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everywhere.
    “Has anything been touched?” Garett asked Rudi.
    The diminutive patrolman shook his head. “Not since I got here, sir,” he said. “My patrol was working up the street when one of the novitiates came screaming out, calling for help. We got here pretty quick.” He rubbed his chin as he spoke. “One of the other priests might have touched something, though.”
    “This torch was burning?” Garett probed.
    Rudi nodded. “Yes, sir.”
    “Bring it closer.”
    Burge took the torch from the sconce and carried it to the cauldron. Garett bent down to see better and frowned. Steeling himself, he grabbed a handful of the old priest’s white hair and lifted the corpse’s head. Bits of glass, embedded in the skin, caught the torchlight and sparkled. Kathenor’s throat had been multiply sliced along the strategic arteries. His eyes were bloody holes, and his face looked like tenderized meat. Even so, it wore a look of horror that sent a chill up Garett’s spine.
    Garett let the head fall forward against the inside of the cauldron, and straightened, resisting the urge to vomit. It was a holy place, after all, and he wouldn’t defile its floor— or the cauldron, either—with Almi’s bread and gravy.
    He moved away and examined the walls, finding bits of glass embedded there as well. “I think we can let your prisoner go, Rudi,” he said, turning slowly, running a thumb
    thoughtfully over his lower lip. “He had nothing to do with
    this.”
    “How do you know without questioning him?” Rudi asked, too surprised to add his usual “sir.” “We found him right outside the temple.” He cast a sidewise sneer at the Ratikkan. “And he’s obviously the type.”
    Garett continued to rub the ball of his thumb over his lip as he walked back toward Kathenor’s body and bent near the cauldron. With the toe of his boot he pushed at three half-burned sticks of incense, which lay on the floor. “First of all,” he said, peering down into the bloody cauldron, “the outer door was locked until one of the priests called for help. Even if the Ratikkan could have gotten inside the temple, how would he have found this room? The main hall was absolutely dark, and the entrance is hidden behind arras.” Garett straightened, circled the cauldron, and took up a position behind Kathenor’s doubled body. Slowly he looked over both his shoulders.
    “Assuming he did manage to get in somehow, if you wish to press the point,” Garett said, continuing, “do you think he killed Kathenor by smashing his head down through the glass?” He winked at Rudi and shook his head. “No. In fact, this is the most fascinating part.” He beckoned to Burge, who held the torch. “Stand in front of me with the light,” he directed.
    Burge took up a position on the opposite side of the cauldron and held the torch steady.
    “Look at the wall!” Blossom exclaimed, pointing.
    Tiny spears of mirrored glass glittered, embedded deeply in the wood paneling of the east wall and a portion of the ceiling. Yet there was a space where no glass at all sparkled.
    “Kathenor must have bent over like this,” Garett said, imitating the position he surmised the old priest had taken just before his death. “That’s why you see him slumped so. The mirror exploded outward. The area on the wall without glass roughly corresponds to the shape of Kathenor’s body. His flesh intercepted those fragments.”
    “But if the mirror exploded outward as you say,” Burge interrupted, “then the fragments would be randomly dispersed about the room.” He looked at Garett with a puzzled expression. “From the looks of things, though, the force of this explosion took a specific direction.” He pointed at the south wall.
    “How about that?” Garett said with a vague smile. Rudi harrumphed. “That’s impossible.”
    “Not for magic,” Blossom responded, low-voiced.
    The room fell silent. Even the torch seemed to cease its sputtering. At last, Garett spoke