The office-wagon smelled of wet wool, lamp oil, and old paper—the Bureau’s unofficial perfume. Shelves climbed the walls at impossible angles. Red thread connected maps to witness statements, witness statements to weather reports, and weather reports to a charcoal drawing of something with too many legs. The wagon was larger inside than its wheels could reasonably support.
Bramble Grimstamp sat behind the intake desk, a skeletal clerk in round spectacles and a cap several centuries out of date. Teal light burned in his eye sockets as he turned the pages of the Hollowbell complaint. “Anonymous witness. Unregistered divine-class shadow. Six municipal denials. One missing bell ringer. Two hundred and thirteen unauthorized uses of the word cursed.”
“Strike cursed,” Marie said from the narrow window. “Replace with behavior pending classification.”
Bramble sighed with his entire rib cage and stamped the correction hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling. “One day, Senior Inspector, I will be permitted a dramatic noun.”
“Submit the request in triplicate.”
Nelly hid a smile behind the complaint. Its pages described dead lamps, waking nightmares and a bell that rang before accidents. The earliest report was thirty-seven years old. The ink around the date had darkened until it looked bruised.
Marie placed a compact file in front of her. The cover was blank except for a damp ring, as though something wet had rested on it from the inside. “First field interview: Nora Flint, town lamplighter. Then locate Caro Hollowbell. Observe before citing. Do not touch an unattached shadow.”
“You say that as if I have done it before.”
Marie looked at the dark fingerprints spreading from Nelly’s hidden hand. “I say it because you considered doing it before.”
Nelly lowered her voice. “Why assign a provisional inspector to a divine-class manifestation?”
Marie’s expression softened by an amount most people would have mistaken for no change at all. “Because it noticed you first. And because you still ask whether frightened people consented before deciding what they are.”
The first answer frightened Nelly. The second made refusing impossible. She signed the assignment. Beneath the desk, her shadow growled. Bramble quietly added a second form to the file: DAMAGE TO BUREAU PROPERTY, ANTICIPATED.