In the Iudex adjudication chamber, Commander-Prificto Vashta hears Ana Dolabra’s full report on the Engineer deaths and Commander Blas’s murder. As Ana explains the investigation’s findings, Vashta’s initial composure collapses into alarm, especially after she notes four recent quakes that signal a leviathan attack likely within a week. Vashta emphasizes that Talagray’s defenses require the Engineers’ full functionality, making the unresolved mass poisoning a crisis on the eve of the wet season.

Vashta presses Ana on the new theory: the Engineers’ secret meetings appear tied to the Hazas estate, and the poisoning likely occurred during a Hazas party. The implication that investigators may have been compromised near one of the Empire’s most powerful clans horrifies Vashta, but she confirms Miljin was not at the party and allows him to continue assisting. Vashta, invoking the Empire’s need for honest workings to keep leviathans back, appoints Ana as lead investigator and orders immediate testimony from Uhad, Nusis, and Kalista.

When Vashta demands to know whether Ana is hiding anything else, Ana reveals a second reagents key found in Rona Aristan’s safehouse along with evidence of money tied to Blas. Vashta is aghast; she wants to know how Blas got the money, whether other investigators are tainted, and what the new key opens. Ana admits they do not know yet and says the key has been given to Nusis for analysis; Vashta orders Ana to get an update during the coming interrogations.

Ana then requests permission to go to the Hazas residence to inspect the grounds, obtain guest lists, and question servants and advisers. Vashta reluctantly agrees but warns that the Hazas’ vast reagent production makes them politically untouchable and that any contact with the family must be handled with extreme care.

Before Vashta can finish her warning, Captain Strovi interrupts to announce an unexpected visitor: Fayazi Haza. Fayazi enters with an expensive private retinue, and Din Kol realizes she is Sazi like Ana. Fayazi tells Vashta she has come to report a murder—her father, Kaygi Haza, who died thirteen days earlier from what was thought to be contagion but is now suspected to be poisoning—tightening the timeline around the Hazas party and provoking Ana’s bitter, private reaction.