It was beautiful outside the city gates. Farmlands seemed to stretch out forever in front of Claire. Along the river there were shiftwood orchards. The tree could reproduce any fruit it absorbed, so farmers managed the seasons carefully. As one harvest ended, the trees would already have unripe fruit for the next, and blossoms for the one after.
When she’d arrived in early summer, it had felt as if every fruit imaginable hung from those trees but, as the days got cold, it seemed to mostly be apples, slushfruit, and clusters of tiny pink blossoms. Chestnuts, maybe?
Getting to Glass Town from the city gates meant taking the path between the orchards, a path grooved by more wagons than cars, but the walk was only an hour. Still, that was enough to make the city markets almost useless to any Glass Town residents. She imagined they fished in the river and ate whatever was growing in the orchards.
Glass Town itself was beautiful, in much the way the crystalline wastes were beautiful. Shiftwood was notoriously poor wood, prone to rot and crumbling if not properly coated. The soil was loose here, and there weren’t many rocks.
Slums often had the most direct reflection of the city. They couldn’t import or process, they used what they had. Here, on the edge of the wasteland, that was glass.
Some was purified, but most shimmered with the purples and greys of corruption. People would use other materials where they could, painting ceilings and latrine walls with white paint to give some privacy and reduce the heat, but the majority of the construction was at least half glass.
The nicer homes were built with castoffs or semi-processed sheets of shimmering glass that would be a luxury in most cities, giving a tinted view to the home inside. In other homes, chunks of unprocessed glass were used like common stones, held together with mud to build walls and fences. The bits of magic that ran the small town, that kept the houses cool and the lights on, were often carved in the walls of the house itself, probably charged by whatever low level caster could manage it.
It was large too, pushing from the very edge of the orchards and out of sight, stretching out until the crystalline wastes made even the most desperate refused to build. It was a hidden part of the city, a twelfth district in all but name.
She’d been here enough times it should have been less surreal, seeing people live in a place already half taken by the wastes. Caliga were not a distant threat here, they were a nightly adversary, watched for the same way some villages watched for wolves or bandits.
Unlike the city, there were no grand gates or posted guards. Whoever happened to be in the streets watched newcomers for danger. Claire got a few suspicious looks, but a few people shouted greetings, and that was enough to mark her as safe to ignore. The children gave her a warmer reception, even if their reasons were easy to guess.It only took ten minutes for the kids to empty out the candy she’d filled her pockets with. She’d need more next time.
A man sitting on a nearby wall waved her over. She couldn’t remember his name, but she knew he’d been helping clear the foundation for the school.
“Gardener! I thought you were a proper city girl now!”
She smiled, though she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been called ‘girl’. Or ‘proper’ for that matter.
“Have some info from that, actually. You know where the speaker is?”
“Temple, same as always.”
“Thanks.”
Thankfully, though Claire didn’t know her way around here well, the Glass Town temple was easy to spot. It was simpler than most of the buildings around it, a square of glass and mortar with no windows or decorations, but a good deal larger than any of the buildings around. Along with being a holy place, it was where any sort of community event happened.
Claire slid the makeshift door to the side and winced at the sound. This place was so quiet when it wasn’t busy, and every noise felt like an intrusion. There were no rooms, just some rough furniture and a place where the dirt was packed into a small stage.
It really did have a holy feeling. The mortar was dense enough to keep it cool and dim. The light shone in beams, leaving the floor covered in little dots of light.
Speaker Alex sat at a desk. He didn’t wear any formal robes, dressed like any other orchard worker or pickpocket who lived here. From what Claire had heard, he’d spent his younger years giving speeches on street corners and getting his nose broken in bars, but he kept a quiet dignity here. He still had the charisma, and he smiled when he saw Claire walk in.
“Clarisse, what brings you here? I assume it’s not to pray.”
Claire bowed. There was no official government here, but the speaker held a lot of power. Alex tried to be a humble man of faith, there to listen to his community, but he could raise a mob or halt a riot if he wanted.
“No, Speaker, I’m afraid I’m working right now.”
“Well, I hope you’re not here to arrest one of my parishioners.”
Claire smiled.
“I’m not a fool. I know my welcome here is a courtesy that can be retracted at any time. Actually… I wanted your advice on how to handle a delicate situation. I’m sure you’ve heard about Caspian Handfellows’ murder.”
If Claire had any remaining doubts that she was on the right track, Alex’s face made them disappear.
“It’s always a tragedy, when a young person dies,” Alex said, but he didn’t speak with the dignified air of a priest offering a nicety to a young noble. There was genuine grief in his voice. “But nobody here killed him, and I hope you haven’t come here looking for somebody to blame.”
“As I said, I’m here for advice. You see, I’m quite certain Caspian was killed by a caliga while willingly participating in illegal glass harvesting in the wastes. I’m hoping to find firm enough proof of that to close the investigation before an innocent fire caster is accused of his murder.”
Alex studied her for a moment, then the anger fell from his shoulders and he sat down, gesturing for her to do the same.
“He came to services here, you know. He tried not to stand out, but the poor kid didn’t know how to blend in. People liked him though. He didn’t put on any airs, and the crew he worked with adored him. You understand why I’m not just able to give you their names and addresses though. It’s not their fault, what happened, and they don’t deserve to be blamed. Maybe you should look into why a rich boy was out risking his life like that in the first place.”
