The Tainted Cup

After interviewing other witnesses, Din learns that five of the dead Engineers traveled to Talagray on the “sixth of Kyuz” (190) for different reasons, all of which Din suspects to be false. Two of the dead Engineers—Jilki and Princeps Kise Sira—had also traveled to Talagray two months prior.

Miljin is less successful in his interviews. He learns that one of the dead, Signum Ginklas Loveh, did not go to Talagray within weeks of her death; but, on the date the other Engineers went, Loveh was on a trip with Blas. This, Din realizes, is a lie. The two assistant inspectors re-question Loveh’s partner Vartas, who now admits that Loveh did go to Talagray and saw enormous career successes because of it. She took approximately 10 such trips to work with Blas, bringing a “little coin thing” with her (202). Vartas references Loveh’s “gang,” which included several of the dead and Captain Kiz Jolgalgan, who is still alive.

Miljin and Din plan to locate Jolgalgan as quickly as possible, and also to find Loveh’s coin. To Din’s alarm, Miljin destroys Loveh’s room to find her coin, which turns out to be a reagents key—a device to help get past gates made by altered plant life like the one that Otirios used to opened the Haza mansion gate in Chapter 1. Jilki’s quarters reveal another such key; Din and Miljin each keep one. Din notes that a scarf from Jilki’s rooms smells like the pot of expensive oil found in Blas’s rooms when he died.

On the way back to Talagray, Miljin laments that the Empire has made everything too complicated. He is not a Sublime who has been mentally altered like Din. He feels his “war hero” past makes him a relic unequipped for the current needs of the Empire. Miljin also shares a “rumor” that Ana’s last assistant “ran into the wrong end of a sword” (211) and advises Din to learn to fight.

On the way back, they pass giant hills that are actually parts of a leviathan’s body. Leviathan blood changes the plant life around it, which is why the corpses are typically burned to avoid contamination. Because this body is so close to Talagray, this cannot be done; inhaling the fumes could be dangerous. The destruction the titan has wrought could have been much worse had it reached Talagray. Din considers that all magical alterations, like his abilities, come from leviathan blood.

Despite Talagray’s looming curfew, Din waits for Aristan outside her house. When Aristan doesn’t return even after the penultimate curfew bells, Din uses lock picks to break in. Inside, the house has been searched and left in disarray. He finds Aristan’s body. She has been dead for days, though Din has never seen an injury like the “perfect little hole” in her skull (218). He finds a key (a common metal key, not a magical one) hidden inside a painting of Commander Blas. He looks through Aristan’s spyglass, finding it trained on a window displaying a blue cloth—which none of the other houses possess. The lock on the door of that house matches the metal key.

Din opens the blue cloth house and finds it empty, save for some scant furniture and multicolored cloths. In a wardrobe, he finds a box of one thousand talints—more money than Din has ever seen in his life. Beneath the money is a wall pass that indicates that Aristan was allowed to travel inland, to the Empire’s third ring. She made repeated visits to four inland cantons, which Din recalls as “mostly plains country” (223) that an Engineering secretary would have no obvious reason to visit. He finds another reagent key, though this one is simpler than the ones he and Miljin found, indicating it opens a less secure door. Din takes the key, travel pass, and talints before quickly returning to his quarters before the final curfew bell.

Ana is thrown by Din’s report. To think through all she has learned, she blindfolds herself and then shuts herself in a trunk for full sensory deprivation. When she emerges, she posits that Kiz Jolgalgan, the only living member of the secretive group, is the prime murder suspect. She further believes that Jilki’s reagents key, the most elaborate one that Din discovered, opens the Engineers’ secret meeting room—and therefore likely the place they were poisoned. If they find where fernpaper was recently replaced, they can try the reagents key; if it successfully opens a portal, they will have found the meeting room.

Ana wonders if the depth of Blas’s corruption indicates that the investigation team in Talagray is likewise corrupt, though she allows their mishandling of the investigation may be mere incompetence. Aristan’s pass makes her think that, whatever Blas’s illegal business, Aristan was the person designated to transport the money between cantons.

Ana and Din agree that the differences between Blas and Aristan’s murders make it likely that there are two different killers. Ana seems to recognize the method through which Aristan was killed, though she doesn’t explain to Din. Ana wants Din to plant the money and wall pass in Aristan’s house, with her body, to see if the Talagray investigation team absconds with the clues once they “discover” the crime scene. Din grows angry, fearing he will lose his position if caught. Ana promises she will defend Din if this arises.

Din anxiously returns the talints and wall pass to Aristan’s house before taking the reagents key to Nusis. Even when not technically lying, Din feels nervous about not revealing the whole truth. Nusis finds the reagents key shoddy work, but plans to test it for anything unusual.

Nusis reports that “everyone who knew Captain Jolgalgan is dead” (241)—Jolgalgan’s entire cohort was killed during the breach. To contextualize Jolgalgan’s character, Nusis explains that when Oypat Canton was “consumed by dappleglass” (242), some Oypati blamed the Empire, not the dappleglass, for killing them, citing the Empire’s lackluster response. Jolgalgan was an Oypati survivor; Nusis credits Jolgalgan’s “afflictions of the psyche” (243) to losing her parents and home as a child. Jolgalgan disappeared shortly before Blas died from dappleglass, “the very contagion that killed her canton,” which Nusis finds “curious” (243).

At Ana’s, Din finds a harried Miljin, whom Din assumes has found Aristan’s body. Ana is on the floor, amid reports from fernpaper millers. Captain Strovi, who brought the reports, sits with her, at ease despite Ana’s odd affect. Strovi reports that, 60 years prior, the Empire plugged a wall breach by waiting for a second titan to approach, then killing it at the “breach point” to block the hole. This time, they will instead use elaborate explosives, which Nusis is investigating for the Preservation Board.

