The study had no patience for the living. It had belonged to Bishop Marlowe, though nothing in it still felt like his. The desk had been dragged away from the window. Two chairs had been moved against the wall. A line of chalk marked the dark stain on the carpet where he had fallen, though the blood itself had already been covered with clean linen. The room smelled of lamp oil, wet wool, and iron. I stood at the threshold because Matthias had told me to. That was not the same as obeying him. Caleb waited behind my left shoulder, the black case at his side. I could hear him trying to keep the weight off his injured leg. He was not very good at it. Children were never very good at concealing pain from people who had once been responsible for keeping them alive. Prudence stood on my right. She had not said a word since we entered. Yael lay on a table near the far wall. Matthias had placed it beneath a glass cover, as though it were a relic and not a pneumatic lancet built to slip beneath bone. Its steel body had been cleaned, but not completely. A dark mark remained near the base of the mechanism where someone had missed a seam. Prudence saw it. Her face did not change. Her hands did. The fingers of her right hand folded slowly into her palm. "Do not touch the glass," Matthias said. Prudence did not look at him. "I was not going to." "You were thinking about it." "Then you know me well enough to know I would not contaminate evidence." Matthias said nothing. That was an answer of its own. Beyond the study, Gideon stood at a narrow writing table in the hall, copying inventory numbers from one page to another. Sabine was beside the constables, checking the contents of an open medical satchel that had been brought from the room. Neither looked toward us. They did not need to. They had the posture of people who listened to everything around them. I looked over the study again. The locked door. The desk. The window shut against the fog. The dark spill beneath linen. The lamp with its flame turned low. The broken edge of a chair leg near the wall. A struggle. Not a long one. A man did not need much time to die if the right tool found the right place. "What was moved?" I asked. Matthias stood near the desk with a list in his hand. "Several items." "Which ones?" "The chair. The rug. Documents from the desk. Personal effects." "Who moved them?" "Staff securing the scene." "Before you arrived?" "No." "Before the physician arrived?" Matthias looked at me. "Why?" "The chair leg faces the desk." "And?" "If it broke where it fell, the splintered end would face away from the struggle, not toward it." He glanced at the chair again. "Possibly." "Possibly is enough to ask who touched it." The clerk near the window stopped writing. Matthias did not. "Noted," he said. "That is all?" "What would you prefer?" "A name." "You will have one, once I have it." The room went quiet. Prudence looked toward the linen on the floor. Zeke stood outside the door, broad shoulders filling half the hall. He had not been allowed inside. I suspected Matthias had decided Zeke's axe was too large for a room containing too many breakable things. Or too many people who might deserve breaking. Caleb shifted closer to the doorway, studying the floor covering near the stairs beyond the study. "This section is newer," he said. The clerk frowned. "Newer?" "The weave is dry. The rest of the runner is still damp from this morning's fog." He glanced toward the sealed room. "Someone replaced it." Matthias looked toward the hallway floor, then to the clerk. "Check the household requisition log. See if a runner was drawn from stores this morning." "Yes, Canon." It was a small thing. It did not prove anything on its own. But it meant someone had cleaned something before Matthias arrived, and had done it well enough that only a boy who repaired machines for a living would notice the difference between old fabric and new. A servant stood near the hall wall with both hands clasped at her waist. She could not have been more than seventeen. Her eyes were swollen. Every time a constable moved, she flinched. Matthias noticed her looking toward the front door. "Name?" he asked. The clerk checked his page. "Mary, Canon. She has no family name recorded." "Has she been cleared?" "No." "Then she remains." The servant's lips parted. "Canon, my mother—" "You will remain until your statement is taken." "My mother is alone." "You will remain." He did not raise his voice. He did not threaten her. The constable beside her moved one step closer. That was enough. The girl lowered her head. I looked at Matthias. "You could have said it with less ceremony." "I said it plainly." "You say everything plainly. That is how you avoid hearing it." His expression barely shifted. "And you make jokes because you cannot bear to be responsible for the consequences of a sentence." For a moment, the study felt smaller. The old Matthias would have said that beside a grave, or under a burning roof, or while we waited for a creature to come through a door. He had always believed that if a choice hurt, it was proof someone needed to make it. I had once believed that too. Then I had watched what men did after they became accustomed to choosing for everyone else. "Father," Caleb said quietly. He was looking at Yael. Not the blade. The locking mechanism beneath the pressure chamber. "The catch has been forced." Prudence turned. "What?" Caleb leaned just enough to see through the glass without touching it. "There's a groove beside the locking wire. Fresh. The brass is scored where something pulled it sideways." Matthias came