The Kandelburg district office of the Vesper Bureau stood in the Belfry Quarter.
From outside, it looked like a dingy old tax office, with a sign reading ARCHIVAL TRANSCRIPTION hung over the door and several lamps of perpetual lukewarm brightness in the windows.
Only after Sharlo was taken inside did he discover that the building had four floors above ground and no discernible number below it.
First, he was told to place his hand on a slab of black stone.
It was unnaturally cold. The instant his palm touched it, he heard half a bell-stroke from very far away—only half, as if someone had strangled the sound.
The old porter guiding him narrowed his eyes at the slab, then at Sharlo.
Without a word, he drew a symbol on his form that Sharlo had never seen anyone draw before.
Next came the "candle assay."
The assay room was small and round. An iron table stood at its centre, bearing a seven-branched candlestick set with seven candles of different colours.
An old technician in pince-nez asked for Sharlo's finger, drew a drop of blood with a silver needle, and flicked it into the hollow at the candlestick's centre.
"The rule is simple," the old man said without looking up. "Anyone touched by the supernatural carries 'glow' in the blood. Whichever of the seven candles answers you shows which lineage has touched you."
"If none answers, you're an ordinary, uncontaminated man. Finish your statement and go home to bed."
The bead of blood struck the hollow.
Not one of the seven candles lit.
The technician grunted and was about to write "clean" when the candlestick made a small sound by itself.
Seven threads of smoke rose simultaneously from the seven wicks.
No flame, only smoke.
The fine white streams climbed straight upward, twined into one in mid-air, and tied themselves in a knot—Sharlo swore the smoke tied a knot—shaped exactly like a bell on a three-pointed bellcap.
Then they dispersed.
The room remained silent for a long time.
"I've been doing this for forty years," the old technician said at last.
He removed his pince-nez, polished them, put them back on, and examined Sharlo with the grave attention one might give a parcel delivered to the wrong address.
"I've seen candles answer people. I've seen candles explode. But seven candles all blowing smoke and making a comic gesture at me together? Sir, you are the first."
* * *
At three in the morning, Sharlo sat in an office on the Bureau's fourth floor with a cup of real coffee before him—good coffee, hot and fragrant.
His opinion of the Vesper Bureau improved by two grades.
The office's owner sat across the desk.
He was about fifty, with greying hair and beard, an old woollen waistcoat gone fuzzy with wear, and the district director's badge pinned at the collar.
A chess game stood at mid-play before him; he was playing both black and white.
Throughout the interrogation—if it was an interrogation—he had written nothing. He merely listened and occasionally moved a piece.
Chief Inspector Barnaby Grey.
When Viola entered, she addressed him as "Director," with respect tempered by the particular impatience reserved for family.
Sharlo finished his account.
From Cheryl's arrival to the grey coat swallowing the candle, he concealed two things: Earth, and the theatre.
He hesitated when he reached the writing he could see, then told Grey about it. The events in the alley could not be hidden; better to confess himself than have the unblinking Agent Raven fill in the omissions.
Grey placed a piece and looked up.
"Mr. Vane, allow me to apologise on behalf of the Bureau," he said. "By regulation, an 'unregistered sight-bearer' ought to have been found, registered, and placed under our protection three months ago."
"You wandered under our noses for a season and nearly let the Dirge Society's 'Sweet Voice' pluck out your brain. That failure is mine."
"The Dirge Society?"
"In a moment. First, a choice."
Grey drew a flat iron box from a drawer. Three seals crossed its lid, each stamped in wax with the arms of a different church.
He pushed the box to the centre of the desk.
"You heard children singing in the alley and copied the words into your notebook. Agent Raven searched that notebook—standard procedure; stop glaring at her—so you now have two options."
"First, tear out the page and burn it. Forget the song, collect a payment for distress, and go home. From then on we protect you, but we do not disturb you."
"Second..."
His finger tapped the iron box.
