn react?”“He was the perfect diplomat—he always is. I laughed a bit at Fir Lindahl’s reaction and smoothed things over. Tilrey would have withdrawn if I asked him to, but I enjoy his company.”You and my mother, Blas thought darkly. Many people seemed to enjoy Tilrey’s company—though not Lindahl, apparently. “Thank you, Fir’n Ambassador. I appreciate your help.”“Of course, no trouble! Wait, though—I remember something else. Lindahl called Bronn an outlier. Someone who was ‘too smart for his own good,’ the kind of Drudge who might cause trouble. I noticed that because it’s so contrary to everything I know about Tilrey.”Now, this was interesting. Lindahl’s doodle on the Council Record suggested something similar—if only Blas could get his hands on the damned thing. “Did Lindahl give any reason for this assessment of Bronn?”“No.” Ludtten sighed. “Again, because the Councillor had been in such a bad mood, I thought nothing of it, I admit.”“Why would you?” Blas made his voice soothing. He didn’t want her getting the impression that Tilrey was under suspicion. The two of them seemed to be on good terms. “Lindahl could be a difficult man, brilliant as he was.”“You don’t think what happened in the Embassy had anything to do with . . . what happened to Lindahl in the Brothel?”“No.” Blas spoke curtly, to remind her she had no jurisdiction in the matter. “Thank you for your time, Fir’n Ambassador.” He ended the call.Feeling fidgety, he removed his dinner from the oven and messaged Detmer yet again. Where was he?Blas needed another look at Lindahl’s doodle before he spoke to Tilrey Bronn—which, he decided, would happen first thing tomorrow morning. With any luck, Tilrey wouldn’t be expecting him.It was time to find out what kind of “emergency” had brought the man back from Harbour the night before the murder—and why he had lied about it.

26 October, year 374, 4:30 p.m.

“I’m here because there’s a question you still haven’t answered,” Blas Lindblom said.

He and Kai Meirthal were in a private room behind the Patrons’ Lounge of the Sanctioned Brothel, where Ceill Linnett had drunk himself sick on the night of the murder. Blas tried his best to look friendly, almost apologetic about the intrusion.

He already knew that Kai was a tough nut to crack, just like the Brothel director. The stream maker had tried to put Blas at ease by playing host—seating him on a cushioned banquette and offering him a drink, which Blas refused.

Now, sitting opposite Blas, Kai spread his hands with a frank, almost flirtatious smile. “I’m at your service, Fir.”

Blas didn’t smile back. In another place and time, he might have found the older man very attractive. Kai had a rough-and-tumble, no-nonsense quality that reminded him of his friend Vedya from the unsanctioned brothel. This man would know how to put Blas at ease and indulge his proclivities, no doubt about it.

But now Blas was working. And he had Mersha to go home to, the pleasant memory of their afternoon activities humming at the back of his mind.

He asked, “When Fir Lindahl returned from Harbour, how did you know to contact him immediately about your stream? He wasn’t expected home until several days later.”

“I didn’t know he was back, Fir. Fir Councillor was the one who contacted me about getting an appointment with Stefan.”

Kai had said the same thing in his previous statements. It had seemed plausible until the evidence disproved it, and now it was time to press him for the truth.

“Actually,” Blas said, “Lindahl’s handheld made no calls to the Brothel’s reception desk for nearly a month before the murder. Furthermore, surveillance footage from Government Sector shows that you visited Lindahl’s office, seemingly unprompted, around noon on the day of his death.”

Kai’s shoulders stiffened. The smile slipped off his face. “Yeah, I did. I shouldn’t have lied about that, Fir. But—”

“I’m not accusing you of anything. I know you have a solid alibi for that night.” Blas was impatient to get to the meat of the interview. “And I know why you went to Lindahl’s office—you’d heard he wanted to shut down your stream. You planned to change his mind by giving him your lead actor to do as he liked with.”

“I never said he could hurt Stefan!”

“You don’t need to explain. None of that is my business.” Blas didn’t like the role Kai had played here or the position in which he had put Stefan. But his job was finding Lindahl’s killer. “There’s just one thing I need to know.”