It would be useless to argue that he should trust her. She’d been given a lot of leeway here, more than she’d earned. He was doing his job, protecting his people. She couldn’t blame him for weighing the odds, she just needed to tip the scale.
“Though I can’t share the details on some parts of the investigation, I can assure you people will be held accountable for Caspian’s situation. At this point, we are not hunting a killer, but we also don’t have the evidence to stop the hunt for a killer. The body being left in the arbor may mean there’s not much tax money put towards solving the case, but the family has offered a generous bounty. If we can’t close this case, I’m worried whoever takes it next will be more interested in pleasing their financiers than actual justice.”
“And what about your boss? It’s the Dryden boy, right? What if he doesn’t care about justice either? Or have you somehow found proof of his nature in under a week.”
“I can’t promise anything on his behalf, but my best judgement says he means what he says. I’ve worked with a lot of corrupt men, and Theodore Dryden has given no hint of being one of them.”
“So what do you mean for me to do? Send you to their doorsteps? I’m sorry, Clarisse, I want to believe Birch is right to put her trust in you, but that only goes so far. Even if I did trust you, that doesn’t mean I trust your judgement. I’ve got no love for the Dryden family.”
“Speaker, I don’t know how best to handle this. That’s why I’m here. Like I said, I came here for advice.”
He looked her over again, studying her for any sign of… Claire didn’t know what.
“I’ve got three hours before service starts. Tell me what you’re working with.”
By the time Claire got back to the office, the sun had just touched the horizon. She thought about the temple, how the window lights would soon shine with the colors of sunset. It would have been nice to stay there and watch it get dark listening to the service. It wasn’t so much the faith that mattered. Claire didn’t believe in the gods of Avairne or the destined paths they talked of here, but the sound of people singing together with real heart? She could believe in that.
Everyone was still at the office. Campbell had gotten the warrant to examine the Handfellow’s official records at the city hall. All that was left was making it clear what these numbers implied and finding the actual location of the illegal farm.
“How’d it go?” Stephanson asked, with a polite smile that made it clear she thought she already knew the answer.
“As well as it could. I don’t have any names, but the speaker confirmed he was working with a glass harvesting group, and that he’ll reach out to them and see if they’re willing to meet.”
“The speaker?” Dryden asked, standing up. “Alexander Clay? Tall man, short hair, crooked nose? Notoriously cautious political radical?”
“Yeah?” Claire asked, feeling a bit defensive. Getting in good in Glass Town wasn’t that hard, Dryden just dripped ‘rich official’. “Alex is a good man. He’ll keep his word and do what he can.”
“How-?” Dryden asked. Claire was quite enjoying how baffled he looked.
“Forget that,” Stephenson said, standing up as well. “Alex? How come he’s ‘Alex’ and I’m still ‘Stephanson’.”
“Because he’s a civilian,” she said.
“I’m a civilian. We’re a private agency,” Stephenson protested. “You’re a civilian too, you know.”
“Drop it Abby,” Dryden said with a sigh. “We can all talk the way that makes us comfortable. James, when can we expect to hear back?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. He’s going to try and speak to one of them after service tonight and make a meeting for tomorrow morning.”
“Alright, then we’ll wait on that. In the meantime, we put together the case against the Handfellows. Caspian’s memorial is Saturday, and we’re hoping to have it ready to submit by Monday at the latest. I hope you don’t mind helping with the paperwork.”
“Of course not,” Claire said. “What are we doing now?”
“Cam’s narrowed down possible locations for the illegal farm. It has to be near the city, fairly large, and affected by the flooding. We’re going over ownership records to look for plausible locations,” Miller said. She pointed to a large map projected on the chalkboard of land divisions with the floodplains circled in blue. About half had been stuck through with chalk x’s. “We’ve eliminated the easy ones, places with active, registered farms, or lots under five acres. Now we’re going lot by lot.”
Dryden’s team took paperwork so seriously. When she heard this country used what were functionally lightly vetted mercenary groups to control crime, she had worried it would be nothing but trigger-happy brutes. This sort of work may not get the adrenaline pumping, but a lot of good, and a lot of evil, was done with long, boring hours spent bent over paperwork.
“The family’s been running this scam for three generations, so we can dismiss any lot where you can find legitimate records in the last 86 years,” Campbell said. “The easy ones are any with a legitimate record. A now-defunct farm, building permits, putting in electric lines or water pipes, or permits for an access road will all work. Even if a family doesn’t have any official records, if it’s their only residence and we can make sure the family is real, that can rule them out too. We’re starting with the areas that are surrounded by farmland that experienced heavy flooding. If you want to take the lots that start with S8, that would work best.”
“Got it,” Claire said, and got to work.
Dryden may have been in charge or orders, but it was clear Campbell ran the office once it was time for paperwork.
The night was mostly quiet, interrupted only by the sound of chalk or somebody checking with Campbell how to look up fifty year old marriage certificates or if there was a way to check where an easement was located. It only stopped when Dryden made it quite clear not only were they to all stop working and go home, he would be checking to make sure nobody did any work from home. Anybody caught doing so would be sent back home to sleep the next morning.
Claire nearly laughed at the look of disappointment on Campbell’s face.
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