Garret stumbled.
The morning's gruel splattered into the moat before he could swallow it. Thick vomit seared his throat, seeping into his clothes like clinging seawater.
His spine curled. The detached arm gnawed at his mind. Grime and earth crusted the crevices of white fingernails, chipped and cracked at the edges, as if the arm had clawed at its muddy tomb.
Five fingers twitched in the mud, still reeking of salt and iron. The stench needled his sinuses, turning his spit sour.
Arya and Mara rooted where they stood. Eyes wide, veins throbbing to the beat of their heart.
Bran's arms locked around Garret's shoulders. His own frame shuddered like falling waves. Cold crept up his soles. The Rot's kiss, they called it in the moats.
The Sun hammered their skulls, its glare turning pupils to cracked porcelain, each glint grinding sand behind their eyes.
Within the hour, the entire section was barricaded. Investigators and personnel scurried around with nervous haste. Priests accompanied Nightwatch, pacing along the moat in arcane gear. A element of the investigation, it would seem.
Meanwhile, Eve and the others were sidelined, pending questioning.
Darting gazes studied the footsteps on the mud, trying to glean something beyond the mundane. The wind rasped through their hair, dry as a corpse's rattle.
"Morning keeps the Rot at bay. That's how it's always been. How did the Facestealer kill someone here at the moats?"
The question lingered in the air. Mara clasped her hands tight into a prayer, her forehead scrunched with unease.
"Not just anyone at that. You saw it too. It was Nightwatch. From the Lowers to boot."
"I don't think you're right", Bran remarked, his voice as strained as his back. "The monster only hid the arm in the moats. It had to be done last night. Or some nights before."
"Then why leave the arm for Morning's sake?! I thought the Facestealer stole faces. What, what happened to the rest of the body?!"
"Chewed, chopped. Who knows. Maybe there's a liberated head somewhere in the mud, waiting to be found."
For an instant, Garret's face contorted, tendons in his neck standing out like bowstrings. The whistling winds blended with march of boots, playing the tune of crushed bones. His pupils shivered. The image burned into his eyes: a fleshy stump ending in a smooth, surgical edge. Cut, not torn. As if the Facestealer had wielded blade, not teeth.
"I don't suppose the body from last night is missing an arm, by chance?"
Arya shook his head.
"That victim's someone from the moats. Worked the docks. Wandered off past curfew before the next shift found him."
Two bodies in one night. The monster was escalating its spree. And they were in the stranded amidst its hunting grounds.
"There's something else you're neglecting, Mara. Who said there was only one monster? One Facestealer that scrubs faces, another that litters arms. There may very well be two Rotborn roaming the Night."
Bran clutched the hem of his shirt, every speculation more harrowing than the last. Horror seeped into the gaps between facts, fermenting into shapes worse than the arm.
Silence hung in the air. It tugged on their bones and sent shivers down their spine. The quiet broke with Mara's trembling voice.
"Say Bran, when did the rags say Apep died again?"
"Three weeks ago..."
"And the Facestealer's first victim—"
"Three weeks."
Garret choked. Three weeks. Apep's death. The Facestealer's timing wasn't coincidence. It was an omen. Icy fingers grasped his heart, and its gangling nails dug into flesh. If they were right...if that monster killed the devil, then what hope did Taint have?
"Damn it! You're telling me a monster like that walked the grounds we work?! Rotborn walking our streets while Nightwatch drink in taverns—!"
Garret's shout died under the weight of a looming shadow. Swallowed. Behind him, a figure, draped in darkness.
The Administrator was at his side, unlike his usual self. His chest caved in, as if his breath was stolen.
The figure spoke through a coarse, grating cough. The sound of stone dragged over bone. A low voice scraped the unnatural lull, sober as a judge sentencing the sun to rise.
"Are you the moatsmen who found the arm?"
His robes reeked of tallow and iron—the scent of the executioner's block. Garret turned pale, tasting bile and the coppery tang of fear.
"Did you not hear me? I asked if you are the moatsmen who found the arm."
