The Tainted Cup

At the banquet, Din sees Iyalet officers from all departments and religious from different belief systems. As the Legionnaires receive blessings, Din considers that fighting the leviathans is straightforward while justice feels elusive. Uhad congratulates Din on solving the case, and urges him to enjoy the celebration. Uhad is relieved to no longer be on Sublime duty now that the investigation is over; he plans to seek “peace” for his “last few days” in the inner Empire (447).

At the party, Din encounters Strovi, who looks at him with sexual interest. The two banter, and Din confides his unease with the powerful people involved in the crime going free. Strovi encourages Din to find satisfaction where he can. Din makes a flirtatious offer to help Strovi remove his ceremonial garb; Strovi agrees, but before they can leave, someone calls for Din: Nusis is injured, possibly dead, and Ana needs him immediately.

Nusis lies slumped over the desk in her office, killed by a small hole in the back of her head. Her safe is still locked but smells faintly of alcohol. Kitlan arrives and uses her augmented sense of smell to confirm that someone touched the safe with Nusis’s blood, leading Ana to conclude that the killer touched the safe after killing Nusis. Din’s engraver eyes note that the reagents key inside is not the same key as the one found at Aristan’s safe house. Ana insists they return quickly to the Iudex tower.

Ana whispers that the twitch killed Nusis for the reagents key, but then discovered that the first key had already been stolen and replaced. She believes the key that Din initially discovered was not a key at all, but rather the missing “third” Fayazi discussed. Ana tells Vashta that an assassin may be targeting Fayazi and urges the seneschal to send Miljin to protect Fayazi. Ana confides to Din that though Fayazi’s life is in danger, it is not from the third poisoner—whose identity Ana knows. She retreats to her room, telling Din to only open the door when Ana commands it, then urges him to prepare to “unmask a murderer” the next day (463).

At dawn, Miljin arrives at the tower. He fears the approaching titan and wonders if Ana will finally reveal all. Vashta, Fayazi, and her Sublimes arrive.

Ana summarizes what they know: Jolgalgan killed Blas. The night of the Haza party, Ditelus let Jolgalgan in by lifting the trellis gate. Jolgalgan knew the Haza grounds—Kaygi was her patron, so she had been there often. Jolgalgan quickly found the water tank and dropped in the dappleglass. Later that evening, Kaygi held a private gathering with illegally augmented sex workers for the now-dead Engineers, to whom he intended to extend patronage. Kaygi drank from his favorite ewer while taking his bath, then used it again to serve wine at his small gathering, which infected the Engineers with the dappleglass spores. This different consumption led to the timing differences between the 11 deaths. The Engineers’ deaths only exploded the walls because Fayazi did not report the contagion—if she had, the two Engineers would not have been on the wall, and their “sprouting” would not have compromised it. Vashta grows visibly furious that Fayazi’s secrecy caused the breach.

Ana continues, explaining why Jolgalgan chose to use the overly complex dappleglass as a murder weapon. Kaygi’s age meant that he had been providing patronage to generations of officers, including Blas. Kaygi and Blas conspired to block the dappleglass cure during the Oypat contagion to increase their own wealth; the Haza family fortune comes from owning land, so by contaminating land they did not own (in Oypat), they increased the value and percentage of the Empire’s lands that they do own.

The Haza engraver protests, but Ana has proof. Nusis reported that three of the potential cures were ineffectual. Ana counters that those vials were actually stolen and replaced with water, so that Blas could determine the real vials’ ingredients, and then bribe the Preservation Boards to prohibit access to those ingredients. Blas kept one sample cure—the “third” that Fayazi referenced—as blackmail, which he used to extort the Hazas. Din discovered the cure, disguised as a reagents key, in Aristan’s safe house.

Ana asserts that Fayazi did not know of this plot but has merely followed clan orders after Kaygi’s death. The twitch in Haza employ was sent to kill Aristan, Suberek, and (Ana posits) Fayazi. Ana identifies Fayazi’s supposed axiom as the twitch, proving it by asking her to do math that a true axiom would find easy. Miljin approaches the twitch with Din’s engraver’s bonds (the handcuffs only he can open), cautioning her to move slowly, as she is outnumbered. They nearly have her secured when bells ring, indicating that the leviathan is at the walls, despite no earlier warning.