Kai narrowed his eyes. “You want to know how I knew Fir Lindahl was in his office when everybody else was down south for the recess. Honestly, I’m not sure. One of the other Councillors must have mentioned it—a few of them were here the night before.”

Blas swallowed hard. He didn’t want to say his father’s name, but he had to know. “Linbeck, for instance?”

“Fir Linbeck?” Kai looked as if he thought Blas were trying to trick him with a bluff a child could have seen through. “Nah, he wasn’t here. I guess you’d know that, being his son.”

“I remained in Redda for the recess,” Blas said stiffly. And my mother’s admitted she has no idea where my dad was during that time. “But even if you didn’t see Fir Councillor Linbeck that night, you saw him often, didn’t you?”

Kai’s face closed up. “He took his pleasure here, like most of them.”

“Yes, but I’ve been told he was a regular guest of yours—a special friend.” Blas gestured around at the room. Based on Stefan’s description, Kai had hosted his father right here. “I’ve even been told that Fir Councillor Linbeck was responsible for getting the questionable episode of your stream past the censors in the Bureau of Diversions.”

Kai sat up straighter, and anger winked in his eyes. “Who told you that, Fir? And what does any of it have to do with Lindahl’s murder?”

“You’re not denying it?”

“No, and I’m not confirming it, either!” Kai’s cheeks had gone red. “How would I know what goes on inside the Bureau of Diversions? If you think Fir Councillor Linbeck was involved, that’s a question you better ask him.”

Kai must be afraid of his father’s wrath. Blas tried a different tack: “You don’t deny that Fir Linbeck took a friendly interest in your stream?”

“He took an interest, sure! A lot of our patrons do.” The man looked really flustered. “But he wasn’t the one who told me Lindahl was back from Harbour, Fir. I remember now who told me.” His eyes darted away from Blas and back, as if visualizing a past scene. “It was Tilrey Bronn.”

Another name that Blas disliked hearing, and he hadn’t expected to hear it in this context. “Why was Gádden’s secretary here? He’s not even an Upstart.”

“No, but he has friends here. You know.” Kai gestured vaguely as if to say that all whores were friendly with each other. “He drinks with us sometimes. Anyway, he came back from Harbour that same day—the twenty-second—and he saw Lindahl on the flight. Lindahl was obviously in a bad mood, and he told Tilrey he planned to do something about the stream. That’s how I knew I had to go to the Councillor and, well . . .”

“Bribe him,” Blas said sharply.

“If you want to use that word, Fir.” Kai didn’t look ashamed.

“So Bronn is how you knew. He’s the reason you made your plans.” Blas was grateful that his father wasn’t in the middle of this mess—as far as he could tell, anyway. But something itched at him. Something wasn’t quite right. “Was Bronn here the night of the murder, too, by any chance? We know that his—uh, Fir Gádden’s—son was here. Perhaps he was looking for him?”

“Nah. Tilrey never wants Ceill anywhere near the Brothel, but the kid has a mind of his own. No, Tilrey wasn’t here that night.”

All of this made sense, and now Blas’s question was answered. “Thanks again for your cooperation,” he said, rising from the banquette. And then, before he could stop himself, “What did you think you were doing, provoking someone like Lindahl with your stream? Was it just because he’d, er, had you tattooed?”

Kai rose, too, to see Blas out. “Your mother also had me tattooed, Fir,” he said, hitting the door button. “I don’t hold petty grudges, and I don’t create my art to piss people off. I follow my characters where they lead me.”

“They seem to have led you into dangerous places.” Blas wondered if Kai had any inkling that the disruptors in Ring Eight had taken Darius as their role model.

Kai ushered Blas through the door. “If Lindahl happened to see himself reflected in a character who’s a hypocrite—well, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.”

Blas had no rejoinder to that, because the stream maker was right. It still annoyed him to give Kai the last word—annoyed him so much, in fact, that it took him until he was out of the Brothel and halfway to the Judiciary to realize why Kai’s testimony about Tilrey Bronn had set off alarm bells in his head.

