“Indeed. He apologizes for his delay; one man can travel more quickly than his convoy, and there has been far more....trouble than anticipated.” The man addressed them in a rolling voice that carried easily through the murmurs. “I would like for the head inquisitor to come and tell me what we know so far.”

“You’ve gotten my letters, no doubt?” This man should already know everything. Everything Ilan had been allowed to write, anyway.

“Things get missed. The farther out you go, the worse the roads are. And what has arrived is still with his divinity.”

Ilan hoped there were letters missed, waylaid by a lame horse or a late-season freeze. If the Incarnate didn’t know how bad it was, his absence could be excused. Even the Incarnate couldn’t always count on the voice of Asten to speak clearly.

He scratched his tongue against clenched teeth as he walked past the muttering servants to the front of the room, their eyes like poking sticks. “There have been four deaths, all marked with demonic symbols.” Ilan kept his tone neutral, but the quiet voices grew into a buzz like flies that needed swatting. “I asked for a script expert. Would I be right in assuming that’s you?”

Someone in the back made a noise of dismissal. A knife-point of a headache began to form over his right eye.

“Unfortunately, no. Have you had any leads that aren’t speculation?” Sandor said the word like it was blasphemy.

The blade dug deeper.

“None that have gone anywhere. The killer...” The killer was smoke or spirit, fading in an instant and impossible to grasp. “No one has confessed to seeing him. I believe we might be dealing with something that slipped past the wards.” If this man were meant to stand in for the Incarnate, he had little to lose from speaking plainly. Dancing around the issue had only left them leadless and sore.

The Prelate turned. “Ilan.”

Ilan stiffened at the plainness of his name here in front of the gathered clergy. It was a mark of the equality of the faithful to make no distinction between each other aside from that earned through service. Inquisitor was a role he’d earned with every sin he’d scourged. The Prelate should acknowledge it.

“Perhaps either you’ve been working too hard, or we’ve lost more of our power than we thought, but you’ve yet to come up with anything useful.” Elder Abe clasped his arm, as if worried about a strike. He wasn’t wrong to be. “Either way, Sandor will take charge of judicial matters for the time being. Ilan, you are hereby relieved of your duties as Head Inquisitor and will act under Sandor, who will report directly to the Incarnate.”

Ilan’s mouth fell open soundlessly. He would have rather taken two hundred lashes. “Prelate, with respect—“

“With respect, you will hold your tongue. This is more important than your pride.“ He gestured to the tiled floor, glazed red echoing the fading blood and power rolling below. “You have done your best, but we need fresh eyes. You know what’s at stake.”

Ilan swallowed hard, an unfamiliar fear skittering down his back. Arany’s sacrifice was what let the Church still see Asten’s hope for his creation made manifest, reflected in consecrated glass and water and stone. The weak would never keep faith without visible proof of sin or power, and Asten would stay beyond their reach.

If Sandor had been sent by the Incarnate, it was Their divine will. Ilan’s place was not to doubt, certainly not resent, even if forcing his temper to heel made his shoulders shake.

Sandor smiled and clapped him companionably on the back, and it took all Ilan’s willpower not to return the gesture with a blow.

“Come now, won’t it be a relief to have the responsibility lifted from your shoulders? I will still be relying on you.”

Ilan gave the smallest possible nod. He would bear the humiliation for the sake of his city, acrid as the flavor was.

Abe nodded. “Now, Ilan, go with Sandor and show him what there is to see thus far.”

None of the seated servants would meet Ilan’s gaze as he passed, and his hard steps echoed in the rounded chamber.

“I’m surprised you haven’t yet brought the man in to hang,” Sandor said when they were alone in the corridor. Though they had plenty of space and Ilan took up far less of it, the larger man insisted on walking right beside him, occasionally jostling his arm. “You have quite a reputation for keeping the city spotless. Hard to believe you’ve only been at it, what, three years?” There was a needling note to the question, though when Ilan glanced at the man, his eyes were still straight ahead.

“Four." He’d been twenty-one when he entered the great city for the first time, and had been granted his rank two years later. The results had quieted even the loudest tongues wagging that he hadn’t truly earned it. “Humans crave order as much as they resist it. I simply put things right. I’m blessed to have such a calling.” He moved to the side and was followed, sped up and was matched. They danced step in step as his irritation rose. “And how fares the Incarnate?”

