“Stop, Cousin. What’s your hurry?” he asked.

“P-p-prisoner for Wanhope,” stammered the curate. “B-b-bishop’s orders.”

Brother Malabar turned to look. “Doctor,” he said. “I hoped they wouldn’t find you. I hoped you were far away.”

“I had to come back.”

The monk looked at him and nodded. “Let me untie you,” he said. And over his shoulder, to the curate:

“Have you a warrant for this man?”

The curate shuffled underneath his robe, hesitated, and drew his hands back empty. “I-I seem to have lost it,” he said.

“No, sir,” corrected his lieutenant, grinning. “It’s in your upper pocket, sir.”

The curate gave him a vicious look. “Ah, y—yes. Th—thank you.” He made as if to look for it, but Brother Malabar seized him by the front of his cassock, thrust his hand in, and drew out a crumpled paper. “Thanakar Starbridge,” he read, and flipped it over to look at the signature. “Signed by the usurper’s own hand. Chrism Demiurge. Are you familiar with this name, Doctor?”

“I know him well.”

“I always hated him. We’ll hang him higher than a bird. This signature,” he continued, turning back to the curate, “has no purchase here. Do you know your prisoner’s identity?”

“Y-yes.”

“No. Look here.” Brother Malabar pulled back his long hair to show his silver ear, miraculously curled and delicate, and the silver hinge of his jaw, melting into skin. “The doctor healed me when I was almost dead. Fighting for the bishop back when you were still sucking cocks in seminary. Back when you had a cock to suck. You heard about my cousins?” he asked Thanakar.

“No. I . . . have to know.”

“I’ll tell you. Demiurge is murdering the old families.” He turned. “You are free to go,” he told the curate.

“Tell your master that I’ll tear down Wanhope stone by stone unless he lets them go. The usurper,” he said to Thanakar, “has imprisoned four brothers of my order. For photographing convicts inside the Mountain of Redemption. All relatives of ours.”

“The convicts?”

“The photographers. The convicts, too, soon enough. I tell you it’s critical.”

Thanakar’s curate had already gone. His guard, too, seemed to have disappeared, except for the lieutenant, who stood grinning. “Excuse me, sir,” he said. “You wouldn’t have an extra one of those flowers.”

“Certainly,” answered the monk, unpinning one from his own collar.

“Thank you. I gave my oath to the bishop herself, when I came of age. My old mother had a growth . . .”

“Good man,” said the monk absently. He pointed to the bonfire, where soldiers were roasting turnips on the ends of bayonets. “Are you hungry?” And without waiting for an answer, he led Thanakar across the street and through a broken shopfront window into a makeshift wardroom. Officers of various services sat smoking marijuana in small groups. It was a cheerless, cavernous place, lit with dim bulbs.

Malabar Starbridge was a forceful man, but he lacked dignity. “That piece of scum,” he remarked, lugging chairs into an empty corner. They sat down, and the monk leaned back so that his trousers rode up tight around his thighs. “That piece of scum,” he repeated, his fingers clasped behind his neck. “He means to burn her. Cosro Starbridge’s own daughter. I saw the pyre in Kindness and Repair. It’s higher than this ceiling. Witchcraft—damn!” He swiveled forward. He was constantly in motion, scratching, twisting, as if he could never find a position that was comfortable. He would contort his face into odd shapes and keep them until everyone around him was uneasy. It was a habit that made people expect him to stammer or stutter, but in fact he spoke fluidly and extremely fast. This combination of mannerisms made him a hard man to take seriously. Thanakar was grateful to him. Bad news might seem bearable from such distracting lips.