The air thickened, pungent with ozone and the lingering metallic tang of corrupted slumber. Ovidia drew a deliberate breath, keeping her ribs still beneath her starched tunic. Valdas’s slate-grey irises narrowed. The placid demeanor she had maintained for years threatened to split down the seam, but she held her ground against his scrutiny. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. The raw accusation in his stare, the subtle shift in his posture – a predator assessing its prey – was more chilling than any shouted charge. The morgue orderly, still dazed, stirred against the flagstones, groaning faintly. Valdas’s focus flickered, a brief reprieve that Ovidia seized to steady herself. She tucked her left hand behind the folds of her coat, pressing the silver band flat against wool. “Get up,” Valdas commanded the orderly, his tone raw scrap iron. The man scrambled to his boots, staring at the floorboards. “Inform Arch-Prelate Voss that I require his presence in the Somnolence Ward’s central rotunda immediately. Tell him I have a discovery to share.” His tone was deceptively calm, a thin veneer over a simmering fury. “And you,” he added, his eyes snapping back to Ovidia, “will accompany me. Now.” He turned, the bloodied record book gripped in his fist, and moved down the passage, his heavy trench coat snapping at his boots. Ovidia walked in his wake, cataloging her alibis and calculating how long her remaining draughts would keep him coherent. The vaulted rotunda smelled of polish and stale chloroform, usually muted by murmuring alchemists and orderlies guiding sedated patricians through the fogged gaslight. Now, an unnatural quiet settled over the tiles. Beneath the towering stained-glass window depicting the slumbering deity Morpheus, Valdas halted. Ovidia stopped three paces back, tracking the sideward glances from the cluster of medical staff. Moments later, Arch-Prelate Voss descended the wide, polished marble staircase, his crimson robes flowing. His expression was one of benign concern, a practiced facade. “Morvath, my dear Doctor Neth,” the elder began, his voice like warmed honey, “I trust the lower vault incident has been resolved? Such unfortunate disruptions…” “It has,” Valdas cut him off, his voice ringing against the glass dome. He lifted the stained volume. “And while clearing the chamber, I uncovered something rather illuminating.” He indicated the shaking orderly. “This servant locked Dr. Neth and me inside with a concentrated vapor cloud. He was taking coin from criminal runners.” A murmur rippled through the onlookers. Voss’s expression remained serene, though a flicker of something colder passed through his eyes. “Indeed? A regrettable lapse in security, which I assure you will be rectified. The black-market rings grow bolder by the day.” Valdas took a step closer to Voss, his posture radiating suppressed power. “Bolder, perhaps, but predictable. This servant was paid for his treason.” Valdas dropped a velvet purse onto the stone, the heavy silver chinking on impact. “Marked sovereign pieces minted solely for the high clergy. One crown bears a notched rim—the very coin you passed to him outside the apothecary, Voss.” A ringing stillness took the hall. The surrounding physicians stared, hands frozen over their clipboards. The patriarch's benign mask slipped; his mouth settled into a bloodless seam. “A reckless slander,” Voss hissed, his veneer peeling away to raw malice. “Are you so starved for culprits that you fabricate charges against your elders?” His glare swept the gathering, settling hard on Ovidia. “Perhaps you ought to scrutinize your companion instead. This doctor arrived without an institutional sponsor. Tell me, High Officer, did you verify her certifications before trusting her with your skull?” The seed of doubt, meticulously planted, began to sprout in Valdas’s mind. He remembered the spark of Somna-magic, the illegal incantation, Ovidia’s strange evasiveness. The ring. He had been so focused on Voss, on the immediate betrayal, that he had almost forgotten. Valdas offered no defense. He gathered the purse and the book from the floor, his features set like cold granite. “This ledger remains in Night-Watch custody,” he murmured. “Come, Doctor.” He pivoted, a silent command for Ovidia to follow. She kept pace down the north wing, the leather of her shoes sharp against the parquet. Voss had parried the blow, neatly turning the blade toward her throat. Her consulting room smelled of dried valerian root and lavender oil. Valdas shut the oak panel behind them, the iron latch dropping home. He set the items upon her desk, then pivoted, pinning her with an unblinking stare. “The ring,” he said, his voice low, a rough whisper that stripped away all pretense of professional courtesy. “The soaring phoenix. It matches the description of the ‘Blood-Cure Thief’ exactly.” Ovidia pressed herself back against the wall, the cold stone a stark contrast to the sudden heat that flared through her. He stalked towards her, each step measured, predatory. The room contracted under his presence. Ash-smell and sulfur clung to his wool coat, threaded through with the sharp tang of salt and cold steel. Beneath his rigid posture, the dark corruption was chewing at the margins of his reason, etching fine tremors into his fingers. “Who are you, Doctor Neth?” he demanded, his voice barely audible, his face now inches from hers. He braced a hand against the wall beside her head, trapping her. The subtle pressure of his body heat radiated against her. Her mind screamed for distance, for a way out. “Where did you learn Somna-weaving without an imperial license? And why,” he leaned in, his tone dropping to a grating whisper, “did you conceal it?” His fixation on dominance was a rigid cage, but his knuckles against the plaster shook with fever. The sleep-sickness was advancing, corroding his judgment and leaving him erratic, lethal. He was no longer examining evidence; he was hunting an anchor to keep from drowning in waking nightmares. She looked into his eyes, seeing her own imminent exposure reflected there. He wouldn't stop until he broke her, until he extracted every truth. By dawn, she would be unmasked. The blood-contract, the cure, the Inn – all of it would unravel. Survival demanded misdirection. She needed another target substantial enough to seize his focus, buying the hours required to brew the counter-agent before his mind fractured beyond repair. A sharp knock rattled the office door. Valdas stiffened, pulling back slightly, though he did not release her from his proximity. “Enter,” he barked. An orderly, pale and trembling, pushed the door open, clutching a tightly rolled parchment. “Inquisitor Morvath,” he stammered, “a messenger. From… from the Obsidian Accord.” The syndicate. Valdas tore the wax seal away, scanning the neat hand. His mouth tightened. He read the lines aloud, cold and level: “ ‘Surrender the blood-contract by midnight, Morvath, or witness the detonation of a nightmare-bomb within the Somnolence Ward’s core. Let the Night-Watch burn in the dreams of its own citizens.’ ”

The Interrogation