'I suppose I shall not be needing this any more.'

Johann picked up the badge.

'I understand,' Kleindeinst said, 'that the countess-elector has petitioned for my prosecution. Doubtless, Hals von Tasseninck has forgotten the service I did him during the riots and seconded her motion. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to get my old job back at the Reik and Talabec.'

Johann handed the officer the badge.

'I have talked with the Emperor. This time, I really have. Karl-Franz isn't so bad, you know. The countess will not be welcome at the palace for a long time. He has personally blocked her paper and I doubt that she'll press it further. I have told her that if she does, I shall tell Detlef Sierck the true story of the Beast and he will cancel that Zhiekhill and Chaida play and stage instead a spine-chiller called The Secret Life of Leos von Liebewitz.'

Harald nearly laughed. He pinned the badge on again.

'Back to the docks, I suppose,' he said.

'Dickon has been removed, I understand.'

'Yes.'

'You'll be the new commander in Luitpoldstrasse then?'

Harald shrugged. 'I'm not a commander, I'm a street copper. Besides, there's no station in Luitpoldstrasse, remember'

'I'll have extra funds diverted to the watch, I promise. I'll make it my business to get the station rebuilt. But it will be different this time.'

'It will have to be.'

Harald Kleindeinst walked out of the coffee house and left them together.

Johann looked tired for a moment.

Outside, the fog had completely dispersed, but it was winter. There was already a light fall of snow and the windows were frosted over. There were still plenty of burned-out buildings in the city and whole areas of the East End were ruins. There was a tent settlement amid the cinders and ashes, and the cold was already a problem. Grand Theogonist Yorri's Riots Commission wasn't doing anything about that. Yefimovich was still at large, with a thousand crowns offered for anyone who turned him in, sought for the Beast's crimes as well as his own. The insurrections had died down, but Prince Kloszowski's latest pamphlet harped on the familiar neglects and the freezing inner-city dispossessed were repeating his verses under their steaming breaths as they stamped their feet, as much with irritation as the cold.

After Leos's death, there was a rash of singular occurrences, which Rosanna thought of as omens in reverse: Dien Ch'ing, the Cathayan ambassador, disappeared from the palace; Detlef Sierck announced a horror play which would give the rest of the city the nightmares Rosanna had already been having to cope with; Etienne de la Rougierre was recalled to Bretonnia and rebuked by King Charles Tete d'Or for his licentiousness; Ch'ing's proposed expedition to the Dark Lands, suspected as a scheme to distract the Empire from subtler evils closer to home, was abandoned; Mikael Hasselstein resigned his position as Lector and entered a secluded branch of the Cult of Sigmar, taking a vow of silence as part of a self-induced penance; by night, the network of streets between the docks and the Street of a Hundred Taverns again became thick with women soliciting; people still lived, suffered and died 'I never found my brother,' Johann said. 'He's not returned to the University.'

'He's hurt and confused, but he'll mend. I scry him occasionally. He's still in the city. He knows he's not the Beast now. I promise you.'

Johann let his coffee cool. 'I must find him,' he said. 'He was the reason I got into this thing. I must see it through. I think he still has a trace of the warpstone in him. You must have felt that when you touched his mind.'

Rosanna agreed. 'But the warpstone isn't the only thing that can twist a person out of true, Johann'

'You are right. There are worse ways of altering than to have a face of fire or daemon's horns or a little wolfishness.'

Rosanna thought of Leos and was angry again. The girl inside the boy-shell had been a walking knot of agony. Then, she looked at Johann and calmed herself. The baron needed a scryer and she was without a position.

She centred herself and tried to reach out with her mind The city teemed with hurts and resentments, with plenty and poverty, with nobility and savagery, with devotion and injustice, with Law and Chaos. She brushed hundreds of minds as they were tossed around like peas in a soup, each sealed in its own little shell of skull. She was wary of letting any of them in. The taste of Leos was still too strong with her. Over the last weeks, she had often found herself dreaming Leos's dreams, choking on her memories. No matter how much she tried to dispel, her gift still gave her a curse. Also, she had flashes of Johann's past, of Elsaesser's, even of Wolf.

She knew the feel of Wolfs mind and searched for it. Her senses swelled to encompass the whole of the city. It would be like picking out one particular pea in a lake of soup, but it could be done. Johann noticed her distraction. 'Rosanna, what is it?'

'I can help you, Johann,' she said, laying her hand over his.

end.