"You read the whole text. After that, there is no going back."
"What does 'no going back' mean?"
"It means you'll stop sleeping well," Grey said. "People who know what this world truly is never sleep well."
He paused and tipped his head toward the door. In the corridor beyond, Viola leaned against the wall with her arms folded.
"Some stop sleeping altogether."
Sharlo looked at the iron box.
He thought of the words "Nothing will happen" above Thomas's head. He thought of the priest's bone-deep terror. He thought of Cheryl arranging twelve copper tinders one by one in a perfect row.
Then he heard himself speak.
"My client's case is still open. Open the box."
Grey smiled.
It was brief as a match struck damp, but Sharlo caught what lay within it—not approval, but a faint, rueful sorrow that said, Of course.
The seals came away.
Inside the box lay a sheet of parchment bearing old words in a careful copy. Seventeen lines, followed by one line standing alone.
Love unmakes the Scarlet Queen.
Loyalty unmakes the Plotweaver.
Homecoming ends the Wayfarer.
The Last Ferryman is stranded on his own black river.
Faith devours the Soulherd.
The Dusk Colossus falls one breath before dawn.
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The Daystar quenches the First Sun's fire.
The Dreamwright never was.
The All-Thief ends with empty hands.
The Veilseeker's last secret is death.
The Wakebound sleeps without end.
The Keeper of the Star Gate is locked beyond the firmament.
The Worldstrider never crosses home.
The Fatecoil obeys the fate it circles.
The Realmweight can uphold the Sable Sovereign—and overturn him.
The Lord of Falsehoods, deceived at last.
The Worldcrosser never left home.
Hail the Curtainbreaker.
Sharlo read the seventeen lines, then read them again.
When he reached "The Worldcrosser never left home," his heart gave one heavy beat, as though a finger had pressed it through his clothes.
He continued without betraying himself, read the final line, and raised his head.
"What is this?"
"The Seventeen Dirges," Grey said. "The churches call it the ravings of a cult. Copying it, singing it, possessing it—each is a capital crime."
"No one knows where the children learn the fragments. Once learned, the song spreads, and it cannot be driven out. Songs thrive under prohibition."
"And in truth?"
"In truth"—Grey placed another piece on the board, his voice flat as a weather bulletin—"every line is true."
"This world once had gods. Seventeen of them. Not one remains. The song sets down how they died, one god to each line, as plainly as a coroner's report."
Steam curled from the coffee between them.
"The world doesn't know. The churches keep house for dead gods and pretend the owners are still alive."
"Don't look at me like that, Mr. Vane; I didn't say the churches were wicked. Have you ever raised children? If the parents die, someone has to keep it from the youngest, or the whole household falls apart."
Grey continued, "And when a god dies, something remains. A stove goes out, but its firebox stays warm. We call that remnant heat 'afterglow.'"
"Those with the means carve a dead god's name on a candle and light it, drawing the afterglow into their own bodies. Such people are called Lightbearers. Agent Raven is one. So am I."
Sharlo held his coffee and digested this for a while.
Questions queued in his mind; he selected the one at the front.
"If the gods are all dead, then who answers prayers in the churches? I've seen people at morning prayer ask for safety, and dockhands ask the Daystar to guard them at sea."
"Some prayers must be answered. The churches could not have lasted a thousand years otherwise."
"Now you're asking the right question." Grey pointed a chess piece at him. "The afterglow answers. A stove goes out, but the firebox stays warm."
"Shout 'I'm cold' into it, and it will still warm you a little. Before they died, the gods listened to prayers for tens of thousands of years. The very act of 'listening to prayer' became a groove in their afterglow."
"A believer kneels and speaks the right name, and the afterglow answers along the old track."
"Like shouting into an empty house," Sharlo said slowly. "The echo remains."
"Worse. An echo doesn't pretend to be the master of the house."
Grey regarded him.
