"You're certain?" Angela asked, pointing at the body by Samuel's feet.

"He stood closest to our quarry, without a weapon drawn. The other four had drawn their knives. This man was killed first," Commander Aranhall insisted.

"How are you so sure?" Samuel asked. "Were you a shadow?"

"I was, and remain one," the commander acknowledged, as he rose to his feet. "And I've seen scenes like this before."

"The evidence fits the commander's assertions," Desmond Adams said, crouching down at the spot Mathias Aranhall had vacated. The coroner reached over and lifted one of the dead body's hands, raising the palms up to show.

"The burns are deeper on this man's palms and the bottom of his fingers. And his facial burns don't have any sign of being protected by his hands," Desmond noted. "If I had to guess, it looks like he was making a placating gesture, holding his hands up."

"It's a start," Samuel admitted, as he stood up. "By the abyss, I've definitely started with less to work with."

"Sam?" Angela asked. "What are you thinking?"

"We should start looking for witnesses. If we can confirm that this shadow was talking to our suspect, a witness or two might have heard a name, or what the conversation was about. That could go a long way towards identifying this reject."

"Inspector," Commander Aranhall said, his tone disturbingly harsh.

Samuel looked at the lean, angular face beneath that old hat, and found he couldn't meet the commander's gaze.

"You called him a suspect, which is beginning to concern me," Aranhall said in warning.

"What has your hackles up?" Angela asked.

"Our quarry will not be captured. If you try to detain him you will end up lying in Mister Adams' morgue, beside the men and women here who should have already taught you better," the commander pointed to the bodies as he spoke, his voice rising in tenor and volume until he was almost shouting.

"Right, sir," Angela said, so quietly she almost whispered.

"I..." Samuel began to say.

"You're not killers, I understand that. You won't be the knives. But if you have compunctions over helping track this reject down, take one more hard look at the people lying at your feet. If you lack the resolve, I'd prefer you speak up now. You are not the only inspectors in the City."

Samuel cringed over the airship commander's words, his hands clenching into fists and an unfamiliar rage setting clenching his jaw. He glared at the tall commander, and said, "we'll be fine. But I'd like your airship's soldiers to continue securing the scene for now, so that I can put more uniformed Orderlies to canvassing the streets."

"Agreed," Commander Aranhall agreed. "But you both should head to the Bureau of Oversight's headquarters in about three hours. The deputy chief should have more information by then, and between what she and you both will have found out by then, you might identify a suspect."

The commander stepped away, grabbed the nearby cable that Crafter Grutchers had descended from, and waved his other hand in a full circle. "Happy hunting," Mathias Aranhall said.

With a flutter of his coat, the commander shot up into the air, rising with astonishing speed up the dozen or more stories of empty air that lay between the train platform and the Fury.

Samuel watched, his mouth hanging open, as the airship commander practically seemed to fly in the air as he leapt off the cable, and disappeared from sight.

"Cinders of the Spire," Crafter Grutchers muttered. "That man scares me, and I can vaporise steel."

"He's something else," Samuel agreed. He turned to the crafter and offered his hand. "Madam Crafter, thank you for your assistance."

"Happy to help. I want this flame-baked prick in the crematorium as much as anyone," Crafter Grutchers replied. She hesitated a moment, then added, "but the commander is right to say you shouldn't think of this reject as just another suspect. Anyone who can craft is too dangerous to detain or accuse before a Justice. There's a very good reason Oversight exists."

Samuel nodded in agreement, his eyes lingering on the fourteen dead attesting to the danger now hiding somewhere in the City. Someone capable, and willing, to murder civilians to save his own skin.

"Right, let's get a runner over to the precinct," Angela said, as she turned away. To Samuel's surprise, she started walking towards the platform entrance. "We should let Captain Vaska know we'll need more uniforms on the streets, and at the Castoff Hospice. We could have up to a hundred witnesses by tomorrow morning."

"I don't think we'll need to," Samuel reflected, as someone mounted the stairs.

A young soldier ran towards them. Her uniform was drenched in sweat, leaving dark patches beneath her armpits and down the front of her chest. She panted hard as she slowed just a few steps away from Samuel, and extended her arm towards him wordlessly.

