“Blood loss, deprivation of oxygen and reality.”

“What more do you want from me? I said I was wrong, on the record no less.”

“You said you were wrong. Do you believe you were?”

She suddenly found the window and its view more interesting than the blacks of Jace’s eyes. Ships rocked under heavy winds in the harbor. He let the silence weigh on her—respectful, maybe, or petty depending on how you looked at it.

“I heard something,” she said at last. “Before the idol died. In the pool.”

“What?”

“A voice. It said, ‘Howl, bound world’—or something like that.” The last equivocation added due to the weight of his silence, of the still air in the emptied room. She did not doubt the words, only her rightness in repeating them. “Have you ever heard things in there? Underwater? Words, I mean. I never have, before. The idols don’t speak.”

“Of course not,” he said. “Are you sure you didn’t dream these words later, or imagine them at the time? You were far gone when we pulled you clear. And the healing process can cause hallucinations.”

“I know my own ears.”

“And I know mine enough to doubt their evidence. Never trust an eyewitness, Kai. Or an earwitness, I guess.”

“You think I’m making this up.”

“You didn’t mention it in the deposition. Or in your report.”

“Has everyone read a copy of my deposition? I really did think those were private.”

He shrugged.

“I wasn’t asked,” she said. “And I wanted to talk to you before I wrote down anything someone else might discover. I thought you might care.”

“It’s an anomaly.”

“Which means you aren’t worried, because you don’t think I’m telling the truth.”

“Which means we both have more pressing concerns.” Jace sat in his chair, and leaned back. Wheels rolled over stone, and leather creaked. “What do you know about the Grimwald family?”

“I don’t study our pilgrims.”

“I wish I had that luxury. I’d sleep better.”

“I saw one of them at the deposition. A man in a white suit, all shadows and teeth.”

“The Grimwalds turn up everywhere, on boards, at parties, in high halls of the Iskari Demesne. Their fortune travels through so many idols no one knows where it comes from in the first place.”

“Important pilgrims.”

“Dangerous pilgrims. They eat people.”

“You’re speaking figuratively.”

“I wish. And as far as they and their Craftswoman are concerned, it looks like we’re either incompetent, or mad, or playing them. What would you do, if you were me? What would you tell them?”

“That one of my priests made a mistake.” Out over the ocean an albatross—she thought it was an albatross—beat west to the distant continent. “I gave you the opening in my testimony. Dock my pay. Put me on leave. Mandatory training.”

“You think that would convince them?”

“What do you think?”