The laughter wasn't a sound. It was a temperature. It was a sudden, plunging drop to absolute zero that started at the base of Kaelen's spine and flash-froze her nervous system.
She was still on the floor, the expensive Persian rug scratching her cheek. Above her, the world was tilting. The gaslights of Guild-Master Thorn's study seemed to be bleeding, their white glow stretching into long, jagged streaks of neon violet.
"Vance."
The name came from a great distance, though Inquisitor Valerius was standing right over her. The click of a hammer being pulled back on a flintlock pistol was louder than a thunderclap.
Look at him, the new Voice whispered. It was a rich, velvet baritone, utterly at odds with the chaotic screeching of the Banker and the Whore, who were currently whimpering in the mental basement. So rigid. So sure of his righteousness. Does he know his coat is stained, little thief?
Kae blinked, her vision swimming. She looked at Valerius. For a second, she didn't see the Inquisitor. She saw a scarecrow made of burning wicker, ash flaking from his shoulders.
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head violently, trying to dislodge the image. When she opened them again, Valerius was just a man in a leather coat, aiming a heavy iron pistol at the bridge of her nose.
"I asked you a question," Valerius said, his voice devoid of pity. "Is the killer in the room?"
"No," Kae wheezed, pushing herself up on trembling arms. "He's… he's not in the room."
I am everywhere, the Voice purred. I am the ink in the pen. I am the marrow in the bone.
"Get out," Kae snarled, clutching her temples.
Valerius's eyes narrowed. He didn't lower the gun. "Who are you talking to?"
"My head," Kae gasped. She felt bile rising in her throat again—thick, black, and tasting of licorice. "He left something. A… a trap. When I sank the memory, he pushed back."
Valerius took a step back, his expression hardening from suspicion to disgust. To a Luminary, mental corruption was worse than a plague. It was a moral failing. "You've been contaminated. If a fragment of the murderer's psyche has overridden your own—"
"It hasn't overridden anything!" Kae scrambled to her feet, using the desk for support. Her legs felt like water. "It's just a passenger. A Cipher. He planted it."
"Then you are compromised. You are a vessel for his will." Valerius adjusted his aim. "I cannot allow a contagion of the Laughing God to walk the streets of Obolus."
"I'm not a contagion, I'm a witness!" Kae shouted, the desperation lending her strength. "He didn't just leave a laugh, Valerius. He left a map!"
The lie tasted metallic on her tongue. She didn't know if it was a map. She didn't know what the swirling darkness in her mind was, but she knew Inquisitors responded to utility, not mercy.
Valerius paused. The barrel of the gun held steady. "Explain. Quickly."
Kae leaned against the mahogany desk, breathing hard. She had to focus. She had to separate her own thoughts from the intruder's. It was like trying to listen to a whisper in a hurricane.
Tell him, the Voice taunted. Tell him about the theatre. Tell him about the curtain call.
"He showed me… a performance," Kae improvised, seizing on the Voice's words. She looked at the hanging corpse of Guild-Master Thorn. The body was swaying slightly, though there was no breeze. "Thorn wasn't the end. He was an opening act. The killer… he called it an appetizer."
"A serial killer," Valerius noted grimly. "We assumed as much. But where is he now?"
Kae closed her eyes, diving inward. It was a dangerous move. Usually, diving required calm, preparation. Now, she was diving into a shark tank.
She probed the new presence in her mind. It felt slick, oily, resisting her touch. But attached to the Voice were images. Flashes of sensory data the killer had inadvertently—or intentionally—bundled with the Cipher.
Smell of sawdust. The creak of old wood. A velvet rope sliding through gloved fingers. The sound of applause that sounded like rain.
"A theater," Kae murmured. "Old. Abandoned. Smells like damp velvet and… rot."
The Grand Guignol, the Voice supplied helpfully. Do you know it, little thief? They used to hang puppets there. Now they hang real boys.
"The Grand Guignol," Kae snapped her eyes open. "He's at the old opera house in the Sump District."
Valerius stared at her. "That structure was condemned ten years ago. It's sinking into the bog."
"That's where he is," Kae said. "I can feel the dampness. I can hear the… the dripping."
Liar, the Voice chuckled. You can't hear the dripping. You can only hear me. But you're learning. I like a quick study.
Valerius lowered the gun, but he didn't holster it. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pair of cuffs. They weren't steel; they were made of dull, grey lead, etched with binding runes. Dimeritium. Mage-killers.
"Put these on," he ordered.
Kae recoiled. "Those will cut me off from the source. If you block my power while this… thing is in my head, I won't be able to fight it. It'll consume me."
"If I don't put them on, you are an unsecured weapon," Valerius countered. "You say you have a map? Fine. You lead. But you do it on a leash."
He tossed the cuffs onto the desk. They landed with a heavy thud, sliding through the pool of black bile Kae had vomited earlier.
Kae looked at the cuffs, then at the Inquisitor's cold eyes. She had no choice. If she ran, he'd shoot her in the back. If she stayed without them, he'd shoot her in the face.
She picked up the cold metal and snapped them around her wrists.
The effect was immediate and agonizing. It felt like a heavy wool blanket had been thrown over her brain. The usual hum of the city—the background noise of a thousand minds that she constantly had to tune out—vanished. The silence was deafening.
But the Voice didn't vanish.
Because the Voice wasn't coming from outside. It was inside the cage with her.
Cozy, the Voice whispered, sounding delighted. Now it's just us.
