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      Kiva did exactly as Kenny had asked: she had time to look through Rod’s letters, while the three men sat in the library. She found nothing suspicious, but the older brother’s correspondence with Jarnach was very active. That wouldn’t be strange, for Rod was not a member of the cult itself, but was well aware of all its secrets and mysteries, even had power there. But most of the letters were not of a business nature, more of a friendly one. Millius answered questions about his family, about some incidents, about his younger sister Alma. Kiva even got the impression, that Reiss was very interested in this lady. All this despite the fact, that he was already married and had an older son Ulkin, a daughter Frieda, and just recently a son Dirk. Rod wasn’t a very nice man, nor was he a paragon of male fidelity, but what did she care. When the men had finished their conversation, Kiva was already sitting on the windowsill opposite the library door. The girl didn’t say a word, waiting patiently for Kenny’s further orders.       Rod had put on an unreadable mask, obviously hiding his real thoughts, and Uri looked just as saddened, but still a little more relaxed. Kiva couldn’t tell, what might have calmed him down, as she hadn’t heard their whole conversation. Ackerman looked relaxed with a dash of amusement, probably excited about the work ahead of him. He turned to Uri and said he’d be here again as soon as he’d identified everyone involved in the assassination attempt, everyone who knew about it, and everyone who carried the threat. A fake forced smile appeared on Uri’s face, Kiva had no doubt, that he didn’t want death, but he was the King and had responsibilities. The truth could shock the people living within the Walls, could cause terrible consequences, that would lead to more violence, given the generally fragile state of humanity. Uri tried to act gently, justly, but some moments left nothing else to do, because he couldn’t change anything about them, no matter how much he wanted to.       Kenny turned and walked towards the main exit, only glancing at Kiva, and she silently jumped off and followed the man, feeling the stares of the Reisses on her. It was funny, she’d known and seen them for a long time, followed them sometimes, and they’d only learned of her existence today. It was her job to keep out of sight, and she was good at it. It was the first time she’d left this house through the front door, surprising the servants who’d met the Reaper alone a few hours ago. He looked pleased, though, working something out in his head, apparently the case didn’t look difficult to him. In a way it was, in these cities some people were more careless, and a lot of people were soft, though there were some people worthy of respect. And usually they didn’t have to go through a sea of mud and other hardships.       The two of them walked along the road for a while, the sun still up, the wind blowing through the trees. At last Kenny interrupted the silence with a question, asked with mild curiosity: “Was there anything interesting?” “Rod knows Millius and his family very well, and they have a very frequent friendly correspondence. If Reiss doesn’t hide it much, I don’t remember any such letters from Millius. I’m gonna go to his office tonight and look for them, see if I can find anything similar to that letter from the killer. Then I’ll check his place.”       Kenny scratched his stubble; he’d stopped shaving his face a few months ago, but he hadn’t lost the look. The coat had been changed to a more expensive one, but the hat was the same, and it didn’t break the pattern in any way. Maybe Rod was just worried about his friend, because he hadn’t expected him to be involved in the attempted assassination of his younger brother. Or maybe he knew something, a point worth clarifying.       Showing Kiva to the Reisses, Kenny wanted Rod to tell them everything without holding back. After all, if there were unwanted secrets, Rod could now realize, that they might come out in a light that wasn’t good for him. It would do everyone more good, if he told it himself. Perhaps Ackerman did not trust the elder Reiss very much from the beginning, or perhaps he simply did not want any mistakes in the matter. Uri also asked, if Jarnach had unknowingly taken part, not to kill him, but to bring him to him so that he could change his memory with his King’s power. Kenny was doubtful of this outcome, used to a more sober view of the world, but agreed with him. He trusted Kiva to check on Millius, no one could do it better than her. The Reaper himself decided to pursue a couple of leads from the hapless assassin, and if he was lucky, he’d talk to Rod. Kenny held up his hat, which was nearly blown away by the wind: “I think you can handle it by tomorrow night, everything is close by, within Sina. Then you’ll find me in the building, where the meeting was held, a day will be enough for me to clarify some things too.” The girl nodded, the instructions were clear, nothing complicated, nothing new, except now they were protecting Uri’s interests, and they didn’t need to say it out loud.       