"Missive," the woman panted. It was only as she extended her arm that Samuel could see the green armband the soldier wore. "From Captain Deadrie Vaska, Billows District Precinct. Are you Samuel Battleborn Fraser?"

"I am," Samuel replied, taking the offered message.

He turned the paper over and broke the unmarked wax seal. Inside, he recognised the compact, almost illegible script his captain wrote in.

Sam,

Sorry to drop this on your lap. Sergeant Pinterwell in on the way with a dozen uniforms to help find witnesses and secure the scene. Keep alert, don't let Oversight put too much of this job on you, and send me regular updates by military courier. You are authorized Priority: Grey for the duration of this assignment.

Vaska

Samuel smiled and handed the note to Angela.

"Exciting," Angela said after a moment, as she returned the note. "We're authorized for military couriers. It must mean Vaska's worried about this one."

"She's not wrong to be," Samuel replied.

Samuel noticed that his partner's hand still rested on the elbow of her other arm, her thumb rubbing just above the point where her left arm had been amputated.

"Ash-stained airships," Samuel muttered. Louder, he said, "Look, Ang, I'm sorry they picked you up like that."

"It's fine," Angela said, waving her hand. "Pretty sure I'd never have met Captain Durgon otherwise."

"Look, if you need to talk about it-" Samuel began to say, but his partner cut him off as she turned and glared at him.

"I burning said it was fine, Sam!" Angela shouted her pointed finger resting almost directly under his chin. "Let it lie."

Samuel swallowed, and held his hands up. "Right, sorry."

Angela scowled at him and raised her finger until it was pointing at his nose. "And why did you do that? Holding both hands out like that, just to rub in my missing hand? As if I needed the reminder, you well-seared prick."

Samuel stuttered and tried to focus his mind enough to compose some kind of apology. His bewilderment lasted only a moment, as Angela's angry scowl slipped off her face, and she started laughing.

"Oh burn me, Sam, the look on that adorable face of yours," Angela wheezed, stumbling backwards a step and wiping at her eyes with her sleeve. "You look like a child watching his only doll go up in flames."

"Hag," Samuel muttered, turning away. His cheeks were hot, his heartbeat had picked up, and his collar felt uncomfortably tight.

Samuel took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Let's go see if the sergeant has arrived and if we can find some witnesses."

They made their way to the station entrance in silence, which left Samuel a blessed minute to let his agitation fade. He was almost smiling again, by the time he reached the street.

Almost. "Inspectors!" someone called from up ahead

Samuel turned to see a small group of uniformed orderlies standing near the soldiers still standing guard, with one of them breaking away from the others at a jog.

"Sir," the orderly said, as he approached. "Sergeant Pinterwell has us securing the scene, while he and the others went out to canvass the area. The soldiers are busy telling me this is their scene to secure, and I can't talk a lick of sense into them."

Samuel shook his head, finding the young officer's consternation as familiar as an old glove. Jurisdictional battles between the various authorities of the City was almost as constant a part of his life as solving crimes.

"Actually, those soldiers are being helpful right now," Angela said. "Samuel came up with the idea of letting them secure our crime scene while we go look for witnesses."

"They're okay with that?" The officer asked. "Is it that bad?"

"That bad," Samuel admitted. "Oversight asked for help, so it's pretty much the worst thing to happen to the City since the Sixth."

"Suddenly I miss having to chew out teenagers for jumping the tracks at the station," the officer mused.

"So do I," Angela said.

"Now, since the army is holding the scene for us, I want you guys to break into pairs, and head up and down the streets. Make noise, have loud conversations, talk about a play or the Ironworks Rally," Samuel said. "There might be dozens of witnesses out there, but none of them will come forward unless they feel like the district is safe."

"Will do, inspector," the officer said, before he turned away and rejoined the group near the soldiers. Watching them, Samuel was relieved to see them quickly break off from their conversation, and begin to disperse.

"Wow, Sam. Are you trying for a promotion?" Angela asked, nudging him in the ribs.

"Never. I'm way too competent to get promoted," Samuel replied as he gestured towards the end of the street. "It's why I get cases like this one."

Samuel began to walk, his pace carefully controlled to keep his anxieties from showing. As he walked, he deliberately slowed his breathing and stuffed his clenched fists into his coat pockets.

