Page 30 of A Drop of Corruption

I wound my way through the bank and found Kardas and his Treasury officers within the Iyalet vault, observing as a panicked Signum Tufwa slid out each vault box and weighed it on his fancy scales. Kardas paced about the vault in a small circle, arms crossed, occasionally biting the tip of his right thumb. The nervous tic had so completely taken him over that the nail of his right thumb now bore small indentations from his incisors.

“I don’t even know how it could have happened!” Tufwa was saying. “Our balmleaf locks don’t open if the privileged blood is evenslightlydecayed! It shouldn’t have been possible, it shouldn’t!”

Malo and two other Apoth officers lurked at the back of the vault. Judging from the sheer amount of mud and weapons on their bodies, I guessed they were wardens as well. Malo looked up as I approached. Her face was wan and taut, with no sign of her usual breeziness. “They are doing a basic check first,” she said. “He looks at all the boxes that were opened in the week before the tenth of Hajnal, to see if the weights of any have changed since then.”

“But so far,” said Kardas, “all seems true and proper.” He glanced at me sidelong. “Did your immunis really conceive all this just from hearingone dayof your reports?”

“She did, sir,” I said.

“How amazing,” he said softly. “What an astounding woman. I almost regret hoping she’s wrong.”

We continued watching as Tufwa weighed box after box. The day stretched on and on, broken only by the click and clack as Tufwa slid the boxes in and out of their shelves. I idly wondered if Ana’s speculation about our impostor had been incorrect.

Then Tufwa placed one box upon the scales. He read its weight, then twitched, his long curtain of hair rippling.

I stepped close. “What is it?”

“Ah…” He peered at the scales, as if wishing he did not see what he now saw. “This…this box is…changed.”

“Changed?” asked Kardas. “Changed how?”

“It is four stone heavier than it was after it last received a deposit, sir,” said Tufwa.

“Heavier?” I said. “Someone hasaddedsomething to it?”

Tufwa’s eyes fluttered as he summoned up his memories. “Yes. Though I do not know how. This safe was opened for a deposit on the second of Hajnal. It has not been opened since. Not…not by my memory, at lea—”

“Wait,” said Kardas. He darted forward, his white Treasury cape fluttering behind him. “This is not a Treasury box. It’s anApothbox.”

“Wh-what?” said Malo, startled.

Kardas pointed to the sigil on the front: the drop of blood set in a hexagon. “See for yourself. It belongs to your Iyalet, not mine. Are we to presume that this man dressed up as a Treasury officer and committed murder and torture…but not for riches or money or talints at all, but…but for something in a singleApothbox?”

Malo stared at the safe as if the sight of her Iyalet’s insignia horrified her, but she said nothing.

“What was in it?” I asked Tufwa. “Do you know?”

Tufwa, trembling, shook his head. “I am permitted to know what safes are in use, and for whom, but not what is deposited. Too many confidential reports and materials are stored here.”

“Then who opened it last that you recall?”

Another fluttering of Tufwa’s eyes. “A…an Apoth Immunis. Rava Ghrelin, of the Medikker Fermentation Division here in Yarrowdale. He made the deposit on the second of that month. Bank protocol dictates we should summon him first before breaking open the box ourselves.”

I looked to Malo, who gave a panicked shrug. “No idea who the hell that is,” she said. “But that division does very serious work. Yet far more disturbing…that safe should have been even more secure than the Treasury box.”

“Why?” I asked.

“We Apoths don’t grant blanket access to our officers, like the Treasury does,” she said. “You want to be able to use our boxes in the Iyalet vault here, you got to give usindividualtissue samples. Spit is easiest. But just in case you’ve got someone else’s spit in your mouth, we also ask for piss. Less likely to have someone else’s piss in their belly. Then we apply reagents to the samples, swab it on the balmleaf substrate for the safe, and it’s done. All this means that box should have been one of the most secured things in all of Yarrow.”

I realized why Malo seemed so dismayed. “And…it shows no damage? No panel removed, nor hinges severed?”

“Not that I can see.”

“So…it would seem someone simply came, pressed their hand to the balmleaf lock, and…it opened for them. Is that how it appears?”

“Yes,” she said faintly.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.