Ana instructs Din to report all he learned from Nusis despite Strovi’s presence. Strovi praises Din and agrees that Jolgalgan must be the murderer. Din is dissatisfied with this solution to the crime; he doesn’t understand Jolgalgan’s motive for the killings. Ana attributes Jolgalgan’s actions to rancor over the Apoths and Engineers’ failure to save Oypat, though she doesn’t understand why Jolgalgan committed her crime so recently, when she has worked as an Apoth for several years. Ana’s impressive memory leads Din to briefly wonder if she is an engraver, but he quickly decides she isn’t, based on how Ana recalls things.

Ana identifies four potential locations for the secret meeting place, based on fernpaper orders. One miller, Suberek, didn’t answer the Legion’s summons; this, plus the recent large fernpaper order he filled, leads Din to consider he might be in danger. Ana privately confides to Din that though their investigation colleagues all “reacted as they should” to discovering Aristan’s body, she still feels “something is amiss” (254).

Din moves freely through Talagray with Strovi, even though it is past curfew. When Din yawns, Strovi offers him a hot, energizing beverage made from an altered plant. Strovi is chatty and encourages Din not to be formal with him. He argues that Talagray’s long history of defending the land from titans shows “what the Empire really is” (259). Strovi invites Din to use his first name, but worries he is getting too familiar.

Suberek’s mill seems abandoned. Din smells “the aroma of death” from inside the house (262). Five men emerge, wielding swords. Din’s engraved fight training causes him to move so automatically that he feels like his muscles control his body, rather than his mind. Despite only having a practice sword made of wood and lead, Din kills two of the attackers and disables a third; Strovi incapacitates the other two, whom he identifies as Legion deserters. Strovi is astonished by Din’s skill.

Strovi summons a patrol to handle the dead and injured deserters, and helps Din clean blood off his face and hands, laughing in shock and awe that Din began the fight with a wooden sword and only got a real one from his first opponent. At Strovi’s urging, Din gathers himself and engraves the scene before the Iudex investigation team arrives. He forces himself to inspect Suberek’s body, which has the same small head wound as Aristan. Miljin arrives, commenting that it is “interesting” that Din was able to “just [remember]” his training and kill the two men (275).

The investigators gather. Uhad asks Nusis to use her Apoth training to investigate Suberek’s body; the group concludes that two killers are still at large. Ana opines that Suberek was killed because he provided the fernpaper that covered up the poisoning; if they find where Suberek sent his last delivery, they may find the site of the poisoning.

Ana pulls Din outside to confirm he is uninjured and demand he describe how it feels to remember how to do physical things. Din is shocked that Ana seems worries for him. She scolds him for not being more careful with his safety, causing Din to recall the rumors that Ana’s last assistant died.

Suberek’s mill turns up no further clues. Nusis reports that Suberek’s injury indicates that the miller was killed with a long, smooth spike, wielded by someone with augmented strength. Most people augmented with such strength would be too large to fit in the small basement, however. Ana’s sense of touch is so sensitive that she can make out what Suberek wrote from the indentations of his pen on his desk: incomplete directions to an expensive part of the city.

Miljin, Din, and Strovi head to the address. Miljin dislikes that the powerful gentryfolk are involved and indicates that Strovi’s family is gentry. Though Strovi protests that he is “Legion first and foremost,” Miljin notes that Strovi’s lack of significant augmentations show his social status; gentry rarely get “great augmentations” as this makes it more difficult to “engender children” (285). Strovi snaps for Miljin to stay out of his business.

Din tries the ornate reagents key on all the gates on the street to find that they open the Hazas’ enormous estate. Din recalls Ana’s comments about the connection between Blas and the Haza family, realizing that Ana has suspected the poisonings’ location all along.

When Din explains all they have uncovered to the rest of the investigators, Ana is smug. Nusis, Kalista, and Uhad are alarmed: They were all at a party at the Hazas’ manse on the night that the Engineers were poisoned. They do not remember seeing any of the dead Engineers at the event, which was full of many high-ranking Iyalet officers. Uhad is confident the dead Engineers weren’t present, but Ana is not convinced.

She directs Strovi and Miljin to summon Commander-Prificto Vashta. The investigation is compromised, since the investigators are also witnesses.

Vashta proclaims Ana’s report “a fucking disaster” (294). She warns of a coming leviathan and laments that the chaotic investigation imperils Talagray, which relies on its military systems to survive the wet season. Ana is promoted to lead investigator and Miljin, who was not at the party, remains on the team. Uhad, Nusis, and Kalista are removed from the investigation.

Vashta’s ire increases when Ana reports on the contents of Aristan’s safe house; Miljin is annoyed that Ana and Din manipulated him into “finding” this evidence as a test. Vashta agrees to help Ana access the Haza residence, but warns that her role as seneschal only covers Tala, while the Hazas have power in many cantons of the Empire. She cautions Ana to be wary, as the Hazas provide many reagents necessary to defend the Empire. Just as Vashta proclaims it unlikely that Ana will meet an actual member of the Haza family, Strovi leads in Fayazi Haza, who is there to speak to Vashta.

Din is struck by Fayazi’s beauty. Like Ana, Fayazi is part of the Sazi ethnic group. Fayazi has two Sublime servants, the only privately employed Sublimes that Din has ever seen. Fayazi reports that her father, Kaygi Haza, was murdered 13 days prior—on the same day as the 10 Engineers. Fayazi requests aid in solving the murder, which causes Ana to quietly call her a “smug little bitch” (302).