"So, since we're supposed to talk about plays when are you taking me to see the Fifth?" Angela asked.

Samuel sputtered, his mind shocked out of his uncomfortable musings. He looked over at his partner, smiling at him with a triumphant grin.

"It's put on every few weeks in the Wastelands Dome. They're even letting it happen in the Agora in a few weeks. You should take me," Angela elaborated. "We can celebrate solving this case."

Samuel let out a slow sigh of relief as his partner finished her suggestion. A part of him, a part Samuel was more than a little afraid of, had actually hoped that Angela's offer had been less platonic.

"Yeah, all right. We'll go after we solve this case. Or it's taken from us," Samuel agreed.

"No no, we only go if we solve it," Angela countered. "Otherwise it's not celebrating."

Samuel smiled, feeling the stress of the hour slip from his thoughts. "Deal."

They reached the end of the street. Samuel glanced around, down each path, and frowned as he witnessed the empty walkways and silent roads.

"It's quiet," Samuel remarked.

"It's night," Angela said. "Most people are asleep by now."

"True. But how often in your life have you seen a deserted street? Where there's no one else except the officers we've dispatched?" Samuel asked.

"Never," Angela admitted.

"I've only seen it once," Samuel confessed. "late at night, in High Central, during the second night of the Sixth Invasion."

"After The Dragon Chase," Angela muttered, nodding. "I remember."

Samuel shuddered a little and pulled his coat tighter over his shoulders. His thoughts trailed back to that night, two years ago, when the monsters besieging the City had sent a creature of fire over the walls. The airship core had fought a desperate battle in the heart of the City to bring that beast down, and the casualties of that battle had numbered in the tens of thousands.

It was something Samuel remembered too keenly. Ash and pulverised stone, torrents of fire devouring streets, cannon fire ringing off buildings, screams and weeping echoing through empty, lonely streets.

"Okay," Angela said. Her voice shook him from his morbid reminiscing, and he looked at her, inviting her to finish her sentence.

"So what about tonight compares with that?"

"Imagine you were on the platform when that reject smoked those shadows. You see this happen. What do you do?" Samuel asked.

Angela began to speak, but Samuel cut her off. "Okay, perhaps not you. Not all of us were soldiers. The average person standing on that platform, waiting for the next train to take them home. What can they do, except run away?"

"So the survivors run. Off the platform. Some might be wounded, you said so yourself earlier. But where do they run to?" Angela asked.

"Safety. Locked doors and thick walls, whoever will take them in," Samuel explained, as he noticed some sifting shadows in one of the nearby apartment towers. "And if they're hurt, they won't be inclined to run very far."

Samuel walked over to the apartment door and drew his badge out of his coat pocket. "Excuse me! Can anyone hear me?" he called out.

It only took a moment for whoever was on the other side of the door to work up the courage to shout back. "Who are you, and what do you want?"

"Inspector Samuel Fraser," Samuel said, resting his badge against the small window on the door. "I'm investigating a recent incident that happened nearby. May I come in?"

"Spared the abyss! Yes, of course," the voice from the far side of the door said. The door clicked once, then twice, before it swung out.

An elderly man in a simple, grey night robe held the door. The man had bare feet, his grey hair was unkempt, but he was alert and still eyed Samuel warily for a moment before he gestured for them to enter.

"Sorry, inspectors," the man said, as Samuel and Anglea stepped inside. "A group of shadows came by about a quarter-hour ago, told us to keep the doors locked. We're waiting for things to quiet down, and the streets to be safe. Then we'll escort them to a hospice."

"How badly are they hurt?" Angela asked.

"Not seriously," someone else said, from further inside the entranceway. "I think we all have a few burns, but nothing life-threatening."

The man speaking to Samuel was sitting in one of the waiting chairs near the entrance, along with three other people. All of them had glass bottles full of ice pressed against parts of their bodies, and all of them looked like they had recently been put through a lot of exercise.

"Were any of you at Billows Station an hour ago?" Samuel asked.

"We all were," the same man said, rubbing his left arm.

