He took his hand away from his face. I drew in a sharp breath. Thick, dark blood seeped down his chin. Bruises were beginning to form under his eyes. His nose was red and swollen, shot with broken vessels. “You need ice.” I pulled him behind a plywood wall. “Come on. The performers will have something to treat it.”

“I’m all right. I don’t think it’s broken.” He touched the bridge of his nose. “We need to talk.”

“We’ll talk with food.”

As I made my way through the Rookery with Julian, I searched for any sign of a weapon. Even something crude would do: a sharp hairpin, a shard of glass or metal. Nothing jumped out at me. If the performers really were unarmed, they had no way to defend themselves if the Emim were to breach the city. The Rephs and the red-jackets were their only protection.

Inside the food shack, I forced Julian to eat a bowl of skilly and some toke, then slipped my remaining numa to a soothsayer in exchange for a stolen pack of acetaminophen. He wouldn’t tell me who he’d stolen it from, or how he’d done it, and he vanished into the crowd as soon as the needles were in his hand. He must be a real acultomancer. I moved Julian to a dark corner.

“Take these,” I said. “Don’t let anyone see.”

Julian didn’t say anything. He popped two capsules and washed them down. I found a cloth and some water in an empty shack. He used it to mop up the drying blood.

“So,” he said, a little thickly, “what do we know about the Emim?”

“Nothing on my end.”

“I’ve been finding out a bit about how this place works, if you’re interested.”

“Of course I’m interested.”

“The white-jackets go through the basics for a few days. Mostly spirit combat—showing you can make spools, that kind of thing. Then you get your first test. That’s when you have to verify your gift.”

“Verify it?”

“Prove it’s useful. Soothsayers have to make a prediction. Mediums have to incite a possession. You get the picture.”

“What do they count as useful?”

“You have to do something to prove your loyalty. I spoke to the porter at Trinity about it. He didn’t want to say much, but he said his prediction got somebody else brought into Sheol I. You have to show them what they want to see, even if it puts another human in danger.”

My throat tightened. “And the second test?”

“Something to do with the Emim. I guess you get to be a red-jacket if you live.”

My gaze wandered across the shack. There were one or two yellow tunics among the performers. “Look,” Julian said, keeping his voice low. “The one in the corner. Her fingers.”

I followed his line of sight. A young woman was scooping up her skilly, talking to a sickly looking man. Three of her fingers were stumps. When I looked around the room again, I noticed other injuries: a missing hand, bite marks, clawlike scars on arms and legs.