Bitterlich perched on the peak of a stone gable across from the burned-out temple. He sorrowed for the dead and their families, who had only come to hear words of wisdom from Saint Cynessus and prepare for spring after a bitter winter. He would miss the grand old building, too, with its copper dome kept polished to shine in the Solar’s light. It did not take much listening to learn that the gathering had been attacked by a Seelenjäger, nor much logic to deduce that it must have been the Skaladin Hasdrubal whom Jean-Claude had been hunting. It hardly took any experience at all to realize that, being a Seelenjäger himself, it would probably not be wise to pull on his erstepelz and ask more detailed questions, even if he hadn’t had other duties.

Sagax Quill stood on the blackened stone front steps, where only iron bands from the door remained, holding on to the ghosts of the wood like the shackles of Torment-bound souls. Ash swirled around his ankles, the foul air gusted around his face. He looked like he’d forgotten how to breathe.

The city, amazingly, had already begun to mitigate the damage, like a wound scabbing over. Teams of laborers shifted the debris and cranes were being erected to take down the now unstable walls. The markets up the street in either direction had sensed opportunity and set up stalls for food and drink for men likely to be working through the night.

Bitterlich half expected Quill to prostrate himself in the ash, but grand gestures were apparently not his forte. Still stricken, he stumbled across the lane to a rectory that had been turned into a hospital. A flying squad of morticians awaited outside with litters to be borne for the many who passed the Ravenous Gate.

Bitterlich dropped into an alley, became a cat, and sauntered through the doorway as if he were lord of the domain. He strolled through the sick ward. Someone had brought in several alchemical heaters to help the stricken stay warm, and the air was as warm and sticky as fresh blood. The smell of fever and rot mixed with soap. Moans and mutters drifted freely in the fog.

Quill had found Orator Marceau tending the wounded. Marceau had been a fixture at the temple as long as Bitterlich could remember, an indefatigable soul who shared the Builder’s word because he delighted in it: a storyteller rather than a judge.

Bitterlich scooted under a low bench and listened to Marceau’s version of Hasdrubal’s attack. It was clear he’d been stunned and out of his depth as soon as the attack began.

“How did he even know about the reliquary?” Quill asked when Marceau described how Hasdrubal had taken the old box of bones and fled.

“I don’t know,” Marceau said. “I swear I didn’t tell anyone.”