A Drop of Corruption

Ana rants about the “audacity” of the villain in leaving behind a note. She contends that the culprit must be a political dissident, as his excerpt is not actually a misquote of the Emperor, but rather a part of a larger quotation in which the Emperor denies being equivalent to “the Empire,” instead turning that responsibility back to his people. She doesn’t know how the imposter meant the quotation, but she sees it as “quite a fucking statement” particularly given Yarrow’s precarious political climate (108). She recalls a proposition by the Apoths, a decade prior, that involved transporting living marrow from a dead leviathan to Yarrow, rather than transporting an entire massive carcass; these efforts were apparently abandoned due to their impracticality. (This goal is revealed to have been recently accomplished.)

Ana orders Din to prioritize accessing her second lyre, then prompts Din to analyze the contents of the Apoth lockbox. Din observes that the head was easily identifiable (via a specially coded tooth that is keyed to each Apoth). They concluded that this knowledge, plus the imposter’s talent with disguise, indicates he is an Apoth himself, likely one who had access to the lockbox. She assigns Din the daunting task of accessing every name ever given access to the box and compiling a list of every reagent theft in Yarrow over the previous two years.