When Lady Pent went to the kitchens, Harrowhark accompanied her. They found Lieutenant Dyas not sitting down, or even leaning against the wall as anyone else would have spent the full hour or so they had been with the body, but standing ramrod-straight to attention. Her crisp white jacket appeared all the crisper and whiter after the wreck of her necromancer’s. Her scarlet necktie looked redder too—by the time they’d gotten hold of Judith Deuteros the blood had dried hers nearly black. Ortus had sponged it, and was attempting to dry it over a stove. At their approach, Dyas drew herself up to her full height, and she looked at Harrowhark, not at Abigail.

She said, with uncharacteristic frenzy: “Why am I here?”

Pent said, “Just to answer questions, Lieutenant Dyas.”

The lieutenant said, “I want to know—I just want to know—”

“What you know is of vastly more importance,” said Abigail. “Please, if you can, tell us exactly what you saw down there.”

Marta Dyas looked at her. There was no woe on her face, only a deep, almost thirsty terror, an enormous anticipation, which animated what was usually a schooled Cohort mask. “I was in the chamber when it happened,” she said, “already engaged with the target construct. The room was closed off from the adjoining chamber where—the captain was.” (There had been a brief pause. Harrow wondered if the pause had meant to contain Judith.) “I didn’t hear a shot. The target disappeared—the chamber unlocked—when I came out, the captain’s door was open, and she was inside. No … vitals.”

Pent said, “How long from that chamber unlocking to you reaching her?”

“Five to ten seconds to exit the chamber and get there,” said Lieutenant Dyas. Then she said, “In hindsight, the door must have opened when she died.”

“Did you hear any subsequent shots?” Harrowhark asked.

“No. The test chamber was soundproofed.” Dyas continued, a little mechanically, “I left Captain Deuteros. I moved to the corridor. I saw, at the very end, the Sleeper.”

“Please describe it, if you can,” said Pent. She added: “Take your time, Lieutenant. I recognise this is difficult…”

Dyas said, ragged, “I just want to know—”

“You will. I give you absolute surety that you will. What did the Sleeper look like?”

“You’ve all seen it through the glass,” said Dyas. This was not entirely true. Ortus refused to go anywhere near the glass-faced coffin in that central room, or the somnolent corpse within, and quaked at his own breathing. Harrowhark did not fear to look more closely at the death Teacher had promised them, ensconced within that frozen, clouded plex. She had been nonplussed to discover that the Sleeper slept dressed for an emergency, as Dyas recited now: “Breathing apparatus over the face—orange hazard suit—oxygen hood.”

Harrowhark said, “Easy symbols to fake. It could have been someone dressed as the Sleeper.”