Gausaron’s mouth thinned. “As you well know, not only was the matter assigned to another, but Adjunct Point Rathe was explicitly ordered to keep his distance from it. And he has not done so.”

“The death of a royal intendant is a grave and delicate matter,” a third woman said. “We were certain you, Chief Point, would understand this.”

“It cannot be handled like a southriver tavern brawl,” Gausaron continued. “It must not bring embarrassment upon the family, who have suffered quite enough by this loss. Rathe’s–Adjunct Point Rathe’s actions threaten to bring offense to a very important family.”

“And those were?” Trijn asked.

Gausaron blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“What has Rathe done to bring offense to the family?” Trijn said. She spread her hands. “We are here at the request of the intendant’s leman–”

“His kin,” the thinfaced regent said. “His sister. By rights, she should have had the final say in this, it’s indulgence enough that we allowed it reopened without consulting her.”

That was true enough, and Rathe winced, hoping the regents didn’t see. A leman’s rights were limited in law; without a wife, Leussi’s legal kin would be the women of his mother’s family.

“There was a risk that this would all end up in the broadsheets,” the third regent said. She had a bright, high voice like a singing bird’s. “That would have been grave offense indeed.”

“And this is what Voillemin told you,” Trijn said, “that Leussi’s sister was afraid of the broadsheets.”

“She is a woman of probity and discretion,” Gausaron said. “One can hardly blame her for her fears.”

Trijn looked at Rathe. “Has this been noted in the daybook, Adjunct Point?”

Rathe shook his head. “No, Chief.”

“Then I must speak with Voillemin as well.” Trijn favored the regents with a bleak smile. “If such a warning is not posted, then it cannot be obeyed. You should be grateful that it was Rathe who spoke to the flower‑seller, not some excitable junior.”

“He should not have spoken to anyone concerned with this matter,” Gausaron snapped. “No one at all.”

“Adjunct Point Rathe came to me this morning to say that he had stumbled across evidence that Adjunct Point Voillemin had failed to fully follow–evidence that came to him in the course of other cases, and which, at this moment, seems to suggest misadventure rather than murder–and to ask me to take further action. Rathe is my senior adjunct, it is his right and duty to oversee the actions of the other pointswomen and ‑men under my authority.” Trijn glared at the regents, moderated her tone with an effort. “It is my considered opinion that he has behaved properly in this matter, and my very grave concern that Adjunct Point Voillemin has not. You yourselves would dismiss any clerk caught doing what he’s done.”

That was a home truth, Rathe thought, seeing heads nod almost involuntarily along the line of regents.

Gausaron frowned. “Adjunct Point Rathe acted against our express orders–”

“To do his duty,” Trijn countered. “And he has put the matter in my hands. Isn’t that right, Adjunct Point?”

“Yes, Chief,” Rathe said, his mouth suddenly dry. I’ve been manipulated just as neatly as the regents. I just hope I can trust her to carry through. But Trijn understood the issues, he told himself, understood why it might still be murder, would still be murder unless the plants had somehow also bound the dead man’s ghost. She wouldn’t let it go to appease a complaint that might never have happened.

Gausaron sat back in her chair, her face without expression. “Very well, Chief Point, we will accept your explanation. But if this comes before us again, we will recommend to the Surintendant of Points that he look to his stations with a more careful eye.”

Trijn’s gaze flickered at that, but she managed a court‑deep curtsy, her skirts almost puddling on the floor. Rathe bowed, knowing better than to copy her irony, and followed her from the room.

She did not speak again until they reached the main hall, where the cold air seeped in from the main doors to turn the floors to ice. Rathe held the smaller winter‑door open for her, and she swept past him into the sunlight of the open square. She stopped there, squinting against the sudden brightness, and shook her head.

“She’s going to go to Fourie, and expect him to listen to that?”

“He might not have a choice,” Rathe answered. Of course, with Fourie, he might advance Trijn to chief at Temple Point just to infuriate the regents: one could never predict how the surintendant might react.

“Fourie always has a choice,” Trijn answered. “That’s how he’s gotten as far as he has.” She took a breath. “I’ve backed you this far, Nico, and I expect you to help me now. Find me this formula, this recipe for a posy, and I’ll see it gets to the proper authorities at the university. I’m well aware it may still be murder, I won’t let myself be talked out of it to convenience the sister–if she even exists.”

“And Voillemin?” Rathe asked.

“Leave him to me.” Trijn gave a grim smile. “I will keep my eye on him, and on his handling of this matter–I’ll have him reporting to me on the hour like an apprentice, if I have to. But if the regents decide they have reason to summon you again, I may not be able to protect you.”

Rathe nodded. He’d been lucky to get away with this much, he knew, knew, too, that he would do it again. “I’ll be careful,” he said, and Trijn’s eyes narrowed as though she would comment on the ambiguity.

“See that you are,” she said after a moment, and lifted her hand to summon a hovering low‑flyer.

They made it back to Point of Dreams in less than record time, and Rathe resettled himself in his workroom to retrieve Leussi’s copy of the Alphabet of Desire. It looked like most of the others, a simple octavo volume with a formula in verse on the recto and a woodcut of the finished posy on the facing page. The woodcuts were better than most of the editions he’d seen, however, good enough that he could actually recognize most of the plants in the illustrations, and he paged slowly through it, looking for the bright spikes of the trumpet flowers. They appeared in perhaps a third of the woodcuts, he saw–in fact, the corms predominated, perhaps because they could be forced in all seasons–but finally he found the page for which he was looking. The posy was labeled “for Concord” and he made a face at the irony. If a posy intended to bring peace had somehow killed… Poor Leussi, he thought, and poor Holles. He reached for a scrap of paper, began copying out the formula while he thought out what he would say. He would send it to b’Estorr, he decided–well, he’d ask Trijn to send it to b’Estorr, but there was no reason he couldn’t write the query himself. Trijn would give him that much leeway. He finished copying the formula, added a quick note asking b’Estorr either to analyze it himself or to recommend a magist who could, and took the sheets along to Trijn’s office. She scanned them without comment, but nodded, scrawling her own name below his, and added the station’s seal.

“I’ll see this is sent,” she said. “Now, what about the theatre murders?”

“Still waiting for Fanier’s report,” Rathe answered, and retreated to his workroom.

The runner arrived a little after noon, not the deadhouse runner he’d been expecting, but a skinny boy on the edge of apprenticehood, his hair cut short except for the one long lovelock that aped the consorts of the bannerdames of The Drowned Island. Even if he hadn’t been wearing a badge identifying him as belonging to Point of Knives, the hair would have betrayed him, and Rathe eyed him without favor. No one among the points liked the idea that the inhabitants of the Court of the Thirty‑two Knives might take new pride in their disreputable past.

“Well?”

“Sorry, sir, but the chief–Head Point Mirremay thought you should be informed.”