For two days after the leviathan crisis, Din Kol is kept busy with other minor officers restoring order in Talagray, as panic and stampedes have caused widespread damage. Near the end of the second day, Din is summoned to the Legion tower.

Din finds Vashta meeting with Ana Dolabra and Immunis Tuwey Uhad. Vashta explains that the Haza family’s holdings in Talagray are being seized and that Fayazi Haza and her entourage are being held, with Fayazi likely to be installed to manage the lands because she has handed over communications proving her elders’ guilt. Vashta regrets that the true dappleglass cure remains missing, which would have accelerated bringing their enemies down. Uhad adds that the emperor’s Sanctum may revoke privileges from the Hazas and possibly the gentry, and Vashta notes an Iudexii conzulate is expected to arrive to investigate how deeply the Hazas were entrenched.

Vashta then rewards Din by formally ending Din’s apprenticeship and naming Din an Assistant Investigator. However, Vashta notes Ana still believes there is a third poisoner involved, and asks if Ana has learned anything new.

Ana reveals she has known the true identity of the dappleglass poisoner since Nusis’s murder and states Jolgalgan did not act alone. Ana argues the plot required inside Iyalet knowledge and points to a third person present at Kaygi Haza’s party who used blackperch mushrooms as a distraction. Concluding the conspirator must be a senior Trifecta officer, Ana directly accuses Immunis Uhad of being the true planner.

Ana lays out the case: only an engraver could memorize Nusis’s complex safe, and Uhad had repeated opportunities to observe it during visits for headache grafts; Uhad also steered Din and Ana toward the poisoned teapot. Ana claims Uhad hated the Hazas’ long corruption, learned of their deeper crime through Jolgalgan, then coordinated with Jolgalgan and Ditelus to kill targets with dappleglass, including enabling Kaygi Haza’s death at the party. When the breach and Engineer deaths complicated matters, Uhad benefited by being appointed head of the investigation and misdirected it, later sabotaging Jolgalgan’s equipment and arranging steps that exposed Jolgalgan and Ditelus to contagion. Ana concludes Uhad sought the cure as protection while finishing the elder Hazas in the first ring.

Uhad finally admits motive, describing decades of witnessing corruption and believing no one would fix it, and he rages that the Empire and Iudex did nothing. Ana counters that Uhad’s “justice” killed hundreds, then shocks Uhad by implying Ana’s posting to Daretana may have been deliberate to monitor the Hazas and that even Ana’s prior “neutralization” may have been staged to lure them into a mistake. Enraged, Ana orders Din to use engraver’s bonds to arrest Uhad, promising formal justice and execution.