Samuel could see the man's shirt was ruined almost up to the shoulder, with a scattering of burns from his sleeve to well past his elbow. This was despite his thick, heavy looking shirt likely meant for the various forge or foundry jobs common in the Billows District.

Samuel reached into a pocket and drew out a small pad of paper. He fumbled with his pockets for a moment longer, until his partner leaned over and muttered into his ear.

"Coat, left side," Angela whispered.

"Thanks," Samuel muttered, as he finally found a short charcoal stick. Louder, to the group, he introduced himself. "I'm Inspector Samuel Fraser, and this is Inspector Angela Ostal. We're investigating the incident at Billows Station. Can you tell us what happened?"

"A raging Crafter lost it, and smoked a bunch of people," one of the others sitting in the waiting chairs said. She had an agitated fidget, and the hand holding the bottle of ice shook.

"I was lead to believe it wasn't a Crafter," Samuel said carefully.

"Crafter, reject, ash, soot," the woman rebutted. "Same difference."

"No, I guess it wasn't a Crafter," the first speaker said. "He didn't have the red coat. Though his accent was the same. High Central, you know?"

"Look, can we just go to a hospice now? I'd rather take my chances then just wait here for that burning monster to come back and finish the job," the woman who spoke earlier said, squirming in her chair. "I just want to get patched up and go home."

"So do I," Samuel agreed, as he took an empty chair and sat down across from the woman. "I just got handed the job of tracking down a missing reject, one that murdered fourteen people. Five shadows were killed for doing their jobs, and nine people whose only crime was really burning bad luck. Much I want to go hide under a blanket and let you do the same, I need to catch this raging reject before he hurts more people."

"He wasn't raging," the man said.

"Did you see the fire that burnt your arm?" the woman asked her companion incredulously.

"Okay, but that wasn't some crazy rage. He was angry about something, I could hear a bit of what he was talking about. He was speaking to some guy in a black coat, who was trying to calm him down," the man insisted.

Samuel leaned forward, intrigued. "Did you hear much of what they were talking about? Any names, perhaps?"

"I heard the reject call the guy in black 'Starson'," the man said. "The reject kept asking 'what were they doing to her', and the guy in black was promising that they would look into it."

Samuel looked over at his partner, who met his gaze with a quizzical expression and a confused shrug.

"So, this guy was trying to calm the reject down, and they knew each other. What happened then?" Angela asked.

"That guy seemed to be calming the reject down. You could hear him take deep breaths, and his voice got a bit quieter. Less strained. But then someone else in the crowd made this sudden move, and the reject turned and..." The man shuddered, unable to continue speaking.

"Fire. Everywhere," the woman shuddered, clutching her bottle of ice with two hands. "We all ran. We didn't stop until we were well away from the station, then we started hammering on doors, hoping someone would let us in. And, well, we've been waiting here ever since."

"I see," Samuel said, trying to keep his voice level. "Do any of you remember anything else about ever of these two? Any details? Height, hair colour, a broken nose, tattoos?"

"I can," a young woman beside the others said. "I got a good look, just before things went mad. The angry guy was pretty young, like maybe a bit older than I am. High central accent, light brown hair, really fussy haircut. Like you see stage actors have, with the nearly shaved sides. Clean-shaven."

The young woman laughed and shook her head. "I thought he was a stage actor at first, and they were doing some kind of impromptu play."

"Good, thank you. That actually helps a great deal," Samuel said. "Can any of you think of anything else? Anything you haven't mentioned already?"

Gradually, all four of Samuel's witnesses shook their heads.

"Okay. So right now, Oversight has shadows scouring the area, hunting this guy down. Odds are, they'll have this wrapped up in an hour or two. But I'll have some officers stop by here in a bit, to escort you all to a hospice. Until then, you were smart to keep the doors locked, but you should also turn the lights off until they arrive."

Samuel stood up and offered his hand. "Thank you for your help."

Samuel deliberately shook all of their hands, including the elderly man in his robe. Angela did the same, offering her own, more personalised thanks to each of them.

"Don't worry," Angela explained to the young woman. "We'll stop this reject."

Stop. Samuel heard the word and couldn't hide the reflexive cringe. Death was always a risk in policing, but it wasn't supposed to be the objective.

He could only hope he wouldn't hate himself too much in the coming days.