closer. "Could that happen in a struggle?" Prudence's eyes fixed on the mark. "No." "You are certain?" "The catch only releases if you pull it straight back, toward the grip. It is built that way so it cannot open by accident." "And this was pulled sideways." "Yes." Her voice had gone very quiet. "That is not how Honoria opens it. She has done it the same way for eleven years. I have watched her do it a hundred times." "People make mistakes under pressure," Matthias said. "Not this mistake. Not her." Matthias wrote something on his list without answering. I watched Prudence's face. She was not performing distress for us. She looked like someone finding a familiar word spelled wrong in her own handwriting. "Did Honoria ask for maintenance?" I said. Prudence looked at me. "What?" "Yael. Did she say it needed cleaning? Repairs?" "No." Her gaze went back to the weapon. "It did not need anything." "Then why does it look like someone unfamiliar with it was holding it?" "I do not know." Matthias closed the list. "Neither do I." He turned toward the hall. "Gideon." The young man came to the doorway, ledger in hand. "Canon?" "Record the condition of the locking mechanism. Note that Sister Hale states the weapon was functioning correctly at last inspection, and that the forcing mark is inconsistent with Sister Mace's known handling." Gideon nodded and began writing. Prudence watched the pen move across the page. Something in her face tightened. Not grief. Not yet. Recognition without a shape. She looked toward me. "I need air." Matthias did not answer immediately. Then he glanced at Sabine. "Go with her." Prudence shook her head. "I do not need a nurse." "No," Matthias said. "You need a witness." Her eyes hardened. "You believe I am compromised." "I believe a bishop is dead." "That is not the same thing." "No," he said. "It is why we have to be careful about pretending it is." Sabine had already stepped closer. Prudence looked at her, then at me. I said, "I will go." Matthias studied me. "You will remain on the grounds." "Was I planning to leave?" "You are often planning to leave." "Only when the company worsens." He let that pass. "Ten minutes," he said. Prudence turned before anyone could say more. We left the study without another look at Yael. Outside, the fog had thinned but not lifted. The Archiepiscopal House stood behind us, tall and dark, its windows reflecting nothing useful. Constables moved along the gate. A carriage waited at the end of the drive, empty except for a driver trying not to look toward the house. Zeke came out behind us. Sabine followed a few steps later, then stopped near the gate. Close enough to hear. Far enough to pretend she was not listening. Caleb stood beside me with the case at his feet. Prudence rested one hand against the cold stone wall. For a while, no one spoke. Then Zeke said, "Start from the morning." Prudence closed her eyes. "I had finished rounds before dawn." "Where?" I asked. "The infirmary wing." "Alone?" "Yes." "Did anyone see you leave?" "The night attendant. I spoke to him at the desk." "About?" "A fever case in the west rooms." Zeke nodded once. "And then?" Prudence opened her eyes. "I went toward the south corridor." "Why?" "I was looking for Honoria." "Why?" "She had said she wanted the morning records before we left." "Where were you leaving for?" Prudence looked at him. "We were meant to inspect a storage dispute at St. Bartholomew's." "A storage dispute," Zeke said. "Yes." He waited. Prudence continued. "I found her near the service stairs." Her voice had become quieter. "She had Yael." "What did she say?" I asked. "She said she was taking it to the workshop." "Her exact words." Prudence frowned. "I do not remember them exactly." "Try." "She said..." Prudence stopped. The fog moved over the drive. Caleb shifted his weight. Prudence looked down at her hands. "She said it needed maintenance." "Yael?" I asked. "Yes." "You said it was working yesterday." "It was." "Did that seem strange?" "At the time? No. Weapons need cleaning after use. The damp gets into the seals. The pressure builds—" She stopped again. Her eyes lifted. "No." No one spoke. Prudence looked toward the house. "I did not find Honoria near the service stairs." Zeke's expression changed. "What?" "I found her after." "When?" "Later. After..." She swallowed. "After I spoke to her." "That is not possible," Zeke said. "I know." Her breath caught once, then settled. "I saw Honoria. She had Yael. She told me she was taking it to the workshop." "You are sure?" I asked. Prudence looked at me. "Yes." "Then what is wrong?" She stared at the fog as if it might give her the missing piece. "Because when I met Honoria afterward, she asked why I had sent for Yael." Caleb looked up. Prudence turned toward him, then toward me. "She thought I had asked for maintenance." Nobody moved. The carriage horse stamped once at the far end of the drive. Zeke said, "Maybe she forgot." Prudence shook her head. "No." "Maybe she was distracted." "No." Her voice was firmer now. "Honoria does not forget a weapon. Not Yael." I looked back toward the high windows of the Archiepiscopal House. Somewhere inside, Matthias was turning the morning into a sequence of names, times, objects, and permitted conclusions. And Prudence had just given us an account that made no sense. Not because she was lying. I knew lies. I had heard enough of them from men with clean collars and women with frightened eyes. Prudence was telling the truth. That was the worst part. "I saw her," she said. Her voice had gone almost silent. "I know I saw her."

Chapter 40: A Story Without A Lie