Tilrey hadn’t returned from Harbour the night before the murder. He had rushed back to Redda because of the murder. At least, that’s what Blas’s mother had told him when she was complaining about his father’s delayed return. Tilrey, she said, had understood the gravity of the situation enough to cut short an important diplomatic trip.

It was a small discrepancy. Maybe Blas should ignore it.

Maybe not.

When light flooded the cell and the door hissed open, Stefan braced himself. He clenched his fists so he wouldn’t flinch when the two guards seized hold of him.

This time, though, they didn’t taunt him or feel him up. They manacled and blindfolded him, quickly and efficiently, and led him out of the cell and down the hallway, flanked by a third guard.

They went up in a lift and down more hallways—he soon lost track of the turns. Another door hissed, and he was tugged into a room and forcibly sat in a chair, his ankle shackled to it.

Another interrogation? When the guards had removed his blindfold and left the room, he saw no table and no examining magistrate pretending to sympathize with him. Instead, facing him was something he recognized all too well—the cold black eye of a camera.

“You’re a good actor, aren’t you, Stefan?” a woman’s voice asked.

Stefan jerked around. She was behind him, in a chair against the wall—a tiny woman with limbs like twigs, older than his grandmother. Harmless looking. Like everyone down here, she wore a gray uniform that told him nothing about her status. But he knew from the way she held herself, sipping from a steaming tumbler, that she was an Upstart, probably high up in the Funnel hierarchy.

“I’m very good,” he said, raising his chin.

“How lucky for everyone.” The woman blew on her tea. “I have happy news for you, my lad. The Judiciary has reviewed the evidence in your case. Exile won’t be your sentence.”

“No?” Remembering Blas Lindblom’s suspicious eyes, Stefan knew this was a trap. That tight-ass would never let him off without airtight evidence that someone else had knifed Lindahl. “So the verdict is innocent?” he asked cautiously, hoping they hadn’t caught Einara.

The woman shrugged as if she neither knew nor cared. “‘Not guilty by reason of mental disorder’ sounds about right. A few years in moral rehabilitation, a lifetime prescription for mood stabilizers, and you’ll be ready for release.

Stefan knew what kind of drugs they called “mood stabilizers” in moral rehab. He’d seen a few veterans of that treatment shuffling around the city—the walking dead. Even if Janta had never existed, even if there had been no plan, he’d sooner die than consent to that.

But he had to know what she wanted. It might give him a clue to the situation outside. “What’s the catch?” he asked, his own voice sounding strange to him after all the hours of silence. “What do I have to do?”

The woman sipped her tea and indicated the camera with her other hand. “We turn it on. You open that pretty mouth and talk.”

“And say what?”

But he could already guess, even before she explained in a dry, amused tone: “You will, of course, confess. You will explain that you committed the murder in an unhinged moment of rage at all Upstarts, and you regret the act and are eager to be treated and cured. You will cry—you can do that, can’t you? Yes, I think you can. You’ll make a sloppy mess of yourself, and then you’ll beg anyone who happens to be watching not to commit acts of violence in your name.”

Right there, that was what Stefan needed to know. “Are people committing acts of violence in my name?”

Another swallow of tea. “You aren’t here to ask questions, love. That’s not your role. You’re here to say yes or no.”

“And if I say yes, then I have to play the role you’ve written for me.” Stefan didn’t hide his disgust. What was the point? “I confess to a crime I didn’t commit, I cry, I beg people not to take up arms for me, and in return I receive mercy. The mercy of being a lifelong addict—and eventually back in the Brothel, I’m guessing.”

His interlocutor’s shoulders twitched in the slightest shrug. “You’re a young man. Are you ready to die?”

No. No, I’m fucking not. Stefan squared his own shoulders, though it was hard to show dignity when you were shackled to a chair. “I’m not afraid of the Wastes. I’ll take my chances there.”

