Five days left to prepare was less time than you’d think. Alchemy occupied eay ms, w on an ever-growing arsenal to prepare for the party. Having to outfit a minimum of three people only added to the work. Not helping was that I wouldn’t know till I went to this dress shop how much I could hide ihe dress. The test fashion trends teowards the voluminous, but trying to move in that much fabric might prove difficult.

  Something to worry about for when I went there with Gregory ohird day: for now I had other things to occupy my mind.

  ***

  Dawes had collected close to all information he could on shape-gers in the public stacks of the Avernorn library, an impressive three stacks of histories, adventuring ats, and other books addressing shape-gers or what might be shape-gers in one way or another.

  There was just one problem.

  “This is junk,” I said after getting halfway through a series of eyewitness ats g to be of shape-gers. “Most of these are misidentified animals, druids, and fners suspected of having foul magic powers because they were fners. The ohat aren’t are so light oails, they might as well not have been written. Arelt the Ashen spends more time on how many logs he cleave his axe through in on swing thaire time his blood brot repced by a shape-ge for five months. This ot be all that’s publicly avaible.”

  Dawes looked up from his own current book, an at of an adventuring group. He set it aside.

  “I’m not shocked that it is. Shape-ger appearances were already rare by the time Thierdeith ied the printing press. This leaves whatever had been recorded by scribes, which would have limited distribution.”

  “Limited spread,” I muttered. “And probably taining things others would not want to be made public.”

  By others, I meant royalty. Most old stories involving shape-gers typically involved some plot or ao infiltrate the ranks of royalty. Not the only thing they attempted, but potentially the only aotorious enough to be recorded. And every one I read had the signs of being sanitized, probably to protect the reputation of someone long dead.

  “I’ve gotten too used to papers detailing the experiments, expini details on biology,” I said. “Too used to knowing whatever insignifit fact I wished to look up on how monsters and Infernals fun. A little kindness for the Shape-gers.”

  Experimentation of the kind done on Infernals wouldn’t have happened back then because the methods wouldn’t have beeablished yet. Shape-gers might also be the only group that would have suffered experimentation on to that extent besides Infernals.

  The days after Her Profane Majesty’s end had been joyous days for most, dark days for others. For the Infernals sacrificed, so the newly risen queen could uand how my race funed for any future threats? Probably the darkest of them all.

  “The ats at least give us something to work with,” Voltar said. “Even if it’s not biological. Shape-gers have tried to infiltrate nobility before and have aimed for the upper rungs first. They don’t infiltrate from the lower ranks down.”

  I frowned. “Seems a bit of a recurring pattern, at least for those. Other ats of shape-gers tend towards them, aiming for insur unities and slowly taking them over. The two most on stories are a sleepy vilge or hamlet they’ve infiltrated being discovered, or like you said, upper nobility.”

  As sanitized as it was, information oer was always more on than the former.

  “There’s another pattern that emerges,” Voltar said. “I’ve been through quite a few adventuring ats, and as prone as some are to exaggeration, you’d think they’d mention if the shape-shifting creatures they fought could turn into the monstrosities you fought on that pier. Yet they do not.”

  “Simir to my ats, although some of them have mentioned abilities simir to what Miss Harrow has described,” Dawes added. “I think we might be dealing with two different races, perhaps ued? Potentially more, but it raises a possibility.”

  A possibility that wasn’t hard to grasp. “You think they’re artificals.”

  Artificials would be the precursors to the creations Biosculptors made today, back when art was less established. The most istakes from back then most principled sculptors would not make these days. Using ordinary people as a base tempte, or creating new races capable of breeding with each other. And finally, grantiies forced to obey your will sentiend intelligent thought beyond that of an animal.

  Doing any of those three today was supposed to you a death sente least after the empire-wide ban on svery forty years ago. Much like my case, I wouldn’t be shocked if Intelligence recruited some of those. A lot of things were more patable than the Hangman’s noose. Especially to those already g some morals.

  “You think they were made for intended purposes and that the core cept is so universal it’s beeed across various Biosculptors, then?”

  The core cept is the basis for the creature’s design, which tends toward a ‘Big nasty monster.’ The idea of all shape-gers being various attempts to create shape-ging minions was a bit of a long shot. I thought there would be at least oing group at the inspire everyone.

  “Hopefully, it’s not the case,” I remarked. “Otherwise, anything we learn might be useless. Joy. How about the non-public sources of information?”

  “The st message from Lord Montague made it clear unless he gets lucky, he won’t find any information on shape-gers till after the Ball. Maybe not till weeks afterward.”

  “That depends on how hard he’s looking,” I muttered.

  “His problems go away after his son recovers,” Voltar admitted. “If we assume they are going after targets of opportunity. If he is being targeted specifically, failing once won’t make them stop. They’ll just shift to more directly targeting what they actually want.”

  It wasn’t hard to imagine what that might be. “The records.”

  “Lord Montague doesn’t possess much else that couldn’t be gained from another family,” Voltar said.