“Things are progressing well. Asten’s return is closer each day.” Sandor emphasized the words with another bump, and Ilan watched his steps, how easy it would be to jut out his foot just so, and send the man sprawling to the floor in the dapple of stained glass light. Just another accident, as Sandor would no doubt say all his ridiculous goat-like butting was. “No doubt the broken territories will be welcomed back to our fold by the end of the year.”

That was a far more generous assessment than the rumors said. The plan to bring the entirety of the continent back into the Union was on its second generation and seemed more of a drudge than holy war. The broken territories had decided Asten’s decision to abandon the world was enough reason to abandon Their Church, and in Ilan’s opinion, good riddance. The Church and governing classes alike were bleeding money into the campaign, if an entire region wished to declare themselves damned, so be it.

“I’ll pray for his success,” is what he said instead. It would serve everyone for the whole matter to end, one way or the other. “He can only do so much from afar. Like send orders for murder.” It was a sharp and graceless stab but would show him how much the Incarnate thought of the man he had sent.

Sandor’s steps didn’t falter. “The matter of the heretic, I take it? The one who didn’t die?”

So he did know.

“Who wasn’t killed,” Ilan corrected. “The girl they sent failed.” Refused.

“And yet as I rode through the city, it was quiet. Has the heretic spoken since the attempt?”

He’d spoken to Ilan, which had been unwelcome and extremely annoying, but not what Sandor meant. There’d been no gatherings last night. “No.”

“Then he was silenced, as Asten willed him to be. The Incarnate’s order was wise, and the result was achieved without sin. We do not always know why Asten orders what They do, but this was clearly what was meant to be.”

“Clearly.” Hopefully his rolled eyes would be mistaken for heavenward praise.

Sandor made a sound of assent that ignored Ilan’s tone. “I would love to see where the more passionate side of your work takes place. I suppose now those duties will be mine, too.”

Ilan inclined his head. If the man had the stomach for torture, at least he might be useful. “Of course.”

The main inquisitorial room was dim, even with the door propped to steal a little of the hall’s window light, but every hook, table, and instrument had been laid out to Ilan’s specifications. Something Ilan couldn’t read flashed over Sandor’s face as he took in the sight of the ropes and stretched leather straps that hung expectantly along the wall, waiting for wrists and necks.

“They say you’ve been zealous in your punishments,” Sandor said, reaching out to shake the knotted rope tails of a cat whip. “The church allows redemption through coin and service. Why choose this?”

Ilan shrugged. It was a common question, though people rarely liked his answer. “We have the same rich men paying off indiscretions every week. Write something on a man’s flesh, and that text will save his soul.”

As the words left his mouth, he remembered Lili and the weeping marks on the bodies before her. A momentary revulsion climbed his throat, and he quieted it with a prayer. When scars were made here, they were redemption.

“Noble of you to take on the sacrifice of such disturbing work.”

“Holy work,” corrected Ilan. There was no reason to defend the rest. No one sniped when a clerical priest enjoyed teaching or a mercy priest found peace in comforting the dying. A talent for pain was an equally useful blessing. There were even those who crawled to him voluntarily, submitting to purging before they were consumed by sin.

Ilan ran a finger down the soft leather strap of a flogger. All gifts had their uses to the faith.

Sandor picked up a small pair of iron shears, the kind heated to neatly sever fingers and tongues, and Ilan smiled. That tool had stopped many a heresy from entering the world. “They cauterize as they cut. Quick and far less bloody.”

Sandor dropped them with a dull clank that did nothing for Ilan’s headache. “You praise the blades’ mercy?”

“Mercy is one of the prime virtues.“ He took private victory in Sandor’s grimace. “If not the tools, maybe the paperwork is one of your strengths?.” Ilan gestured to the back of the room, where a sheave of paper sat, fresh-drawn victim portraits and older references. Beneath lay the ruined sheets, paper dark and rippled with dry ink.

“It’s not my strength you need to worry about, it’s the seal’s.” Sandor’s gaze fell on one of the smudged sheets. “A compendium of demons?” He scratched a long fingernail down the list of unholy names and the places that marked their banishment. “You really think the city is so far gone we’ve let a demon in.”

Ilan swallowed. “The victims have all been marked with shadow script. The seal is reacting. There’s clearly an evil presence.”

“The Prelate blesses with holy script. Is he an angel?”

The irritating smirk of the Izir flickered in Ilan’s mind. “No. But a demon or Sotir….”

“No Sotir have been born in a century and any child of the Union can tell you why.”