“At fifty below zero? With no protective gear? Believe me, it’s not a pleasant fate. In fact, it’s so unpleasant that some prisoners accept our offer of an early dispensation—a painless, fatal overdose of vexonil.”

Stefan twitched at the words—couldn’t help himself. “I wouldn’t take that offer even if the alternative were being burned alive, thanks.”

“For some, it’s not an offer.” Her eyes stared into his, as blue and pitiless as he imagined the skies above the Wastes would be.

“You’re threatening to poison me? Just make me disappear?” Stefan swung back around to the camera and glared at it, wondering who else was watching. “You must be really scared of this ‘violence’ you keep talking about. Why don’t you kill me now and be done with it?”

“If it were up to me, that’s exactly what we would do.” She didn’t sound apologetic. It was a simple fact. “But there are others who prefer to give you a more attractive choice. So, am I hearing you correctly? Your answer is a no?”

Stefan opened his mouth to say, Not if I had a thousand lives to lose.

The words wouldn’t come, though. Cold gripped him around the middle, making his whole body quiver. He wanted to prostrate himself at her feet and say, Please, I’ll do anything. Just don’t pump me full of poison. Don’t leave me in the Wastes. Let me live.

He bit down on his lip until he tasted blood. In his mind’s eye, he saw Einara looking steadily at him. They were in that room again, with Lindahl’s bloody corpse on the floor, and she was saying, They will rise to your defense.

The people were already rising. The guards’ careless chatter had been the first hint of that, and the woman had confirmed it. And if they were rising for him—or the person they imagined him to be—then he had to be worthy. He had to play his role to the end.

A tear trickled down his cheek. There was no point in pretending to be braver than he was, not here with only her and the camera watching, so he didn’t wipe it away as he turned to look straight at his captor.

“It’s a no,” he said.

7:20 p.m.

He’d snatched the journal on impulse, not thinking Lindahl’s doodle of Tilrey Bronn had any bearing on the case. But now, after having checked the manifests of the flights from Bettevy to Redda on October 22, 23, and 24, he was having second thoughts.

His way too long detour to Detmer’s place hadn’t given him time to return to the Judiciary, so the journal couldn’t be there, and he was sure he hadn’t removed it from his satchel when he was at Mersha’s. During those delicious hours, work had been the last thing on his mind.

He messaged Detmer, just in case. Did I leave something at your place? Copy of the CR?

His handheld buzzed while he was in the kitchenette, heating up a dinner he had no appetite for. But instead of his boyfriend, it was a voice call all the way from Harbour.

“Ambassador Ludtten! Thank you for returning my call.” Blas wedged the handheld under his chin, trying to sound as authoritative as if he were in the office. “I just wanted to verify something with you. I’m constructing a time line of the last forty-eight hours of Councillor Lindahl’s life.”

“Of course, Examining Magistrate! Whatever I can help you with.” The ambassador sounded friendly and appropriately somber. “Fir Councillor was here so recently—I still can’t believe it. Did the actor really kill him?”

“We’re working on clearing that up,” Blas said smoothly. He wondered if the ambassador knew what had happened in Ring Eight; how high was her security clearance? “I just wanted your help with a small discrepancy. I was hoping to talk to someone who saw Lindahl on his flight back to Redda—Tilrey Bronn, for instance. It was my understanding that they returned at the same time.” So Kai claimed, anyway. “Then I learned that, according to passenger manifests, Bronn never flew back to Redda at all.”

“Oh, right. No, he didn’t.” Ambassador Ludtten sounded relieved, as if she’d expected him to ask her a harder question. “Tilrey left the same night as Lindahl, all right, but he was too late to catch the flight. He called in a favor at the garrison and got a ride home with a fighter pilot.”

The fighter pilot part dovetailed with the story Blas had heard from his mother—but she’d said Bronn returned early on the twenty-fourth, after hearing about the murder. “You’re sure he returned the same day as Lindahl? The twenty-second?”

“That’s right. He messaged me from the base—let me look it up.” After a moment, she added, “Wait, no. There’s no message; Tilrey must have voice-called on a public comm. Anyway, he said he had an emergency at home—something to do with his son? I don’t remember.”

