The train clattered across the tracks with frantic restlessness, matching the wild pounding of Samuel's heart. It's noise drummed against his thoughts, and the usual drone of distant conversations was missing because of the late hour.

Inspector Samuel Fraser fidgeted in his seat and wrung his hands together. At least one of his fingers twitched involuntarily, and his jaw hurt from having clenched it for at least the last hour.

Samuel was surprised to see his partner was handling the moment so well. Angela was reclining deeply into the nearby seat, her eyes half closed and a small grin on her face.

"The part of army life I don't miss is all the waiting," Angela said, her voice shaking him out of his hazy thoughts and helping him focus. "Those long hours where you're supposed to be on-edge, waiting for something to happen. I think it's why I never could take sentry duty at the last wall."

Samuel was surprised to hear his partner talk about her time in the military. It had been a sore spot for her since he had met her.

"At least this waiting has a definite end. Oversight's headquarters is only a few minutes away," Angela said.

"You seem to be taking this well," Samuel said. He leaned forward, and let his hand rest against the messenger bag by his feet. "A lot better than I am, anyway."

"That's only because you tend to wear your heart on your face, Sam," Angela said. She chuckled to herself and sat up. "You'd be the worst gambler in the City if you weren't half-decent at reading people."

"And what does my face tell you right now?" Samuel asked.

"That you're over-thinking what you've learned about this case. You're going over our interviews, wondering what others questions you should have asked. You're worried that you don't have the right handle on how to track a reject, and you're wondering what you're missing," Angela listed, holding up her hand and counting each item off by folding a finger.

"I..." Samuel began to say, but he shrugged in acknowledgement. "Yeah, you got me."

"Of course I do. It's been almost a year since we were partnered up. And I've known that about you for exactly as long. You wear your worries the way a socialite wears her cleavage," Angela said.

Samuel tried to scoff dismissively, but it broke into laughter almost as soon as it came out.

"Is it really that obvious?" Samuel asked.

"Don't fuss over it. It's a cute trait. And if it makes you feel any better, the last person I knew who did that was Amelian Rustov," Angela insisted.

Samuel's eyes widened in surprise. "That's quite the comparison. You don't talk about your army days much."

Angela didn't answer for a long moment, long enough for Samuel to begin inferring the reason for it. It wasn't difficult; his partner was now absentmindedly rubbing her right hand against her left arm, and her eyes were focused on her own boots.

Samuel didn't know what to say, couldn't think of anything to improve on the silence, to pull his partner out of her melancholy, and decided the wisest course was to not try.

The awkward silence that followed was brief, however, as the brakes began to screech in protest, slowly pulling the train to a stop. Samuel stood up, slinging his messenger bag over his shoulder.

"But you really think I act like one of the heroes of the Sixth?" Samuel asked as he waited by the door.

"Don't let it go to your head. You're not half as clever," Angela said.

Samuel smiled to himself, taking the hit without a response. There were times that people just needed to get in a verbal hit or two.

Samuel exited to an unfamiliar sight. It wasn't the first time that he had seen Stone Grove Station, but it was usually on his way another place. The only time that he had ever stepped out here was during the Sixth. And he really didn't have the opportunity then to gawk.

Stone Grove Station was located deep in Lower Central, deeply enshrouded by the monstrously tall building that rose up like stone imitations of the Spire. A web of causeways, sky gardens, and train lines formed a canopy far above, enshrouding Lower Central and making the firelight of its exhaust ports and street lamps the primary light source, even during the brightest of days.

Samuel and Angela made their way to the end of the station, following the streets in silence for the brief few minutes it took to walk from the station to the headquarters of the Bureau of Oversight.

Samuel has a firm idea of what he expected Oversight's headquarters to look like. A menacing black tower, perpetually shrouded in thick black clouds, with a wide moat of black, poisonous water. Surrounding that moat would be a small forest of dead trees, effigies of dead men and women on prominent display, with a wrought-iron gate meant more to intimidate than keep people out. It would have been a fitting monument to the infamous operatives of the Bureau of Oversight, and their legendary skill.