They reached Mitra in the evening, where they parted ways, and Kenny told Kiva not to take too long in her quest. The girl had such a sin, sometimes she would linger after learning what she needed to know, but would stay to learn something else. She just liked to know a lot. Her road led to the main church of the Order of the Walls, while Ackerman’s road lay toward Stohess. Surprisingly, there was a light on the first floor of the chapel, and the girl grumbled to herself when she saw the three ministers spending time in prayer. They were engrossed in their work and didn’t notice her. Though her ascent up the spiral staircase was unnoticed, she decided she’d leave the building through a window on the second floor.       There she walked cautiously, listening, for if there were people downstairs, there was no guarantee, that there was no one upstairs. But it was quiet. Kiva opened the door with her lock picks, stepped inside, locked it from the back. Millius' office, she’d been here a couple months ago, hadn’t changed a bit. The night had just begun, she had plenty of time to make sure she didn’t miss any details. The room had a bookcase, a couch, a desk, and a chair upholstered in fabric. The girl decided to start the search with the bookcase, checking each book for hidden letters and notes. She started with that, as it was the most time consuming. Checked the closet for hidden drawers and loopholes. The books and the closet were empty, and Kiva carefully returned the handwritten folios to the order they had always been laid out. The couch? The girl checked that too, just in case, and only then proceeded to examine the desk.       No letters from Rod, no hint of that letter on the yellow paper-all clean, as one of the Royal Government’s members should be. She leaned back in her chair irritably, crossing her arms over her chest. The lack of results made her angry; of all the opportunities to find out something, this was the most realistic. She looked around the table again: sheets of blank paper, ink pens, pencils, a candle holder for three candles, a flat ashtray with ashes, a pocket watch that had been forgotten. An ashtray of ashes? Did Jarnach smoke? Kiva couldn’t remember for sure, it seemed not. Then where did the ashes come from? The girl carefully slid the flat plate to herself. The ash was not from cigarettes. She lit the candles in the candelabra with matches and moved the light closer. Kiva peered into the pile of blackened paper, pushing away the completely burnt by pencil, she saw small fragments of yellow paper at the bottom. Her heart raced, if she only managed to read a few important words. She pulled away, exhaled a full chestful of breath into her palms, keeping the air from scattering the remains of the letter.       There were several attempts: if you remove the ashes from the surviving piece of paper, then maybe there will be something written there, and if you pull a trick with heating a piece of paper over the fire, in such cases, the words appear even on blackened sheets. But there’s no guarantee of success in either case. With no other choice, Kiva laid down two sheets of blank paper, carefully pulling the useless ashes onto one, and on the other pulling out the fragment she needed. Ten minutes of close scrutiny revealed almost nothing, very little was preserved, so she would try holding the scrap over the fire. But her fingers were too big to hold the remnants of the letter without damaging them. She thought, took out the thin lock picks, clamped the scrap with them, and held it up to the fire. Far away at first, then slowly bringing it closer, she tried not to breathe, too fragile a work.       Soon the words began to emerge, enlivened by the fire. She caught the central fragment; there were passages of two lines: “on failed, now b” and on the second line, “ter burn the le”. After about seven seconds the paper succumbed to the fire and curled up, the girl quickly set the construction aside and wrote down what she had managed to read. She was in a great hurry, so much so that, what she had seen, seemed ghostly. Those words pointed to Millius' involvement in the assassination attempt, better than nothing. Kiva shook the ashes back into the ashtray, put the soiled sheets away, checked the table for cleanliness, put the candlestick back in place, and blew out the light. A lot of the wax had not had time to melt, so only a very careful person, who measured the height of the candles before leaving, would know, that the candles had burned during the night.       