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Marasi arrives at the Fourth Octant constabulary headquarters showered, bandaged where it mattered, and back in her preferred uniform — vest and jacket over a calf-length skirt. As special detective she does not technically have to wear one; she does anyway, because the uniform stands for something larger than her. The newer constables look up from their reports when she enters; conversation hushes; then comes the applause. It still feels strange — coworkers are not supposed to clap for you — and two of the young constables watching her, Wilhelmette and Gemdwyn, are women she knows joined the force last year because of her, which leaves her conflicted about her own broadsheet coverage all over again. She does her round of the back offices anyway, pausing at each open door to ask after the work going on there. *Finally,* she thinks, *it is good to have friends among my peers.*

She passes Constable Gorglen on his way out and finds Reddi inside, frowning over a Wayne caricature of Gorglen as a giraffe in a constable's uniform, captioned *Approved by Expert Types*. He files it in a folder so heavy with Wayne complaints that he has stopped returning it to the cabinet between deposits. She apologises; he waves it off — *don't apologise for him; I've a feeling without you the folder would be ten times the size* — and tells her, more seriously, that the two men in bowler hats have been by again asking after Wayne. He suspects Wayne has finally crossed the wrong sort of creditor, the kind even a constable-general cannot dissuade. She promises to look into it.

Then the day's business. The governor has been demanding proof of Outer Cities weapon-running; Marasi has delivered it. She produces the Cycle's shipping book and points to a list near the front: a series of tests of what could be shipped *into* Elendel without raising flags. *Into?* Reddi says. *It isn't illegal to ship things in.* That is why it is interesting. The actual goods are mundane — foodstuffs, lumber, particular package sizes — graded by which inspectors flag what. *Vaguely unnerving,* Reddi admits, and worst of all he has no idea what it means.

Marasi pitches the sting. She wants authorisation to work outside the city and a few days of press silence; the book shows that someone in Bilming is expecting a shipment of weapons, explosives, and dried provisions, and the Set keeps quiet on radio in the days before a drop. So no-one over there yet knows the Cycle's team has fallen. Reddi picks up the second half himself: send the shipment through under cover, take the chain one link higher. They cannot maintain the impersonation indefinitely, Marasi grants — but they have the Cycle's corpse, and she means to ask Harmony for a kandra to wear his face, with Wayne as a Bilming-accented lackey to shore up the act. Reddi is visibly uncomfortable any time she implies easy familiarity with God or Faceless Immortals — the Bleeder business spoiled the kandra for him — but he signs off in principle, asks for a written proposal, and warns her that the governor's preferred narrative remains Outer Cities and supremacy, not a secret society behind them. She argues the operation accomplishes both, since most of the men they captured were street muscle and only the Cycle had any real contact with the Set.

She brings out the spikes last: three thick six-inch ones for the university scientists, the thin four-inch fourth she is keeping. *Ruin… is that atium?* No, Marasi says — trellium, a metal from offworld. The conversation drifts: she will be delivering the spike to Lord Ladrian for study, never mind that he is *retired* — Reddi never formally revoked his constable privileges and consider Wax on the case. He asks her whether Wax has any other hidden apocalyptic family members or half-sane wives with mystical powers; she will file a report if any show up, she promises, and recommend pushing the confrontation to next quarter for budgetary reasons. *I'm glad you're out there, Colms,* he tells her. *Someone rational, to balance the insanity.*

Out in the commissary she grabs a sandwich and starts wolfing it down. She is halfway through it when the cleaning lady comes for her tray; she insists she still has half left. The cleaning lady takes the sandwich and bites into it. Wayne — in a serving-woman's apron and cap and a pair of fake breasts — is hiding from his bowler-hatted creditors. *Hidin' from those bean counters.* He will not tell her whom he owes, refuses to consider it her business, and promises to keep them off Reddi. She has already sent Wax his note. *Then why are we wasting time playin' dress-up,* Wayne says cheerfully, *when we got work to do?*