He was working with a mass murderer.

The smell of torched flesh had lingered in the back of Samuel's thoughts in every waking hour since he started this investigation. The mutilation of those bodies was the stuff of horror stories to frighten children. The collateral damage had injured over a hundred people.

Silas Miller was a mass murderer, and Samuel needed to put that aside.

"What's your plan?" Silas asked, as Samuel followed the young man up the stairs. "In case talking doesn't work?"

"My plan?" Samuel asked with a dismissive scoff. "My plan is to hope I can talk sense into people, before Theo Ratterson turns this place into a puddle of molten stone."

"That's a terrible plan," Silas retorted.

"You do understand this is your burning mess, don't you?" Samuel asked as they reached the top of the stairs. "You're the one who took an employee from Research and walked her into the hands of some insurrectionists! You took her and put her into the heart of this madness! You put her life at risk by doing this!"

"Shut your gob, you lowlife thug with a badge!" Silas screamed, and he pushed Samuel into the wall. "I love her!"

Silas pulled at Samuel's coat, just enough to pull him from the wall, before Silas shoved him back again. "I got her out! I found out they were doing something terrible to her! I risked my life for her!"

Samuel forced himself to swallow his first response, instead letting his thoughts focus on what Silas was saying. The passion in his voice, the physical violence, even the anger twisting his lips into a manic grimace was all very human.

But there was no remorse. No grief. No shame. Only resentment and rage. It was almost as if someone had cut out a piece of the young man. Or, more telling, something had burned it away.

"And you're not bothered that you haven't actually helped her?" Samuel asked. "That what you did has made her situation worse?"

Silas sneered at him, but there was a flicker of confusion in his expression. Some doubt.

"Aren't you troubled by the fact that it doesn't bother you, like it should?" Samuel asked.

Unmistakably, Silas grimaced and his arms went limp. He released Samuel's coat and turned away. He shuddered once and stepped back.

Silas was afraid. Of himself.

"Come on," Samuel said, pointing to the next flight of stairs. "Let's keep going."

Silas lead them up another two flights before Samuel began to notice the change in the colour coming through the windows. The light was blue, but a shade Samuel had never seen before. And judging by the way it shone through the window, casting light onto the ceiling as well as the floor, it was coming from more than one place.

"What is that?" Samuel asked.

"It's that Crafter," Silas said. "I've only ever heard about this happening. I've never seen it."

"What is it?" Samuel asked as he looked out the window.

In the distance, he could see the figure of a single man, wearing a distinctive red coat. One of his hands was raised, and all around him the air was glowing in a haunting, beautiful blue haze of light.

More frightening still was that the light seemed to be coming from a wide haze around him, and was so bright that the small garden wall in front of the granary was casting a shadow.

"That Crafter has seized all the heat in the winds around him," Silas explained. "If it's powerful enough, it does something to some of the gases that make up the air we breathe. I don't know much about electricity, but it's called an arc flash."

"That is terrifying," Samuel breathed. "We don't have a lot of time left."

Silas lead Samuel up one more flight of stairs, into a larger room containing one of the grain chutes. There were also a dozen people standing in various places in the room, all of whom were holding weapons.

One woman, sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, was unmistakably the same woman Samuel had met in Riverwash Hospice. Sickly, thin face, with haunted eyes, Amanda Destir looked worse than Sam remembered.

"Silas?" one of them asked. "Where's Quentin? Don't tell me he found a way out and left us to burn."

Samuel nearly cried out in joy when he heard that. That sentiment was something he could work with. Before Silas could say anything, Samuel took a step forward and drew out his badge. "Inspector Samuel Fraser, Orderlies. I'm here to try and calm this situation."

"Silas? You brought an Inspector up here?" the woman standing closest to Amanda asked, her face twisting into a sneer. "Where is Quentin?"

"His plan is to get you all martyred. There's a Crafter marching on this tower right now, and he's acting under orders to slag this place. With all of you in it."

"Crafter?" Someone else asked.

"Crafter Theo Ratterson is at the edge of the grounds right now," Samuel said, letting some of the urgency he felt leak into his voice. "And I've been told by the Crafters in the airships that no one is going to stand in his way."