Instead, nothing could have shocked Samuel more than what he saw. The building that lay in the middle of a wide clearing of cobbled street was a bland, grey rectangle. Six stories high, with a flat roof and narrow windows, the building could easily have been a school or a warehouse.

The only distinguishing feature to the building was the maze of short sections of wall that surrounded it, more like a series of barriers than an actual fortification.

"That's not what I was expecting," Angela admitted.

"It's not any more interesting on the inside, either," a voice spoke from behind Samuel, nearly making him jump.

He turned around, to see the speaker was a woman standing just to his right, close enough that his shoulder was inches from brushing against her wide-brimmed hat.

Samuel leaned back, noticing the brim of that hat looked a lot like the blade of a knife.

"I'm glad to see you're both orderlies. Inspectors," the woman in the wide-brimmed hat said, holding a small piece of metal up to the light.

The piece of metal was a small, stylized circle. On the design, was a bowing river surrounded by tiny fires, with an eight digit number below.

394-00184. The first three digits were the year Samuel took his oaths as an officer in the Orderlies.

Samuel held out his hand, and said, "I'm Inspector Samuel Fraser. My partner and I are here because-"

The woman waved her hand and tilted her hat back. "I know. The Billows Station incident. You're expected."

When the woman tilted her hat back, Samuel caught a glimpse of a long, jagged scar that ran from her jaw up to disappear behind her hat and several other deep scars on her neck. The woman also had the same sort of hard, haunted eyes that Samuel had seen on the marines guarding his crime scene, from some of the veterans who drank in quiet corners of the taverns in his district, and on the woman the airship commander had called 'chief'.

Samuel, despite the gnawing nervousness chewing at his stomach, kept his feet planted and his hand extended.

The woman in the hat met his gaze for a moment, then gave him the ghost of a grin before she tiled her hat, covering her face again. She set his badge in his hand and started walking towards the building.

Samuel and Angela followed.

"Are all of you shadows this sneaky?" Angela asked.

The woman shrugged. "It's a trait."

The shadow didn't seem inclined to converse as she lead them into the maze of walls that surrounded the building. They followed her closely, quickly learning that the shadow wasn't inclined to slow or pace, or even ensure she was still being followed.

It didn't take long, barely half a minute, before they emerged from the maze. The woman leading them opened the door and held it open for them. Samuel muttered his thanks, but couldn't find it in him to say anything more as he was lead into the headquarters of the Bureau of Oversight.

The floors were bare stone, polished only from the scuffing of boots rather than any deliberate effort on anyone's part. Samuel could tell by looking at the edges of the floor near the walls, where the stone didn't have the black stain, and the stone still had its slightly jagged edges. The hallways were disturbingly narrow, barely able to accommodate two people walking side by side. The walls had that distinct brown undertone of stone that hadn't been washed in a long time, and the torches were spaced well apart, leaving the halls very poorly lit.

"You weren't kidding," Angela said. It took Samuel a moment to realise his partner was talking to their guide. "I've seen more ostentatious prisons."

"This place used to be a prison," their guide replied, with a shrug.

"For who?" Samuel asked. He looked up and gestured to the concrete sea above and around them. "We're too close to the heart of the City for this to be the usual work-camp prison."

"It was a Crafter prison," the woman said. "After the Maester Rebellion, but before the First Invasion, the basement used to be a dungeon."

Samuel nearly scoffed at the idea, but one look at the grim, humourless expression on their guide held him in check.

"How in the searing abyss do you imprison a Crafter?" Angela asked, giving voice to Samuel's question.

"You threaten to drop the building on their heads if they try to escape," their guide explained blandly.

"Don't tell me that's where we're headed," Samuel muttered.

Their guide turned back to look at Samuel and smiled. There was no humour or warmth in it.

