Tucked away from the licensed markets, I found a remarkable jeweler. None of the work displayed was of high quality, but it was the promise of speed and the lack of a forge that caught me. After commissioning a ring, I watched the vendor, old and mangled from some past accident, pack sand into a mold. With an arcane incantation made quick by rote experience, the sand meld and fused into fresh gold. After a few minutes of filing, my adornment was complete.

  – Tzu Ye, High court Historian of Ao Guan

  The discovery of the other three continents had been a blessing to Sabbelah’s cusine. Its docks had quickly been repurposed from welcoming fishing skiff’s to taking in long ships, triremes and junks. The world had been hungry for magic, and trinkets flowed out to bring in proper supplies. Grimoires for children, wands enchanted with destruction just beyond the layman’s power in exchange for livestock, fertile soil and seeds to sow in it along with occasional luxuries in whatever delicacies could be preserved for sea travel. Komena remembered her mother taking her to the Peach Vale’s grand opening, both hesitant to eat anything so unrecognizable. Now every street had someone cooking with ingredients beyond their great grandparent’s imagination.

  Even with this change, the city’s day to day diet was still built on fish, dried seaweed, purified sea water and sand transmuted into a bland grain. Getting the first two was left to the layman, but the others were the responsibility of the Faculty of Transmutation. The massive output required to sustain the city was why their main office was less an academic building and more of a factory. From the outside, it was clearly built into a few large warehouse-like buildings, instead of the dived classes and office of the others. A few large doors allowed for efficient, daily deliveries. Opposite them were pillars of sand, harvested from the desert, flowing inside through ports in the walls to be processed.

  The entrance for people was unimpressive. Undecorated, heavy and locked. Next to it, a guard peered out at them from a small window. Their uniform covered them entirely: A pointed, metal skull cap over a blue veil and steel plates over vitals, insulated from the body by heavy blue robes.

  “I don’t have any appointments for visitors today. Do you imagine you have any business here, or can I collect the bounty for loiterers?” They said as Komena and Kave approached.

  “I imagine that we have business on behalf of the Deans. So, you’re going to go speak with whoever gives you permission to unlock this door. Mention Komena Siri, here on Faculty of Agriculture’s behalf.” Komena said, pulling out the amulet.

  The guard took a moment to consider, but eventually turned and left their post. Kave rolled his shoulders and stretched his fingers, expecting them to come out and make good on their threats. Komena respected the experience behind the decision, but doubted it was necessary. Guards that eager to collect bounties would mostly be out patrolling. Standing watch here was work for the lazy just as much as it was for the trusted.

  Instead, after a few minutes the guard came back to their post, took their seat and waved a hand. The clicks of heavy locks sliding loose were loud enough to be heard over the bustle of the streets.

  “And where would your business be taking you two?” The guard asked.

  “Your dean for a start. Are they in their office?” Komena said

  “For certain. You’ll find him straight through the first few doors, and around the catwalk. His office is on the other side of the room. You’ll know it by the name plate.”

  “Yes. That is how name plates work.” Kave said. The only response was a long, affirmative hum from the guard, who was already putting them out of his mind.

  The first door led to a series of small branching corridors. They kept going straight through as they’d been told. None of the doors were locked, but they were heavy, opening slowly as they pushed against them. Eventually they stepped onto to the catwalk of a giant room. The floor was two stories below them, dug into the ground.

  The sand coming in through the wall ports was directed into a single metal canal. It snaked downwards before coming to run from one end of the floor to another. It rushed through sounding like a wave crashing on the shore, stretched out forever. Both sides of the canal were lined with mages, casting spells as the contents flowed by. It was too far to make out details, to see the metamorphosis from inorganic to organic. But comparing the fine, white sand at the start to the brown meal that came at the end was enough to know it happened.

  A catwalk of reinforced iron circled the whole of the room. They were the only ones on it now, but Komena could imagine some supervisor perched up here, leering down over the workers, scanning for the slowest of them. Offices dotted the walls, doors with name plates slotted in at eye level next to a small window. Some of themh were enchanted to stop by-passers like her from seeing inside. Judging by the paper pushing going on inside the few offices she could see into, Komena guessed the official purpose of this level was administration, not brooding dramatically from.

  Walking around the catwalk, they eventually came to the door they’d been directed to. Kave was trailing behind, distracted by the work below him, which gave Komena a chance to look it over. As promised, it was exactly across from where they’d come in. Its window was opaque, stopping her from judging the office or confirming that anyone was there. But it looked every other office that had its window blocked with one exception. The name plate, reading “Zai Cusles, Dean of Transmutation”, was printed in gold leaf instead of a standard ink. The only luxury on any of the doors.