"But, but why is a Crafter here?"

Samuel nearly crowed in delight. He might be able to talk them through this. "There was a hostage situation last night at a bar in the Billows called The Frosty Hearth. Having a second hostage situation in two days has made Parliament nervous. Which is why you have four airships out there. Now they've sent a Crafter out here to make a point."

Lead with a strong truth to tell a lie. It bothered Samuel that Quentin might have a point about calling them kindred spirits.

"So you're saying this all goes away if you can walk out with those two?" the woman standing closest to Amanda asked. Her smile had no humour in it, and her hand was now wreathed in flame.

As much as Samuel didn't want to have this reject interject, her questions also confirmed that none of them had any inkling of what Amanda knew.

"The Crafter goes away. I can't say you won't be arrested, but I can promise you won't die screaming beneath molten rock," Samuel said. "All we need to do is get Amanda and Silas out of here, and this goes from being seen as an armed insurrection to a bad overreaction."

There was only silence, which Samuel filled before anyone else could. "Amanda, stand up and come with me. Let's save some lives."

Amanda nodded and started to stand, and Samuel began to hope that they might actually be able to leave without an incident, but the reject beside her pushed her back into the chair and pointed at Samuel. "No burning way. I'm not surprised Quentin abandoned us, but my ash bitten fate isn't changing no matter what you tell me."

Samuel cursed inwardly. The reject, alone, was still a problem that could get a lot of people killed. Even if the others in the room could be swayed, the reject alone was dangerous enough to kill all of them. And throwing Silas at her was just as dangerous.

Just then, a whistle sounded from the hanging machinery above their heads. Everyone looked up into the dimly lit heights, and Samuel managed to catch a blur as it swept down and landed on the reject, knocking her to the ground and covering her in darkness.

Not darkness. Samuel was surprised at how easy it was to associate this man with the supernatural. That darkness was just a long black coat, belonging to a tall man with a badly faded hat.

"Spit and ash," someone cursed as the others staggered away from Mathias Aranhall, their weapons pointed at the shadow.

"Don't!" Samuel exclaimed, trying to keep the others from attacking the shadow. Mathias had already drawn a gun and was pointing it at the nearest man, who took another tentative step backwards.

"That Crafter is still coming," Samuel barked, reminding them of the concerns they might have forgotten. When he saw it was enough to keep the others from attacking the shadow, Samuel decided to try an order. "Go and join the other workers in the warehouse out back. Let us try and talk this Crafter down."

To emphasise his point, Samuel stepped into the room, and away from the door. Silas followed his lead, leaving the path out wide open. There was a long, tense pause where Samuel held his breath, before the first person nodded and walked through the door. After the first, the others left swiftly.

Half a minute later, as one tense stand-off left the room, it only revealed another. Silas was standing beside Mathias with his hands at his sides, lips twisted into a snarl and his posture hunched forward as if her about to run a race.

"Inspector," Mathias Aranhall said, pointing Samuel's rifle at Silas. Despite being in a half-crouch, with only a single hand holding the rifle, the end of the barrel may as well have been set in a vice for all it moved. "You should step away."

"Commander," Samuel began to say, his hands out.

But whatever he was going to say next was stopped by Amanda Destir, who stood and put her hand on the barrel."Please," she said to Mathias, who studied her with an odd expression on his face. "Please don't."

Amanda walked past Mathias and pushed herself into a stumbling run towards Silas, who threw out his arms and embraced her. They held each other in close, frantic silence, neither of them willing to let go.

Samuel shrugged. The tall shadow cringed, but he rested Samuel's rifle on his shoulder and adjusted his hat. "Inspector, I trust you haven't promised him anything you cannot deliver."

"Like my life?" Silas asked, raising his chin to keep his mouth over Amanda's hair. "No, you speck of ash, he hasn't. But if you think I'm just going to let you give her back to those monsters at Research, you-"

"Have you told him?" Mathias asked Amanda. Samuel's heart nearly stopped when the barrel fell just enough that it wasn't pointed at Silas.

"No, she hasn't said anything," Samuel said.

