“It’s a start, but not enough. They’re too carefully intertwined for us to barrel in now. Ensi will disappear, along with the Verve, and it’ll still trickle its way to the masses. We need concrete proof we can show the public, to turn everything against him. A few scanned pages with some acronyms won’t do that.” Nazarin licks his lips. “That’s where this new tech from Kim comes in. It might record, even if we’re somewhere the signal’s jammed. It’s dangerous, but it might work.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. Nazarin is animated, driven. It should scare me, but it doesn’t. It’s infectious. My fingernails trace across my scar.

If we succeed, we’ll take down the biggest mob in the city. The government and Sudice will be in our debt. That’s not what I care about; it’s a side effect.

I’m going to find out what you were up to, Tila. Once and for all.

21. Tila

TWENTY-ONE

TILA

Do you know why they really built that swamp around the Hearth? I mean, the “why” is pretty obvious, I suppose—to keep some people on one side of it and everyone else on the other—but there were events that led up to it.

I can’t tell you everything about them because I don’t know that much. I’ve managed to gather bits and pieces over the years, but I still don’t understand how they all fit together.

I’m going to tell it like a story, try and sensationalize it, fill in some gaps. You know when they have documentaries and then the camera goes all fuzzy and golden-tinged if it’s a reenactment of a good event, and dark and dreary if it’s bad? This is the dark and dreary kind, and I guess I’m the dramatic voiceover.

First, here’s roughly how Mana-ma tells the story when she’s lecturing about the evils of the Impure. I’m sure she’s told this story dozens of times in sermon:

Mana-ma’s Cautionary Tale

One night around twenty years ago now—let’s say it was dark and stormy, because what else could it be?—a man from the Impure outside world snuck into the Hearth. In those days, there was just a fence rather than a swamp. There were signs everywhere saying that the fence was charged, but it was a lie. We didn’t want to be surrounded by the new generator that would have been used. Surrounded by an Impure circle, the Hearth would feel just that much more trapped. Makes no sense, if you ask me, since the Hearth was already surrounded by, you know, the entire Impure world.