  Kave knocked on the door before Komena could. A moment passed, before it glided open on its own. The Dean of Transmutation was inside, looking at them over interlocked fingers, his giant frame looming over his desk.

  “So, the hag finally sent the gull and Struth’s pet to me. I was getting tired of waiting for you to arrive.”

  The man didn’t seem to fit in his own office. The room was crowded with tables and shelves of scrolls. Reports and forms that awaited signatures and details, all hastily arranged in a constant influx. What free space there was had been was filled with little decadences. A pair of glasses and bottles of alcohol, mosaics made from gem chips on the walls and golden idols in the shape of foreign beasts. The largest item was an inelegant exception kept in a corner: a set of weighted, iron clubs, twice the size of the ones Ervan had tried to use in his teens. They were the only thing that truly seemed to belong to the brute.

  Komena stepped inside, Kave following behind her. “We apologize for the wait. We’ve been trying to keep our movements random for safety’s sake. If the delay offends you, you could contact the faculty of Agriculture directly.”

  The door slammed shut behind them as the Dean scoffed. The hiss of the moving sand outside was still audible through the closed door.

  “Why would I waste my time with that? I have a higher calling, the city’s lifeblood to maintain. I leave grunt work to grunts.”

  Komena walked forward, casually resting her fingertips on her side of the desk. If he was going to make the corporate power play, making her stand, she could respond in kind.

  “You wouldn’t want to take a more personal look into the death of one of your peers?” She asked.

  “My greatest concern is that one of my ‘peers’ is a coward. I wanted her dead too, but I would have done it cleanly. Made it clear who was superior. Your investigation would begin and end with a trophy skull on my podium.”

  Komena pulled her hand back to her side. Not a power play, this was honest gang speak, the kind you heard in back alleys at knife point. She was used to it there; she had been navigating it her whole life. Hearing it in this office was different. No veiled threats, no cloak, just the dagger being waved about. Even with official protection, she could still get cut.

  “Understood. But you must have a guess about which one of them is the coward who did it.” She said. That got a hoarse chuckle out of him.

  “They’re all so low, I’d believe any of them. Well no. Mundane doesn’t have the juice. He’d be in a real faculty if he did. The rest of them, I’d believe it. None of the performers have never made a straightforward move in their lives history and the Doctor couldn’t stand the sight of blood. They’d both send an attack dog out like this without a second thought. Your garden hag could have done it. She acts the guardian angel, but she’s quick to prune away what she doesn’t like, and I don’t really need to explain the summoner’s angle in this, now do I?” He said. Komena had been hoping for more grounded accusations. Just because he guessed at Taim’s problem didn’t make every Faculty stereotype right. Though he had left one out.

  “And what about the Dean of Necromancy? They weren’t in any of the meetings I’ve been to. They could have already holed themselves up somewhere while the demon does their work.” Komena asked.

  “No, that’s normal. They haven’t been to a meeting since I ascended to my role. I don’t even think they know who I am, much less Evocation. They’ll learn about the murder when the rest of the city does.” The man leaned over a little, reaching into is desk and pulling out a bag of nuts. Big, heavily shelled things. The dean placed a few into the palm of his hand and clenched it. He held eye contact with Komena as the nuts cracked open.

  “But they have a trophy on their podium. Surely precedent leads to suspicion.” She said, glancing down. The transmuter seemed satisfied in winning whatever staring contest he had tried to start and began picking through the wreckage in his hand. He popped what edible shards he could find into his mouth.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  “That antique’s been there forever. Some old argument between Dean’s that got settled the proper way. Happened before any of our times. We’d have the head bone bag current take it down, since he didn’t earn it, but you can’t force someone who isn’t there.” He said as he chewed.

  “So, your defense is that you would have killed the Dean but wouldn’t have summoned the Flauros to do it. You would have just beat her to death. Like a gentleman.” Komena said flatly.

  The Dean of Transmutation snapped the fingers of his free hand and pointed to her. “Yes exactly! I like that idea. If your writing reports, put that in.”

  “Conversely, any one of your colleagues could have done it, because they’re all cowards. Except the Dean of the Mundane and Necromancy, who are too incompetent to be suspects.”

  The Dean twitched at that, the wrecked shells jostling in his hand.

  “Incompetent isn’t the word for the necromancer. I’m sure their quite skilled at putting ghosts into bones. That’s just the extent of their interests.” He said. It was the closest he had ever come to meekness in Komena’s hearing

  “And I assume you were never close enough with the victim to guess what their project was. Or to know if they ever mentioned someone named Trin Rappoport?”