Moving so quickly Din can’t process her motions, the twitch kills three Legionnaires and escapes through the window, climbing the tower to Ana’s rooms, where Ana lied that the reagents key is. The twitch reemerges, bleeding. Ana explains: Someone tried to poison her with dappleglass the night prior, so she rigged the poison to infect anyone who tried to break into her possessions. The twitch now confesses to killing Ana’s last assistant. (Later, Ana implies to Din that her previous assistant is actually still alive.)

The twitch’s speed is diminished. When she lunges at Ana, Din uses the moves he learned from Miljin’s lessons to kill the twitch. Miljin drags Ana and Din away from the body as the dappleglass blooms. Vashta orders Fayazi arrested and the rest of them to evacuate.

Chaos clogs the streets of Talagray, making evacuation impossible. Since they cannot escape to safety, Ana proposes she and Din take “the chance of a lifetime” to see a living leviathan (493). As they wait, knowing they may soon die, Din confesses that his Iudex scores were faked. Due to his challenges reading, he stole the test and practiced the movements of writing out the answers. He expects Ana to be angry about his trickery, but she is instead annoyed that he thought she didn’t know that he had cheated.

She chose him because his cheating revealed that he is “resourceful, cunning, and willing to break the rules when necessary” (496). Din’s scores weren’t investigated only because Ana told the Iudex to ignore them. When he wonders why she would want him, given his challenges, she confesses that she has no alterations: Her “[aversion] to stimulation” is her “natural state” (497). She was posted to Talagray specifically to prevent the corruption of the rich and powerful, but does not say who assigned her.

The titan emerges, shocking Din with its scope. As the leviathan reaches the breach in the walls, the titan-killer bombard goes off. Blue flares reveal that “the beast is dead. And the Empire persists” (501).

Din spends two days helping restore order in Talagray before meeting with Vashta and Ana to learn of the investigation progress. Haza lands have been seized, but since Fayazi reported on her superiors’ crimes, she may be rewarded by becoming head of the clan. The Emperor is considering removing gentry privileges; patronage will be eliminated. A conzulate from the Iudex (who, Din notes, are “akin to gods in the Empire” [504]), will arrive in Tala for the first time in decades. Din is promoted from apprentice to Assistant Investigator.

Ana identifies Uhad as the third poisoner. As an engraver, he could memorize the lock to Nusis’s safe; at the banquet, he told Din to enjoy tea with Ana—out of Ana’s then-poisoned teapot. Ana posits that Uhad’s long hatred of corruption in Talagray came to a head when he learned of Haza involvement in the Oypat incident. He conspired with Jolgalgan to kill Blas and Kaygi. The dead Engineers were an accident; killing Jolgalgan was to cover up Uhad’s crimes. Uhad intends to retire to the first ring to “continue [his] murderous work” (509).

Uhad admits all of this. He was enraged when Kaygi “didn’t even try to hide” his role in poisoning Oypat (509). Uhad defends his actions, saying that even Ana could not defeat the Hazas, and that her efforts got her banished to Daretana. Ana retorts that she was sent to Daretana specifically to investigate the Hazas. She implies again that her previous investigator is alive and orders Din to arrest Uhad.

Din and Ana attend a memorial for Iyalet officers who died during the fight with the titan. Din approaches Miljin, who feels guilty that he did not recognize Uhad’s perfidy in time to save Nusis. Miljin plans to return to the Legion and gives Din his sword, which he frames as useless against titans.

Strovi approaches, relieved to find Din safe after the attack. Strovi himself has only a minor injury from the titan-killer’s explosion. Strovi commiserates with Miljin, framing victory as much simpler in the Legion than in the Iudex. He reports his intent to stay in Talagray, as there is “more to do” (516). He gives Din expensive pipes as a memento. They kiss and promise to enjoy the time they have left together.

As they leave Talagray, Din and Ana discuss the Empire. Din previously thought it strong, but now finds it flawed and luck-based. Ana posits that the Empire is like a titan, given its might, complexity, and weaknesses. She frames herself as someone who “perform[s] maintenance” to “keep the Empire going” (520). She confirms that she is “no ordinary Iudex officer” (520), and that she and Din are headed to meet the Iudex conzulate, who first came up with the idea of her false banishment. She refuses to explain her former assistant.

Ana asks Din to accompany her on her next case, and he gifts her with the illegal mood grafts that she’d asked for early in the novel.