"I'm not asking you, Inspector," Mathias warned, and he chose that moment to pull his knife out of the body lying at his feet. "Amanda, what have you told him?"

Silas, surprisingly, turned to Samuel. "You know, too?"

That accusation stung. "Yes," Samuel admitted.

Silas looked like he was thinking of attacking Samuel, but Amanda pushed herself away from the young man's embrace. "But, you didn't know when you interviewed me yesterday. Just a day ago. By the abyss..."

Amanda staggered forward, and rubbed at her eyes. Her hands were clenched into fists, but her anger was directed at Silas. "You killed him!" She shouted at Silas, but she was pointing at Samuel.

She charged at Silas, her fists flailing as she struck his head and chest. "You killed him! He only found out because he was investigating you! And he's an Orderly, he isn't even a shadow! He'd only be investigating if you really did what he said you did! Those people at the train station!"

"Amanda," Silas breathed her name like it was a prayer, tears in his eyes, and his hands set at his sides. "I..."

Amanda stepped to the side and turned to the shadow. "Mathias, you can kill him. If he Crafts, I'll help you."

Mathias shifted the barrel back to point at Silas's chest just before Samuel found the nerve to interject. "Stop! I have my word to keep still."

"Your word?" Mathias asked.

"I promised him a few things if he helped me get Amanda out. I owe him a full interview about recent events, a chance to write letters to loved ones, and a last meal. Because even if I have to execute him without a trial, I can offer his death some burning dignity."

"He doesn't burning deserve it!" Amanda scathed. "He's a hair's breadth from being scourged! He's nothing but an abyss touched Gloamtaken!"

"No," Silas said, softly. But everyone else stopped to listen to him. "No, I haven't cried about those people on the station. When I killed Starson, it didn't hurt at all. Oh..."

Silas fell to his knees, confused and terrified. "Why didn't it hurt?"

"The madness of a Crafter's rage is an insidious thing," Mathias said, but there was a gentle, sympathetic note in his voice. "It burns away sympathy and compassion. You begin to look for excuses to Craft, find it harder and harder to see a problem where fire isn't the solution. Most who wield the flame never even see how they burn themselves away."

Mathias walked over to Samuel and offered him the rifle. "It seems Captain Raeth chose wisely. You would make a superb shadow."

Samuel took it, at once both eager and reluctant to hold the weapon again. He twisted the barrel, releasing the two halves, and checked over the fit of the shot loaded inside.

"Crafter Saval's work," Mathias remarked.

"Captain Raeth told you where it was found?" Samuel asked.

"No," Mathias replied, surprising Samuel. "I recognise the twist-locking mechanism. Her prototypes never made it into mass production, mostly because someone invented a wheel chamber shortly after the Fifth. Believe it or not, my mother actually has the same weapon."

"Your mother?" Samuel asked, satisfied with the fit of the shell.

"She fought during the Fifth. Saval gave her the gun personally. Though I've never seen Coldstone bullets before."

As he shut the barrel, Samuel noticed out of the corner of his eye both Amanda and Silas turn their heads, looking down as if they could see something through the floor.

"What is it?" Mathias asked.

"Someone's just set the grain in the tower on fire!" Amanda exclaimed. "Three floors down!"

"Is that Theo?" Mathias asked.

"No," Silas said. "It's not even willed flame."

Samuel floundered for a moment, utterly uncertain. Worse still, panic seized his throat and wrenched at his stomach, as memories of fire and screams washed over him and threatened to pull him in.

"Inspector," Mathias said slowly and loudly. Samuel looked up, surprised to see the man already had a hand on his shoulder. "Take the two of them out the front. Do your best to talk Theo down, it should be easier with Amanda," Mathias ordered before he turned away and ran for the window.

"What about you?" Samuel asked.

"Hopefully the granary has back exits. If not, I'll get one of the ships to make a door, and get people out that way," Mathias replied, just before he jumped out the window.

Samuel stared at the window for a long moment. "How many floors up are we?"

"Six," Amanda breathed, disbelieving.

Samuel shook his head, then pointed to the exit. "Silas, lead the way."