  “Of course not. I didn’t have time to review to review every trinket she came up with. I made that clear and she left me to my work.” He said, tone snapping back to his usual high handed aggression.

  “Did you ever meet with her? At all?” Kave pressed.

  “What did I just say? I had my work, and she had her distractions. There was no business between us, just the expected shared contempt of two people in our roles.”

  There wasn’t a point in asking more questions. You couldn’t catch someone in a lie if everything they said was honest bravado. If she had given Zai more time to prepare, he was more likely to present evidence implicating himself in some secret battle against the victim than anything.

  “This has been a fascinating insight into the case. You’ve been very helpful to the investigation. Thank you” Komena said before sketching a bow, sharply turning and leaving. Kave went ahead and got the door. Despite her fears, it swung easily and silently open. A slight whiff smoke caught in her nose as she left. The Dean burning away the scraps of net shells he held and glaring at their backs. The smell lingered until Kave closed the door behind them.

  “What did you think of him?” Komena asked quietly as they walked back around the catwalk to exit. Kave shrugged.

  “He talked a lot about things he could have done. Less about what he did.”

  “And nothing he says he could have done made him look good.”

  “It could be a double bluff. You don’t get to his position through stupidity.”

  “He played the brute when I was hired too. None of the other Deans seemed to find it unusual. He must be putting on an act. Trying to intimidate people by acting like he can snap them in half. Afterall, even I can cast enough to open a shell or two without doing something that dramatic.” Komena said, dramatically raising a clenched fist.

  “It works. I saw it growing up. It’s impossible to cast when you’re mid beating. It’s something the bigger kids liked to keep fresh in our minds. He’s certainly got the build for it.” Kave said, nodding along.

  “He likes to say that he magicked himself that way. As if the Corpus Law wouldn’t make that kind of muscle mass deflate like an empty sail.” A voice said. A nearby door had opened a crack. Peering out at them from it was a short, jowly woman. There was no gold leaf on the plate naming her: Dr. Salome Feystuc. She was the most confident looking woman Komena had ever seen hiding behind a door.

  “Step inside for some tea.” The doctor said, opening the door wide enough for the two of them to slip through, then silently closing it. Her office was cleaner than Zai’s had been, the scrolls organized, and various metal samples were placed deliberately on stands or in cases.

  “What do you know about our faculty’s work? Besides what you saw out there.” Salome asked, nodding towards the window of her office.

  “Frankly, I never got further than rusting nails.” Komena said. “So, I thought transmuting sand into base materials was the faculty’s work. Grain and iron and so on.” Kave nodded along.

  “That’s accurate. Most of their spells can only alter the basic components of an object or trigger basic chemical reactions. Everything more complicate than that is Simurgh taught.” Kave said.

  “Correct. That’s the root of our faculty’s problem. The laws of magic as we know them cripple our work. The corpus law reverts any enhancements we make to people, while the Atmos law makes inventing new materials near impossible. We used to make things, but the luddites of the Mundane Faculty have stolen that. Our limits of our research are defined more than other faculty’s, our magic bound the tightest by its laws. We’re stuck stagnating as other faculties advance, until they can swallow us whole.” Salome said.

  Kave raised an eyebrow at the insult to his faculty but didn’t fire back. Komena imagined he was savoring the moment. It was always a pleasure to here a tormentor admit weakness. Komena let the quiet moment hang. Salome hadn’t offered either of them a seat or moved heat any water. She was willing to wait in silence until the professor either got that cup of tea for them or to the point. Salome cleared her throat.

  “Keeping the city alive is the one piece of relevance we have right now. It’s our dean’s direct responsibility to keep the flow of transmuted grain we provide regulated and constant. A task which is mostly paperwork and does not leave much time for research.” The woman said, picking up two of the metal samples, warping them into smooth balls and rolling them in her hand.

  “We know our understanding of the laws of magic is flawed. The change from mineral to organic is to great to be allowed the Atmos law. If it wasn’t Simurgh taught, we wouldn’t be able to violate to eat for all those centuries. Finding the principals behind these violations is the only hope this institution has. So, we desperately need our best and brightest for research. And our dean, the one that should be leading the charge, is driven to distraction by playing grocer for an entire city. How do you imagine we’ve resolved this conflict?”

  “Judging by your tone and the beacon-like character of your leader, it sounds like all your powerful mages pushed the least qualified one they could get away with into the role, then focused on what they considered the real work to be.” Komena said. It was always a disappointment when adults treated every rational act like a masterstroke. Kave scoffed.

