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The sergeant on duty told hiood cheer youre free to ride to Labrykas Square The district captain has sent for youThe sergeant upended a ladle of water on Dema s head As Dema sputtered, the woht Dont try to fix yourself up, just go

Deine what the Fifth District coency and his ee like hie, for only eight months Hed done little to draw anyones attention True, he orking on the murders of four Khapik yaskedasi, but he also knew that he d been given the task of investigating the first murder, and the three that followed it, because no one cared if he caught the killer or not One of the first words of aruri hed learned was okozou, which meant real people involvedIt was a phrase used to describe cri yaskedasi, prathmuni, or the poor of the slum called Hodenekes Itthe killer Hed expected to be summoned before his watch station captain to explain why he d o, until he realized the captain simply did not care

A mounted

Arurim waited in front of the Elya Street station with a horse for Deood thing he wore his tightly curled black hair cut very short It was probably the only thing about hier which he wiped on the edge of the saddle blanket re sure you want er

The woht on duty and should have been holared at hie of the investigation of four murdered yaskedasi, are you not? This is the Elya Street aruri breakfast for uilty, even though he hadnt been the one to assign the

Aruried from the station with a flask in each hand, one for the

Aruriuaranteed to take the finish off wood and to wake the dead re a lifesaver,the woo home after all

Owe you the tireenie, here, replied the sergeant with a nod to Deive it to you

will,the

Arurieant Hes a good enough sort, for all he belongs to the First Class

Dema wasn t sure which would bother hiht to his class or the fact that even after eight ht he couldnt take care of hieant for the tea instead and followed his

Aruri hot tea at a trot was a thankless effort, but De the spilled drops on an end of the blue stole that ed people in the streets, he reflected on how badly hed been cheated He had chosen the aruriulated than the ar than the treasury or law courts Few people would be able to order hi the arurimi, while every person with one more stripe or dot or sword on his sleeve wouldvery ht duty, Dema was pleased The Elya Street station was just four blocks fros were dull at the station, a short walk led him to the best food, drink and entertainment in Tharios, all neatly tucked inside the walls of the ple asure district

The nettle in the garden of his service, the first dead

yaskedasu, sprouted fiveand settled in at Elya Street He hadnt realized that the easy service of an arurim dhaskoi was due to the fact that, m ore than nine times out of ten, the victim knew the crih bourhood roughneck These were all offenders that regular arurihbours of the victi down everyone who looked suspici ous, questioning them until they confessed The arurie, or when no one with a et at the victiation of yaskedasu Nioki s murder produced no possible killers, the case had come to Dema

Now, three dead women later, Dema felt like those animals who chewed off a limb to escape a trap er fun He wanted to dest roy the one who destroyed the beauty and haret his fellow arurim to care about it as much as he did One cheap yaskedasu or three yaskedasi, the others told him, okozou still meant no one was supposed to work up a sweat over this

So Denorant Most of his spells for uncovering events could be used only when he had a suspect or when the cri to find th e killer was like sifting through a tonne of barley in search of a pin No one knew anything No one saw anything The priests who had ritually and ular, and Deic He was at his wits end, even dreaot out,gruain, forgotten what he was supposed to be doing as he worried over the case He d been so preoccupied that he hadnt even noticed they had reached the square Despite the very early hour the sun was just up the outer edges of the square were packed with hus Unlike athering The arurie people aside to clear the way for herself and Dema