If Jarnach was consciously involved in this, she should follow him more closely. Kiva thought, she’d head to his house, see if he got to the chapel, see if there was anything suspicious, and then go back to his house and look for something there. It added to the trouble, and gave no chance of success, but it was better this way. The girl climbed through the window onto the roof, hooked her feet onto the parapet, and hung, closing the window. It was still two hours before dawn and the city awakening, she should hurry if she wanted to trace Jarnach’s entire route from home to work. Millius was accompanied by his sister Alma. She was beautiful: straight nose, shoulder-length blond hair, heavenly eyes with green streaks, and a perfect figure, so feminine. Kiva could understand Rod’s weakness in front of this beauty, his wife Elfrieda Reiss looked faded against Alma. But she had already given birth to two children, and this young woman hardly knew all the dubious charms of motherhood.       Jarnach left the house in a two-horse wagon, which at first caused Kiva trouble following him. Not even a block from his church, Millius got out of the wagon and walked. He turned down one alley, taking a shortcut, stopped for a second or two, looked at the wall of a house on the right, and walked on. He didn’t meet anyone, didn’t bump into anyone, didn’t talk to anyone, and so he walked to the chapel, and disappeared into it. Kiva walked back to the alley, looking at the wall, that had caught Jarnach’s attention. The girl tried to remember, where exactly the man’s gaze had been directed. Nothing unusual or noteworthy. She moved closer, tapped the masonry, touched the ledges, and found, what she was looking for. One brick was pushing back slightly, most likely where the secret letters were passed around. The girl hummed, pushing the block back into place. The results were pleasing, now it was time to sneak into his house, this once she was in no hurry.       Kiva knew, that not only was Jarnach’s sister at home, but his parents as well. They were unlikely to be out since early morning, most likely in the afternoon, it would be easier to look for letters then. When she got to the right place, only Alma was home. Kiva waited patiently as Millius' sister exited the house and headed somewhere. The girl waited another twenty minutes out of caution before entering the courtyard and making her way to the first floor. The house was furnished rather ascetically, except for the room of Alma, who was the favorite of the family. Kiva knew, that the Jarnahi’s livelihood was largely dependent on the son’s work; the daughter worked part-time as a seamstress, but the money was small. She had even had time to think about how their lives would turn out, when Millius would be gone, while it was all coming to that. The girl found the letters written by Rod without much difficulty. She didn’t read them, but noticed, that some of the sentences were highlighted in pencil. So the notes were important to Millius.       All of them concerned the Reiss family, certain events, such as the possible change of the current King, the peculiarities of the authorities' policy, the lack of change in it. Individually, all of these suggestions were not dangerous, Rod was careful, but when they were put together, they grew into trouble. This person was dissatisfied with the state of affairs, waiting for something new, but everything remained the same, and he also involved someone. It was necessary to find out who, how many people were involved. Millius can be followed indefinitely, now all participants will lie low for a decent amount of time, during which the conspiracy can gain strength and people. Such a thing is very undesirable, it was very important to pull this weed out before it grew. With these thoughts, Kiva headed towards the Town Hall.        Ackerman was already at the Royal Government Building, studying police reports of unusual occurrences, murders, trying to find a theoretical connection to the assassination attempt. Whoever had prompted that man to attack Uri, he had covered his tracks well. Kenny felt he was looking in the right direction, it drove him like a beast that had tasted blood. He also smoked a lot, while he was working on the reports. That’s why Kiva coughed, when she went into office, the room reserved for their non-standard work. The man looked up at her. He was holding a cigarette with his teeth, his shirt sleeves rolled up, crumpled reports lying around his desk, which made him furious at their inappropriateness. He looked dashing, and she admired him. “I can’t wait to get this fucking mess out of my head,” he pointed to the piles of papers scattered on the table. The girl walked to the second chair and sat in it, the constant transitions had worn her out a bit. Kiva shook her head: “As far as I can tell, this case is serious and it’s better to finish it quickly.”        