  “We do only have two poisonings, so non-unique possessions of the Montagues are still oable,” Dawes said. “It’s actually iing. Not a siher poisoning sihis all came to light. Either the families of the other victims are keeping it even more under s than Lord Montague and Lady Karsin, or there have been none.”

  I frowned. “It could be the ret attention caused them to halt their poisoning efforts. Or did they target these two families specifically? In which case, I wonder why Lady Karsin?”

  “Her being targeted is a question,” Voltar admitted. “Fht now, I’m operating oheory she was a test run to make sure things would work: that the poison would work, that the cure would be avaible from you, that whoever was supposed to provide the information leading the victim’s family members to you would not be seen suspiciously-”

  “The other way around,” I said. “I heard that a noble family was looking for an Angel’s Sorrow cure. It wasn’t anything suspicious, just rumors on the wind ihe alchemist circles. They probably had other methods in case Lady Karsin didn’t spread the information.”

  Voltar nodded. “Either way, a test case. Make sure everything works before ag oual target.”

  “Timing’s an issue,” I noted. “They gave Golvar cases on Angel’s Sorrow and sicced the Pure Bloods on him at the wrong time. That’s something to do at the end of the scheme: frame your party after people are nearing your trail. Maybe give him the case a him reach Versalicci. Small hitch for them, Giovanni wouldn’t suddenly use something like that, even from a trusted associate.”

  Dead trusted associates, as it turned out. Voltar and Dawes had goo Maldron’s Herbs. The entire shop had been cleared out, empty. After a meeting with Malstein, Maldron and his wife had been found among the bodies the Watch fished weekly out of the hroats slit.

  A dead end.

  “The pn might have hinged on him using some himself. Make the e to the Bck Fme more clear,” I tinued. “But then they also used the Pure Bloods immediately, which makes mush of everything. I’m w if we’re fag disharmony.”

  Voltar drummed his fingers. “Potentially. I alrefer to see strength in the moves of an enemy I don’t uand instead of weakness. It makes it harder for them to surprise me. The simplest solution also works. A pair of poisonings is alnned, with a quid easy scapegoat. I’m brought in to ferret out your identity quickly to put a bow oire thing.”

  “The publid the watch’s opinion on Infernals has never bee either,” Dawes noted. “With the ret marches, they might have ted on a whiff of Infernals being behind poisonings to cause riots that might help bury the eter.”

  “There’s still a lot of oints in that pn,” I argued. “They knew I was Bck Fme, but didn’t know I was a diabolist. They brought you and Versalic, hoping you would be patsies for them. Hoping six Pure Bloods would be enough to take down Golvar.”

  “All holes for now iheory,” Voltar said. “But the other alternatives have even less known. Preparing for every possible event that might occur is a good way to drive yourself to insanity.”

  “Fair enough.”

  We’d covered what we’d been able to find on our own, which was nothing. And what Lord Montague had provided. Also nothing.

  That left one remaining option.

  “How about your friends?” I asked Dawes. “Anything from them on this mess?”

  “Very little,” he told me. “firmation they are aware of the situation and pn to address it. They don’t sider me worth bei in the loop, but if I had to guess this probably presents an intriguing opportunity to them.”

  “Well, that’s terrifying,” I replied. “Allow me to be unpatriotic for a moment. Imperial Intelligeting ahold of some shape-gers terrifies me.”

  her of the other two ented, but I didn’t think they disagreed with me.

  ***

  The sed day eing my new fa pce.

  I looked in the mirror carefully, willing fat and skin to move as I carefully he flesh into pce. The third hour, and I’d only just now finished winnowing and moving bones about to their new figuration. Unfortunately, moving any swifter had a good aking a bone break out of my skin, but skin and fat had less camitous effects if I messed up on it.

  Just easier to mess up.

  Someone opehe hatch behind me, and smmed the half a foot thick hatto the attic’s floor. Vibrations traveled quickly. The skin on my face rippled like the surface of a pond before I froze it in pce. Waves of fat and flesh were frozen, f raised ridges running ay face.

  I turned a baleful gre on the open hatch, trying to force the anger out of my voice as I spoke.

  “e in.”

  Voltar’s head poked out above the floor.

  “Miss Harrow, I was w if you could…”

  The rest of his sentence died in his throat as I stared at him.

  “I said earlier this m I should be undisturbed,” I told him. “I said it was because I was going to be adjusting my face, which will require the utmost tration and stillness. What. Do. You. Want?”

  Voltar coughed unfortably.

  “Messages for your brother,” he said, holding up a sheet of paper. “As loath as I am to involve him, there might be a few matters he should know. Since you are the closest to him, I thought it best for you to deliver him.”

  “Put them o the hatch. I’ll do it tonight if possible, although it’ll probably be the day after tomorrow.”

  He set them o the hatch, then smiled apologetically.

  “I am sorry. What you said earlier pletely left my mind. You look nice?”

  I stared at him, frozen rippling waves of flesh across a face hanging on airely different boructure than it was used to.

  “What you’re aiming for, I mean,” he said. “Not where it’s currently at.”

  I gestured wordlessly at the hatch.

  “Right. Again, I am sorry.”

  The hatch smmed close.

  It took half an hour to smooth out thes.