The Sun lit the starry dawn on his sleeves. It was a face Eve recognised, too.
Arya lurched forward, standing at attention. Shoulders broad with stern earnest, right hand on his chest.
"Y-Yes, sir!"
The figure nodded. His chin jabbed the sky, two hands clasped behind his back.
"My colleagues will take you in individually. We will record your statements. You will cooperate."
The figure walked away from the group. The Administrator followed—turning back briefly to nod at Arya—the corners of his mouth curled in approval.
Arya looked over to Eve with a slight bow at his neck. He whispered.
"Thank you."
A shadow of a question sped down her face.
"You pushed me up, when we all froze before the Lieutenant. So, thank you."
"I didn't do it to help you", Eve curtly responded. "It's what you should've done regardless."
Arya's face twisted in a puzzle.
He thought back to his actions, making sure he conveyed appreciation. Not words of aggression or slight.
Eve was a conundrum. She moved through the moats like a shadow no one claimed. Even her footprints held less weight, fleeting as moth wings.
In fact, Eve never responded to anyone. Other than Bran, perhaps. Though in his case, it's more of Bran unilaterally shoving his patented goodwill in spite of grievances.
The initial gratitude slowly morphed into searing indignation until it burned his tongue open.
"You know, the least you could do when someone shows gratitude is be polite."
Eve stared back incredulously, still perplexed.
"Good job, Arya. You did great." Eve's thumb flicked dirt from her sleeve. "Practically saved the day."
Arya fell silent. He wasn't the brightest sun-lamp in the house, but even he could sense the laced sharpness.
Before he could voice his temper, Eve abruptly stood up...and left. She walked into the investigation scene, seeking a Nightwatch to whom she could give her statement.
Arya stood frozen with a gaping mouth. It was only after the others started walking that he registered the Night beckoning him. He pushed down the boiling resentment, for now. Matters of greater urgency lay ahead.
It was high noon before the interrogation ended. The sky blazed yellow, burning back the veil of fog. It seemed the Nightwatch still needed to conduct further investigation, so work was cut short for the day. Eve left the moats, mulling over the events that transpired.
The content of the discussion itself was more pleasant than she'd anticipated. She was paired with a Night from Upper. A local Southerner, going by his accent.
They simply asked where she was, what she was doing, and if she noticed anything strange from the others. They confirmed whether she had touched the arm or had seen anyone touch it.
Routine questions. Or so it seemed.
A disarming smile played on the Night's face the whole time, as if to reassure Eve that they were on the same side.
She couldn't see the others, but it seemed Garret was questioned by the man from the bazaar in person.
Her gaze snagged on the whip at his waist, the same one that had flayed the child's cheek. The man's demeanour spoke of measured manners, but she saw through the facade. His eyes: flat as a butcher's blade. Already measuring cuts. Not meat, people.
She managed to catch his name floating around through hushed murmurs.
"Balthazar Lightsworn..."
A mover and shaker from Lower Taint. Chief Inspector from the Investigation Department. A Lieutenant, like Arya said. It was still unclear to her how the blithering warden could tell. Eve's pulse quickened. 'Is there something special about his uniform?', she ruminated silently, creasing her brow. 'Or is it the emblem...' She strained to recall, gleaning little from scant memory.
She threw one last glance behind her, looking vacantly at the southern moats. Eve wondered how her colleagues fared, not that it was her station to be burdened with their concern.
The weak are never coddled. Not in Taint. The city builds strength, or trims the vulnerable. That's how it's always been.
Her fingers brushed the frayed border of her sleeve. A child's stitch-work, uneven as a heartbeat. She'd mended it with twine from prayer ropes.
Eve slipped through the warren of alleys, arriving at her destination before long. A crumbling building lay in front of her. Its walls, patched with scavenged timber, breathed like a living thing. A figure in flowing robes stood before it, his back turned. A heavy hammer rose and fell in his hands, punching nails into planks. Long hair and an unkempt beard grazed his collarbone. The man greeted her.
"Early again, Eve."
The voice held the solemnity of dawn.