The Tainted Cup

Daretana Canton, or district, doesn’t have a true city, “but rather a clutch of Imperial Iyalet buildings clinging to the main crossroads” (50). Din enters the jungle where his boss, Investigator Anagosa Dolabra, lives.

Ana’s house is filled with books. A “terrified” Engineering captain sits in a chair while Ana works on “some contraption of wires and string” (52). She scolds Din for not knocking, identifying him though she wears a blindfold. While Ana discusses a theory on pre-Imperial irrigation, the captain gestures for help. Din claims he encountered Engineering officers who need the captain; though Ana recognizes this as a lie, she lets the captain go. The captain leaves, outraged at being detained for hours, brushing off Din’s apologies on Ana’s behalf.

Ana never leaves her home or even looks outside of it. When Din tells her she should not trap people, Ana retorts that doing so recently helped her identify an infected well. She grows excited over the arrival of a stack of books, then laments that she “just might be going a little fucking mad in here” (59). Ana complains that Din won’t acquire her illegal “mood-altering grafts” (60), lamenting that Daretana is a backwater that lacks the danger of the inner rings of the Empire. Din privately reflects that Ana must have been assigned to Daretana as punishment for an unknown offense, as she possesses “a gift for inciting outrage” (62).

Finally, Din manages to distract her with the Blas death case. Ana grows excited when Din describes his horror at the death scene with uncharacteristic emotion. She re-dons her blindfold and asks him to describe everything.

Imperial Apothetikals alter humans in two ways: via short-term grafts, or via permanent suffusions, which are heritable, but often prevent procreation. Din is a special type of enhanced human called a Sublime: These are “cerebrally suffused and augmented” (64) and work to manage the Empire’s Iyalets, or military departments. Engraver Sublimes, like Din, are the “most sought-after” type (65).

Din spends hours reporting the details of the death scene to Ana, who concludes several things: The Hazas’ true wealth comes from owning land, a valuable commodity in the Empire; their privilege leads them to disregard laws with impunity. Ana then recalls an alteration gone wrong 11 years prior: An attempt to grow cheap fernpaper, a construction material, led to a plant called dappleglass growing inside people. Dappleglass also caused fernpaper walls to mold, despite fernpaper’s typical resistance to such damage. Since Din saw such mold at the Haza estate, Ana is “about eighty percent sure that Commander Taqtasa Blas was assassinated” (68).

Ana instructs Din bring the servant who reported Blas’s sexual advances, the housekeeper, and the groundskeeper to her house. She tells him to take his Engraver’s bonds—manacles that only he can remove—and to be armed. When he reminds her to complete a form so he can collect his monthly pay, Ana is dismissive. But as Din protests that his position is important to him, she apologizes for her attitude. Her attention quickly snaps back to her contraption, which detects earthquakes. It indicates that a leviathan is approaching the sea walls, something Ana finds exciting and Din finds terrifying.

Din so predictably sends a letter at the end of the month that Postmaster Stephinos keeps the post station open late to wait for him. Din remits his pay to his family, but only out of duty rather than affection. Stephinos advises Din to “read the mud” (77) to know if a wet season will be particularly bad and cautions him to look out for a Captain Thalamis.

Din muses on the coming wet season, reflecting that the constant worry of living in the Outer Rim often disrupts everyday living. He aspires to pay off his father’s debts so his family can move further inland, where it is safer. Just before he arrives home, he encounters Thalamis, who has been sent by the Haza family housekeeper. Thalamis demands to know the details of the investigation, threatening Din’s career. Din refuses, citing policy. Thalamis insults Din using ableist language, denigrating him for lack of reading proficiency. He accuses Din of cheating at his Iudex exam and vows to uncover the truth.

The next day, Din leads housekeeper Madam Gennadios, Ephinas the serving girl, and groundskeeper Uxos to Ana’s house. Gennadios is hostile, while the other two seem frightened. The three suspects are startled to find Ana blindfolded. Ana probes Gennadios about why Blas stayed at the Haza estate instead of at the barracks, particularly given his duties with the upcoming wet season. Ana posits that Blas was visiting a sex worker paid by the Hazas. Ana doesn’t understand how the Hazas benefited from their relationship with Blas, but the political implications of such a relationship may be why Blas was killed. Ana puzzles over why the Hazas own a home in such an unimportant town. Then, she threatens Gennadios into compliance by implying that her employers will react poorly to their housekeeper speaking to an Iudex officer, even when legally compelled to do so.

Panicked, Gennadios insists she doesn’t know what Blas gave the Hazas, worried that she will incur the Hazas’ ire. Ana counters that the powerful family will be unconcerned with Gennadios when Ana reveals that Uxos helped kill Blas. Ana has figured out that Uxos let in the assassin, who put the deadly dappleglass spores in the bath for Blas to inhale. When the dappleglass spores stained a fernpaper door, Uxos replaced it, which caused the kirpis shroom to wither, as Din noted. Ana has already sent Iudex soldiers to Uxos’s hut; Ana lies that they will find evidence of spores from where Uxos tried to burn the contaminated door to elicit Uxos’s confession.

Uxos lunges for Ana with a knife. Din strikes him with his practice sword, repeatedly striking until Ana stops him. A battered Uxos confesses that, two months prior, a stranger blackmailed Uxos into helping assassinate Blas. Severe facial swelling made this stranger unidentifiable, even by gender or race. The assassin was masked, so Uxos is uncertain if this was the same person as the stranger who initially contacted him. Din arrests Uxos and takes him to the Arbiters.

Din wishes to know whether a magical suffusion makes it possible for Ana to compile facts to solve mysteries. Ana rejects that a person is equivalent to their enhancement, countering that people “self-assemble” (98). Din is uncertain what she means but doesn’t press. She instructs Din on how to get further clues to uncover what Blas and the Hazas were doing together.

Din notes Ana’s improved mood, which she credits to “fiddling with something interesting” (101), or investigating. She muses over the canton of Oypat, lost to dappleglass, and wonders how the Empire “can’t save a canton from one damned plant” (102).

Gennadios is again hostile when she gives Din the information Ana requested. Otirios reports recovering the dappleglass in the drains, as Ana suggested, though posits it must be another variety, which does not grow so violently. It has also been altered so that the tree does not further infect the household. Din sees that Uxos’s hut is covered in incriminating spores.