mad. Its purity had guarded the city from barbarian attacks and made her leaders strong enough to do all that was necessary to restore order. Asking the priests to delay their cleansing was opening the door to madness. He hadn’t stopped to think of that when he’d made his request.
The problem was, in crimes of this sort, cleansing nearly crippled investigators. It was both physical and magical, erasing all trace not just of the death, but of the killer and how the killer had come and gone from the death site.
“You had best start thinking, Demakos Nomasdina,” the commander whispered, gripping Dema’s arm in a hold that would leave bruises under Dema’s brown skin. “Remember the pride of your clan. Now go look at that mess, then let the priests do their job.”
Dema swallowed. He walked between two priests who were setting up the tent-like veil that would hide the long process of cleansing from the people’s eyes, so they would not carry the taint of death away from the square. He approached the south basin of the fountain, steeling himself to look on another murdered woman. There were men and women at Elya Street, arurim and dhaski, who could look on someone who’d been robbed of life and eat a hearty meal after. Dema didn’t know how they could do it. Even after eight months he still felt as if someone had offended him personally, had killed a member of Dema’s own family — which was true enough. The other classes of Tharios were the responsibility of the First Class, Dema’s class. Someone had taken the life of a young woman in his charge.
That she was young he guessed from her hands, unlined, with well-tended nails, and the fresh, tight skin of her belly, feet, and legs. She wore the halter top, semi-sheer skirt and tight, calf-length leggings of a tumbler or dancer; her brown arms and legs were muscular. Dema glanced away from her eyes, so startled at the fate that had come upon her.
As he leaned over the edge of the basin, he noticed two priests closing in. “I’m not going to touch her,” he snapped. “Stand away, leave me be.”
They took a step back and waited, hands clasped at their waists, their eyes level as they watched Dema. The morning breeze tugged at their white head-veils and the ends of their complexly draped red stoles.
Dema glanced at the knot in the yellow veil right under the left ear, just like the knot on the other four victims. Bending, he squinted at the ends of the veil, laid so neatly on the basin’s rim.
A gloved hand thrust its way into his vision, holding an ivory rod. “Use this,” the priest of the All-Seeing told Dema, a kind note in his voice. “We will send you such tools, blessed for this work, dhaskoi!,”
“Do other arurim dhaski have them?” Dema wanted to know, meeting the priest’s dark brown eyes.
“None of them want to get so close as you,” replied the priest. “We have seen this in you before. Do not let curiosity take you too far. Yours is a noble house, free of the stain of corruption. We will protect you, as best we may.”
Dema hesitated, then accepted the rod with a nod of thanks. He used it to straighten the curled ends of the veil. By law yaskedasi had to carry their home address stitched along the hem of their veils, one of the ways the city kept watch on their disreputable ranks. While most were fairly honest, everyone knew that their ethics in matters of theft were flexible.
Here was the dead woman’s address: Ferouze’s Lodgings, Chamberpot Lane, Khapik. Dema would start his questioning there. He straightened and returned the rod to the priest, fixing the woman in his mind. Then he turned to be cleansed before he went to find her name. The arurim prathmuni moved in to take charge of the body.
Tris put the rest of her time in the lower part of Tharios to good use, visiting other glass-makers. Most of the people with shops on the Street of Glass understood that they were there to entertain as well as to create, and that someone who saw a piece being made often bought it. They were happy to welcome Tris into their workshops and to answer her questions, though the sum of what she learned was not comforting. None of them knew of any glass mage at Touchstone, only that the owner, Antonou Tinas, had