At Suberek’s mill, Uhad gathers the Iudex team and argues the evidence now points to two killers: one using dappleglass poison and another using a skull-spike. He asks Nusis, as an Apoth, to inspect Suberek’s body; she calmly goes without a lantern, revealing she can see in the dark.

Kalista questions why a fernpaper miller would be targeted, and Ana suggests Suberek may have been “cleaned up” because his deliveries helped conceal the poisonings. Uhad agrees their next priority is discovering where Suberek sent his last shipment. Ana then pulls Din outside and sharply checks him for injuries after the deserter attack, probing Din about his “remembered” movements—fighting, tea-making precision, lockpicking—and warns that someone eliminating witnesses might also come for Din.

Back inside, the team finds the mill stripped of records. Nusis reports Suberek was killed by a smooth-edged spike perforation at the base of the skull, implying a powerful augmented killer small enough to fit in the basement. When Kalista doubts Suberek could have written anything useful, Ana insists he wrote heavily on the worktable and proposes extracting the most recent writing by dusting the table with ashpen powder and taking a fernpaper rubbing.

The imprint reveals directions rather than an address, leading Din to identify an unnamed north-south road on the city’s west side. Uhad recognizes it as the gentry district, and Ana suggests Din and Miljin use Din’s expensive reagents key to see which door it opens.

Escorted by Strovi for passage, Din and Miljin test gate after gate along the gentry road, relieved when none open—until the final reagents gate responds. It unwinds to reveal the palatial Hazas estate, confirming the Engineers’ meetings were held there. Din realizes this fits Ana’s earlier warning about Blas and the Hazas and concludes Ana has known the location all along.