  “That’s ridiculous. We just heard how much the Dean of Healing had to do. All the faculties have paperwork, they all operate on the same way, and they all have a rumored secret council pulling their strings. The strongest mage is in charge. That’s the only way you people know how to live.” Kave said.

  “The hospitals are independently run facilities. Their dean is only concerned with larger policy, not the individual institutions. Anything short of one of them starting to vivisect patients wouldn’t get an eyebrow raised at that old man. All he does is stamp approval for those beneath him. Keeping the city fed is a different matter. How many riots do you think there would if that supply stopped for a single day? It’s the one promise this university needs to keep. If there is a single hitch in the process, a street that goes without their shipment, a bag that’s delivered rotten, then every dean takes a personal interest. It’s a sea of reports, justifications, and proposals. All necessary to keep us fed and all extremely dull.”

  “So, you picked that murderous oaf to be your representative?” Kave said. “He doesn’t have the wit or the temper to play figurehead.”

  “It’s worked better than we hoped. He has the confidence for it and, surprisingly, the intelligence. He’s more than happy to play the man in charge of our production, until he thinks he can promote himself.” Salome said with a shrug.

  “This is an interesting look into your inner politics, but I fail to see the relevance to us or the investigation.” Komena said. “If the other Deans thought Zai was in charge of the faculty, then he still has all the benefits of being a dean. Including the one that makes him a suspect.”

  “The relevance comes in when we look at exactly what you are investigating. Zai as reported to us the details of your investigation. We keep him on a short line. He’d be insufferable otherwise.” Salome said with a chuckle and a wave of her hand. Three large books to her desk. They seemed to be volumes of transmutation grimoire titled ‘Alterations to Feline leather and Camouflage’. Kave picked up the first volume and flipped through it.

  “It’s a record of all the Dean’s actions ever since he came into position.” He said. “Presumably it’s normally encrypted.”

  “Yes, encrypting text is one of the few specialties our school has. If you’re interested in more recent events, these pages are from a little before the murder.” She said, pushing the third book forward and flipping it open to about a third of the way through.

  The two of them read through the suggested pages. Just like the doctor said, it seemed the dean’s schedule was dominated by office work. Almost every hour of daylight was dedicated to him being practically locked in the office. The little time he had free was dedicated to exercise and the bare necessities of survival.

  Komena opened the second volume to check through it. It the first and last entries were almost a decade apart and there were subtle variations in the daily entries. Different colors of ink, different writing styles, someone who constantly misspelled ‘appointment’. It was too much to be faked, especially in the few days they would have had to do it.

  “Why are you showing us this?” she asked. “All the work you’ve put into staying below notice, and you drop the fa?ade the first time someone comes sniffing around a large enough issue?”

  “Part of the reason Zai is such a perfect fit for his role, is that he’ll never admit weakness. He will never reveal to the other Dean’s what his true role is because that would show him for the puppet he is. We didn’t realize until his little spiel with you that he considered not being a killer a weakness. His refusal to plead innocence is the best set up for a scapegoat the real culprit could ask for. Should that happen, the other deans will find our little group and there will be consequences.” Salome took a deep breath. From how she steadied herself, she seemed to think those consequences would be as severe as if they had been the culprits. “Full disclosure to you would have a more legitimate air than some notes pinned to your office door. To better convince you of our sincerity. We are hoping that you use this information with discretion.”

  “Of course. I’d hate for the people who deliver my food to be upset with me” Komena said. It wasn’t like the other deans had earned more loyalty than survival required from her.

  “Then we have an arrangement. Unfortunately, our information only extends so far. As much as we would like to provide your next lead, we don’t know anything concrete yet.”

  “Still, a solid, straightforward alibi is more help than any of the others have provided. Thank you.” Komena said

  “Of course. The sooner you resolve this matter, the sooner we can return to business.” Salome said, taking the notes and returning them to shelf. Back turned to them, she added an afterthought.

  “Make sure that Kave sees this through. He is necessary for our research, and most useful alive.”

  Now Komena understood the entirety of her plan. The doctor wasn’t lying about what the Deans would do if they thought the Transmutation faculty was guilty or if they found their actual leaders. But if they proved their own innocence, that might gain them just enough political grace to get their claws on Kave. His horns and tail alone shattered the Corpus law, and they were the least practical of the changes made to the Fiendblessed. Whatever magic that revolutionary Corlin had worked to make his kind was probably their faculty’s last hope.

  Kave, to his credit, let Salome’s comment pass by with an eye roll and a sneer. Self-control was easier when the problem was people meeting your expectations.

  Well, it’s not like she had expected decency and good intentions from them. Komena made all the expected, respectful gestures, then dragged Kave out of the room.