Samuel followed the guide down several flights of stairs. Until they reached the bottom, there were no other exits. The woman leading them pushed open the last door, and lead them into the place she had described as a former Crafter prison.

Once again, the sight did not conform to his expectations. This former prison was well illumined, warm, and surprisingly cluttered. Rows of shelves lined the walls, long tables were stretched out across the room, and dozens of black-clad men and women were busy searching through a small field of papers.

One of the people around the table was familiar; a shorter woman with chemically treated clothes. The woman Commander Aranhall had addressed as 'chief'.

"Chief," their guide said as she strode away from Samuel, towards one of the larger tables. "The inspectors are here. The badges are authentic."

"I recognise them from the station," a woman said, pushing herself away from the table and stepping towards them. Samuel was impressed to see that despite the flurry of activity around her, everyone made an effort to keep her path clear.

"Thank you for keeping an eye on them," the woman addressed as 'chief' said to their guide.

The guide's response was a gentle tip of her hat before she asked, "would you like me to stick with them while they investigate, chief?"

The woman with the faded, chemically treated clothes shook her head. "I wish I could, but I can't spare you from the Hellgrind. Head back, and tell the Captain she's overdue for an update."

"Aye, chief. Happy hunting," their guide said. She nodded once, politely, to Samuel as she passed.

Samuel glanced back to the door, but by the time he glanced back she was already gone.

"Has she been tailing us?" Angela asked.

"Since I left you both on the platform. You can't think I'd ask you to investigate a reject on the run without someone looking out for your safety?" the chief said. "This entire bureau would have me cast out, and they'd be right to do it. Now, do you have anything to narrow down the identity of this ash-stained puss boil?"

"I think I do," Samuel replied, as he took his messenger bag off his shoulder, and began to empty the contents.

"Officers interviewed about three dozen witnesses. All of them described an agitated young man arguing with a man in black, who matches the description of one of the victims," Samuel reported, setting a small bundle of paper on the desk.

"This victim was addressed as 'Starson'. And on one of the victims, in roughly the same position witnesses described this man standing at, we found a fifth knife," Samuel explained, as he took a long dagger out of his bag, and set it on the desk next to the stack of paper.

"Starson?" the chief asked, as she rested two of her fingers on the handle. She muttered, shook her head, glanced across the desk. "Spit and simmering ash."

"You might be able to identify the shadow, ma'am?" Samuel asked.

"I just might," the chief said. "Fairly tall, a bit of grey in mostly brown hair, burn scar on the left side of his neck, from the ear down?"

"I didn't memorize the victims very well," Samuel said apologetically, as he reached for his stack of paper. "But our precinct has an artist on staff for sketches, and he sent along one of each victim."

Samuel drew out one page, a careful sketch of a man on the far side of his youth, with patches of grey in his hair. "This was the man with the fifth knife."

The chief took the picture gently, almost reverently, and set it on the desk. "Starson Vontusk."

The room fell silent; dozens of people stopped searching boxes and shuffling through stacks of paper, and all of them turned to the woman who had just set the sketch on the table.

"He died with his knife sheathed?" the chief asked.

"Sheathed, and beneath his coat," Samuel confirmed.

Despite how crowded the room was, Samuel could hear nothing except his own breathing.

"He was murdered," someone murmured.

Giving the room quick, surreptitious glance, Samuel saw faces twisted in shock, disbelief, and anger. Samuel had days where some gang or drunken fool had injured or even killed an Orderly, had even been one of those faces. But the shock was so dramatic Samuel had no sense of what was passing between these agents of the Bureau of Oversight.

Samuel looked at Angela, who could only shrug in confusion.

(Author's note: This chapter includes the first of my 80K giveaway prizes, presented to one of my first Wattpad buddies, the affable and intriguing author @CaptainSarcastic101. She is in the midst of a laborious and daunting rewrite of her own work, The Night Rider. Any encouragement you offer her helps not only her, but me as well. Since I would really like her to keep going)