"Do you understand now what the churches truly do? They don't deceive the world. They preserve the form of prayer."
"As long as millions keep calling into the empty house according to the old forms, the echo will always sound right."
"One day the form breaks down, the callers change the words, and the echo fails to answer—and millions of people discover at the same moment that the house is empty."
"What do you imagine happens to the world then?"
Sharlo did not answer.
He found he had no wish to follow the question to its end, in the same way he had no wish to look over the lip of a precipice.
"Is that what the Vesper Bureau handles?" He changed direction. "The 'Vesper' in its name—"
"Chosen the year the Bureau was founded. It comes from 'tolling the vesper bell for the gods.'"
Grey said, "The churches manage 'daylight'—the respectable world in which the gods remain alive."
"We manage what comes after dusk: trafficking in afterglow, illicit name-kindling, the rolebound, and madmen like the Dirge Society who want to hurry dusk into night."
"The first director chose the name Duskwarden. His original words remain in the archive: The gods are dead, and the world has become a theatre without an usher."
"The audience is still seated inside, knowing nothing. Someone must walk the aisles carrying a lamp."
"Are there ranks among Lightbearers? I can tell that you, Agent Raven, and the man in the alley have different..."
Sharlo stopped himself just in time, swallowed "amounts of writing above your heads," and substituted, "presences."
Grey gave him a look that was almost a smile, but did not expose the evasion.
"Five grades." He held up one hand and bent the first finger. "Kindle the first name-candle and gain a thread of afterglow: Glimmer."
"Kindle again: Candlebearer. The third is Lamplighter. The fourth, Everlight."
"At each grade your strength multiplies, and the fate-line winds more tightly around you. By Everlight, the life of the god whose power you borrowed is almost impossible to distinguish from your own."
"The first rule at Everlight is this: before sleep each night, answer three questions with memories from your own past. If you cannot, report it immediately."
"And the fifth grade?"
"Crownfire."
Grey curled the final finger and closed his hand into a fist.
"You place the god's crown upon your own head. At that stage, the death written in the song becomes your death, down to the last detail."
"For that reason, of all those who attain Crownfire on this continent"—he opened his fist, revealing an empty palm—"not one should theoretically exist."
"Anyone who reaches that point is dealt with first by the churches and us together. It is the only clause upon which the three churches and the Vesper Bureau have never quarrelled."
"Then what does the Dirge Society want? Its members will die too."
"You can't understand the affairs of the dead with the mind of the living," Grey said.
"The Dirge Society's creed is that every play must be performed to its end. They believe the deaths of the gods formed an unfinished play, stalled halfway, and that is why the world is neither properly alive nor properly dead—the sun is dim, the sky hangs low, and people suffer."
"Reenact all seventeen deaths, let the curtain fall, and then they can..."
He made a vague gesture.
"Open a new play. A new world. As for what becomes of the people in the old one—well, audiences make their own arrangements after the performance."
"And the price?" Sharlo asked. "Borrowed things must be repaid."
For the first time, Grey truly smiled.
"An excellent question. If I'd had that much sense forty years ago, I'd have twice the hair I do now."
He raised a finger toward the top of his head.
"The price is that when you borrow someone's light, you inherit their fate. We call it the 'fate-line.'"
"The more you borrow, the more deeply it marks you, and your life comes increasingly to resemble a... reenactment of that god's life."
"Lines present themselves to your tongue one by one; a road lays itself beneath your feet one step at a time. Following it is wonderfully easy, until it leads you into the ending written in the song."
"Those who walk entirely into the role and cannot leave it are what we call rolebound. The Sweet Voice you met in the alley would have become one in another two years."
"Is there no way to pull someone out?"
"No," Grey said. "Once a person is bound to a role, the whole world becomes his scenery."
"Rush onstage and shout, 'Wake up, none of this is real,' and he'll only take you for a villain in the play. In forty years, I have never seen one walk back out."