Kenny cut her off, crumpling up another report and throwing it at the girl. “Less talk, more substance, little baby. Get to the point.”       She held up her hands, showing her defenselessness: “Jarnach is involved, involving, most likely, a small group of people so far. They are not badly organized and are dissatisfied with the authorities and the lack of change.”       This news made the man break from his occupation, he laughed, seemingly without malice: “So we have a riot in the sheep pen, this is going to be entertaining.”       Kiva gave him all the basic and important details. Ackerman pulled out a map of Mitra, asked the girl to find a suspicious alley. Then he found the incident reports from the neighborhood, and while he reread them, the girl picked up all the crumpled sheets on the floor. “People are going to have to rewrite them all over again,” she pointed out. “I don’t give a fuck, it’s their own fault they didn’t bring me what I asked for. Let them work, they’re no good for anything else.”        Kiva collected all the crumpled reports, unnecessary and discarded, and took them to the police officers, who were already annoyed, so the girl hurried upstairs.        Kenny returned to his desk, stopped smoking, looked at the five reports. When Kiva took her usual seat, Ackerman pulled something out of a desk drawer and tossed it to her. “Have a snack, you probably didn’t have time to snatch anything.”       The paper bag contained pieces of dried meat, the kind you didn’t need to eat much of to feel full. The girl smiled gratefully in return, she hadn’t eaten anything for thirty hours. Kenny himself had time to eat at the inn. They spent the rest of the evening figuring out where to look for Jarnach’s accomplices, what actions would be more productive, and Kenny told the girl, what methods and tactics were used when hunting a group of animals. They were interrupted by the sudden arrival of Rod. Kenny had expected him to act, but he did not show it outwardly. The man, who entered, looked distressed and worried, and he was the first to break the silence: “Good evening to you, Kenny. I’ve come to talk about Millius.” Ackerman did not return the greeting, but went straight to the point, somewhat rudely, in his usual manner: “I’m anxious to hear your story, especially the part with Alma.” At the name of his mistress, Rod flinched, glared angrily at the girl, guessing who had unearthed that side of his life.       Exhaling tiredly, he tried to speak: “It’s not quite what it seems.” “And how am I supposed to think it is, Rod?”, The Reaper interrupted him. — “You’ve got a family, and you’ve got a beautiful doll and you’re going out with her. What’s wrong with that?”       Reiss stood there, his cheeks slightly flushed with anger. Kenny wasn’t going to stop: “Though from what the little one told me,” he nodded at the girl and grinned lewdly, “she’s a rare beauty, I’d like to get a closer look at her. You’re not as boring as you seemed at first.” The last words sounded like a kind of approval, and it made Rod look up at him with an angry, offended look. Kenny laughed evilly, and when the laughter died down, he got to the point, which kept Reiss from venting his rage. “Your friend Millius is gonna have to be killed, Rod. And we’re gonna have to do it today.” “Did he know about the assassination attempt?” — Reiss went straight to the business end of the line, and set aside his emotions. “There’s no doubt about it,” Kenny nodded at the girl again, “she knows her job and she doesn’t misfire.”       Rod thought for a few moments, a pained grimace appearing on his face for a second, but he pulled himself together. “Do what you have to do, he left no choice. I’m sorry, he’s a good friend of mine.” “We’re going to have to torture him to get a clue about the people, who made this case.” Now Kenny was watching Reiss, wondering what reaction he’d get. “I don’t doubt your experience and skills, I put my trust in you.”       Kenny nodded contentedly, lighting a cigarette: “I like your businesslike approach, I can’t take that away from you. The whole cleanup will be finished in two days, you just have to wait. And look for Jarnach’s replacement in the Oder of the Walls.”       Rod nodded, and as he was leaving, he said: “Use the police resources as needed.”       Ackerman was satisfied with that, and the plan was to catch Jarnach on his way home at night and beat the hell out of him. The next two days promised to be sleepless and insanely fun.