had no idea how to safely answer that question, so he remained silent.
“What do you know about their masters?”
He shrugged. “Monsters. Or delusions.”
“You’re not curious about them?”
“No, ma’am. In my experience, it makes no difference which demon they serve, or say they serve. If you need to know their individual peculiarities, their behaviors, you only got to look at the man himself. Or the woman. That’s all you need to get the job done.”
“Their masters are real,” the woman said. “They are not delusions. The Agents are irrelevant. Criminal flotsam. Any lunatic will do. It’s their masters who are our enemy, their masters who make them dangerous.”
Lowry shrugged again.
“And their masters,” the woman said, “are immortal. Killing the Agent, smashing the vessel, only sends the master briefly back to their Lodge. Do you know that term?”
“I’ve read it.” He’d seen it in interrogation records, in the pages of the Black File.
“Immortal,” the woman said. “Much like the Engines we serve.”
The comparison was so shocking, so unexpectedly foul, that Lowry could not stop his lip curling back in a snarl.
The woman made a note. While she wrote, the man to her left spoke up. “Ever had any encounters with the First Folk, Lowry?”
The snarl faded from Lowry’s face. He looked up, utterly confused. The question was bizarre.
Clearly this was no ordinary disciplinary hearing. He tried not to look hopeful.
“You mean the Hillfolk? No, sir.”
“No?”
“No—sorry, sir. Yes. I forgot. Yes. Ten years ago, when we razed Nemiah. There was a nest of Folk in the hills, had to be cleaned out. They were messing with our supply lines. Don’t know why. Stupid of them, really.”
“You went in personally, I believe.”
“That’s right. We used noisemakers aboveground, then gas in the tunnels, but someone had to clear out what was left.”
“Into their tunnels. Were you afraid?”
He looked from face to face. “No,” said. “They’re only savages.”
“You’re unimaginative, Lowry. That’s for the best.”
“Sir—”
The one-eared man interrupted, “Do you study history, Lowry?”
“No, sir.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Do you remember the Red Valley Republic?”
“Yes, sir. A little. An enemy.”
“What do you know about them?”
“I was at the Battle of Black Cap Valley, sir.”
“And?”
Lowry shuddered, remembering. In the last days of the Line’s war against the Republic, the Engines had determined, in their infinite wisdom, that the situation called for one great final push, to put an end to the Republic’s insolence and to free the Line’s forces for operations on the western front, against the true enemy. This required full mobilization of all possible personnel. The children of the warrens under Angelus Station had been rounded up, packed into locked carriages, transported in the belly of the Engine without explanation halfway across the world, and delivered into hell. Lowry had been attached to a unit that had laid barbed wire, under cover of night, under fire, across the slippery black muck of the valley. He’d been ten years old.
Lowry said, “I did my job, sir.”
“Good. Good.” The man pointed to the scar he had in place of a left ear and said, “I was there, too. Does the name General Orlan Enver mean anything to you?”
“He was one of their ringleaders, right? Dead, I suppose.”
“No. Wait a moment, Sub-Invigilator (Third Class) Lowry.”
The three officers put their heads together and conferred. Lowry waited. It seemed unlikely now that they would discipline him; so what did they want?
The woman said, “Lowry. You are one of thousands who might equally well have been chosen for this task.”
“Ma’am.”
“You’re adequate. That’s all.”
“Ma’am.”
“This is to be kept in the strictest confidence.”
“Of course.”
“In the morning, you are to travel north from here. You will accompany the expedition of Conductor Banks of the Kingstown Engine and assist him in all endeavors. On a probationary basis, you may immediately consider yourself and act as Sub-Invigilator Second Class. The paperwork will follow.”
“Ma’am—of course—but under what authority?”
“We speak for the Engines themselves.”
The one-eared man rapped his pen on the table. “Listen, Lowry. The General Enver is not dead. He disappeared after the fall of the Republic, and made an obstruction of himself for a decade, until finally a noisemaker shut him up. We don’t know exactly where or when. No records. Apparently he had the bad luck to survive, if you can call that survival. He was picked up off the mountainside where he should have died and transported through various hospitals, where apparently no one had the good sense to just stop feeding him. His trail gets unclear. For some years, we’ve been aware of rumors that he’s