He set down his chess piece, interlaced his fingers, and looked at Sharlo across the board.
"Until last night."
"An ordinary man who had not even reached Glimmer scrambled the lines of a Sweet Voice already seven-tenths rolebound in a blind alley, made him forget his part, and drove him to swallow a candle rather than continue acting opposite you."
"Mr. Vane, do you know why he feared you?"
Sharlo shook his head.
"Because everyone onstage has a script except you," Grey said. "A man who acts by a script fears no blade so much as a scene he cannot accept."
He drew a document from the drawer and slid it across the desk.
Its heading read: SPECIAL CONSULTANT CONTRACT, VESPER BUREAU.
"Four silver candles a week, with separate allowances for fieldwork and twenty gold crowns in death benefits if you fall in the line of duty—I mention that solely because regulations require it. Do not dwell on the point."
Grey tapped the contract.
"The fading cases are being harvested by the Scarlet Queen's afterglow, with the Dirge Society behind them. We are short-handed, particularly of people like you. Will you sign?"
Sharlo picked up the pen but did not immediately put it to paper.
"Two conditions. First, Cheryl Hart's commission becomes part of the case. Whatever Thomas Ophir lost that can be recovered, we recover."
"Second..."
He looked at the sheet of parchment.
"I want a copy of that song. I intend to know what play this contract signs me into."
"The first is granted. As for the second"—Grey returned the parchment to the iron box—"earn another distinction and trade me for it."
Sharlo signed.
Before the ink had dried, Grey raised his voice toward the door.
"Raven! Come in and meet your new partner."
Silence held for two seconds beyond the door.
Then Viola's perfectly even voice answered, "I decline."
"Overruled," Grey said. "Nine tomorrow morning. The Golden Iris Opera House."
Dawn was paling the sky when Sharlo left the district office.
Viola accompanied him to the side door—less an escort than the lingering momentum of custody.
They stopped in the archway. Outside, the fog was white and boundless, and the outlines of the Belfry Quarter were just taking shape from the night.
"Three rules," Viola said. "Since the overruling is already in force, we'll settle them now."
"First: in the field, you follow my instructions. Your 'improvisation' has been entered in the Bureau record, but I've met four registered geniuses. I signed the final reports on behalf of three of their families."
"Second?"
"Don't block my sight." She pointed at her eyes. "I see differently from you. In a crisis, stand behind me and to one side. Always."
"Third?"
Viola was silent a moment.
Morning fog drifted through the archway and across her unblinking eyes.
"Don't use your trick on me," she said. "Read, look—whatever you call it. I knew you were looking at me in the coach."
"Whatever words hover above my head, whatever they say, I do not want to hear them from your mouth. Not one."
Sharlo remembered the faint line, pale as remnant warmth.
【She has not slept in six years.】
"I can promise half of that," he said. "I won't look on purpose, and if I see, I won't speak."
"With one exception: if the words say something is about to kill you, I will tell you. Rules are lifeless; partners are not."
"My acting teacher taught me this: people sharing a stage have only one life, and it belongs to each other."
Viola stared at him for a long time as mist drifted between them.
"Agreed," she said at last, turning back inside. "Nine o'clock. If you're one minute late, I transfer your coffee allowance to Equipment."
* * *
Late that night, the Bureau's fourth floor stood empty.
Grey sat alone in his office, returning the black and white chessmen to their jars one by one.
Last, he picked up an unused white piece, yellowed with age, and studied it for a long time.
Then he opened the bottom drawer, removed a blank case folder, and wrote "Sharlo Vane" across its cover.
Before filing it away, he took a small brass stamp from the pocket of his woollen waistcoat and marked the upper-right corner.
The stamped design was a hat with three points, a bell hanging from each.
A three-pointed bellcap.
Grey looked at the emblem and exhaled softly.
In a voice only he could hear, he said:
"Twenty years. At last, another understudy."