"Let's go," Valerius said, moving to the door. "If the Grand Guignol is empty, Vance, you die in the carriage."
The descent into the Sump District was a journey through the intestines of the city. The carriage rattled over cobblestones that turned to mud, the gaslights becoming fewer and dimmer until the only light came from the sickly, bioluminescent fungi clinging to the sunken architecture.
Kae sat opposite Valerius, her hands shackled in her lap. The Dimeritium cuffs made her skin itch and her stomach turn. She felt hollowed out, defenseless.
He's thinking about his wife, the Voice whispered suddenly.
Kae jumped, her chains rattling. She looked at Valerius. He was staring out the window, his face a mask of stone.
Can't you feel it? the Voice asked. It's drifting off him like smoke. Grief. Cold, old grief. She died in a fire, didn't she? No… she burned, but it wasn't a normal fire.
"Stop it," Kae hissed under her breath.
Valerius glanced at her. "What?"
"Nothing," Kae said quickly. "Just… a headache."
Ask him, the Voice urged. Ask him why he hates magic. It's not because of the law. It's because he couldn't save her.
Kae clenched her jaw so hard her teeth ached. The Passenger wasn't just talking to her; it was using her senses to read Valerius. It was feeding on the environment through her eyes.
"We're here," Valerius announced.
The carriage lurched to a halt.
The Grand Guignol loomed out of the fog like a rotting tooth. It had once been magnificent, a palace of marble and gold. Now, half of it had subsided into the Sump, the grand staircase disappearing into black, oily water. The statues of muses on the roof were missing heads or limbs.
Valerius opened the door and stepped out into the muck. Kae followed, her boots sinking inches deep. The smell was atrocious—sewage, sulfur, and the sweet, cloying scent of Arcane Dreg.
"There are no guards," Valerius noted, drawing his pistol and a long, silver cane that Kae suspected concealed a blade. "If he is here, he wants us to enter."
"He loves an audience," Kae said. The words felt like they were put there by the Voice, but she said them anyway.
They approached the main doors. They were hanging off their hinges, revealing a gaping maw of darkness.
Go on, the Voice whispered. Center stage, darling.
As they crossed the threshold, the air temperature dropped. The silence of the Sump was replaced by a low, rhythmic thrumming sound. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Like a heartbeat amplified a thousand times.
Valerius produced a glow-crystal from his pocket, casting a harsh blue light into the foyer. The velvet curtains were motheaten and draped in cobwebs as thick as ropes.
"Where?" Valerius asked.
Kae closed her eyes, fighting the headache caused by the cuffs. She tried to sense… anything.
Up, the Voice said. The Royal Box.
"The balcony," Kae said, pointing upward to the shadowing mezzanine.
They ascended the rotting staircase, the wood groaning under their weight. Every shadow seemed to stretch and twist, forming clawed hands that reached for them. Kae kept blinking, trying to clear the hallucinations.
When they reached the landing of the Royal Box, the thumping sound stopped.
Silence returned. Heavy. Pregnant.
Valerius kicked the door open.
Kae braced herself for another corpse. Another grotesque display of art made of meat.
But the box was empty.
There was no body. No blood. Just a single chair, positioned to look out over the ruined auditorium below. On the chair sat a small, perfectly wrapped package.
"A trap?" Valerius asked, tensing.
"A gift," Kae said. She walked forward, drawn by a compulsion she couldn't name.
She reached the chair. The package was wrapped in human skin—cured, pale, and soft. Tied with a ribbon of black hair.
Open it, the Voice commanded. It's for you.
Kae's trembling fingers undid the ribbon. She unfolded the skin.
Inside lay a single, pristine object.
It was a mirror. A handheld looking glass with a silver handle. But the glass wasn't reflective. It was black. Pitch black.
As Kae looked into it, the black surface swirled. It didn't show her face. It showed the room she was standing in. It showed Valerius standing behind her.
And it showed a third figure.
Standing directly behind Valerius, tall and thin, wearing a suit that seemed cut from the night sky and a mask made of shattered mirrors.
Kae spun around, screaming, "Behind you!"
Valerius turned, firing his pistol in a smooth, practiced arc. The shot boomed, the muzzle flash illuminating the corridor.
The ball hit nothing but rotting wallpaper.
The corridor was empty.
"There's no one there, Vance," Valerius said, his voice tight. He looked at her, then at the mirror in her hand. "You're hallucinating."
Kae looked back at the mirror. The figure in the glass raised a gloved finger to where its lips would be.
Shhh, the Voice giggled in her head. Don't spoil the surprise. He's not here, little thief. I'm not in the room.
Kae watched in the mirror as the figure reached out and rested a hand on Valerius's shoulder. The Inquisitor didn't feel it.
I'm only in the reflection, the Voice whispered. And now… so are you.
Kae looked down at the mirror again. In the glass, her own reflection finally appeared. But she wasn't wearing her leather coat. She was wearing a dress made of blood, and her mouth was sewn shut.
She dropped the mirror. It shattered, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the empty theater.
"He's watching us," Kae whispered, backing away until she hit the railing of the balcony. "He's watching us through the glass."
Valerius looked at the shards, then at Kae. For the first time, the Inquisitor looked unsettled. He holstered his gun and grabbed her arm, hauling her toward the exit.
"We're leaving," he said roughly. "Now."
But as he dragged her out, Kae could still hear the applause. Not from the theater. But from the shattered pieces of the mirror on the floor, and from the dark, locked room in the back of her mind.