Blas’s throat closed. As far as he knew, no emergency had befallen Ceill Linnett until the morning of the twenty-fourth—unless there was something he didn’t know. Unless Ceill’s presence in the Brothel on the night of the twenty-third and Lindahl’s death there were related.

Bronn could have been in the Brothel on the night of the murder, as well as on the preceding night when he’d talked to Kai. Clearly he hadn’t been in Harbour—though Blas would be sure to cross-check the ambassador’s story with the garrison.

Late on the twenty-second, Bronn had alerted Kai to Lindahl’s return to Redda, setting off the cascade of events leading to the murder. And that cascade might begin even further back.

“Thank you so much, Fir’n Ludtten,” Blas said, being sure not to betray his excitement to the witness. Speculations were mounting in his brain. “I’m glad to have that cleared up. There’s something else I’m curious about, though, as I try to establish Fir Lindahl’s state of mind.”

“Fir Lindahl returned early because the climate didn’t agree with him,” the ambassador said stiffly. “But you probably already know that.”

“Yes.” Lindahl had messaged his wife before he left Harbour with precisely that explanation. “It’s an interesting coincidence, though, that Lindahl and Bronn both cut short their stays. I can’t help wondering—did you see them interacting at the Embassy?”

“Oh yes. We dined together each night.”

“Was there perhaps any . . . friction between Lindahl and Bronn?”

This time, she took a moment to answer, and she sounded wary. “Is Bronn a suspect, Fir Examining Magistrate?”

“Not at this time.” Relaxed. Friendly. “Again, it’s Lindahl’s state of mind I’m concerned with, and I wanted to get your read on the situation. Did you see them quarrel?”

“No. Bronn never quarrels with his superiors; his manners are impeccable. But Lindahl . . . well, on the night of Bronn’s arrival, he expressed surprise that Tilrey would be dining with us.” The ambassador cleared her throat, clearly uncomfortable. “To be honest, I didn’t take it seriously. Fir Councillor had been touchy since he arrived.”

Lindahl’s bad humor was well known to all. Still. “Did he express a particular reason for not wanting to eat with Bronn?”

“I think it was simply a matter of wanting to be in Upstart company.”

“And how did Bronn react?”

“He was the perfect diplomat—he always is. I laughed a bit at Fir Lindahl’s reaction and smoothed things over. Tilrey would have withdrawn if I asked him to, but I enjoy his company.”

You and my mother, Blas thought darkly. Many people seemed to enjoy Tilrey’s company—though not Lindahl, apparently. “Thank you, Fir’n Ambassador. I appreciate your help.”

“Of course, no trouble! Wait, though—I remember something else. Lindahl called Bronn an outlier. Someone who was ‘too smart for his own good,’ the kind of Drudge who might cause trouble. I noticed that because it’s so contrary to everything I know about Tilrey.”

Now, this was interesting. Lindahl’s doodle on the Council Record suggested something similar—if only Blas could get his hands on the damned thing. “Did Lindahl give any reason for this assessment of Bronn?”

“No.” Ludtten sighed. “Again, because the Councillor had been in such a bad mood, I thought nothing of it, I admit.”

“Why would you?” Blas made his voice soothing. He didn’t want her getting the impression that Tilrey was under suspicion. The two of them seemed to be on good terms. “Lindahl could be a difficult man, brilliant as he was.”

“You don’t think what happened in the Embassy had anything to do with . . . what happened to Lindahl in the Brothel?”

“No.” Blas spoke curtly, to remind her she had no jurisdiction in the matter. “Thank you for your time, Fir’n Ambassador.” He ended the call.

Feeling fidgety, he removed his dinner from the oven and messaged Detmer yet again. Where was he?

Blas needed another look at Lindahl’s doodle before he spoke to Tilrey Bronn—which, he decided, would happen first thing tomorrow morning. With any luck, Tilrey wouldn’t be expecting him.

It was time to find out what kind of “emergency” had brought the man back from Harbour the night before the murder—and why he had lied about it.