It takes a while for anyone to come to the door. It's crowded inside, and nobody hears the first knocks.

Eventually, someone does hear and opens the door. He takes in the injuries and the limp body and, yes, the horns but -

"Come in, quick, out of the rain - is the child alive - "

"I don't think so." If there's a cleric he'll hand him over just in case, but they've been walking through the streets for too long. If he'd run for the nearest temple immediately it might have mattered, but - not now. 

He steps in, though, dripping all over the floor.

There is a cleric. Singular. He can be fetched for a dying child, obviously, but there's not much he can do for a dead one. (There are usually two more Select here but nobody's seen them tonight.)

"I'm sorry. I'll take him to the cellar where we're keeping the other bodies for burial when the rain stops, but if you want some time before that..."

"No, I'll - his grandfather will want him. We were separated." He has no idea whether Ramirez can pay to have Pedro-Lluís raised, or has any interest in doing so. Probably not, but he's already let the child die, and is hardly about to additionally lose the body. He should go back and check for Valentia's, too - he could have grabbed the body when he left, but he'd thought he could get Pedro-Lluís to safety. He has no idea whether the crown has responded, or even knows about what happened -

" - I need to tell someone what happened. Two priests of Iomedae were murdered."

...Oh no he was really hoping they were just. Busy. Helping elsewhere in the city.

"I can take a report, or - the city watch have been by a few times, bringing in injured people - or you can stay until morning when we can send someone to the palace -"

"I can explain. I don't know what needs to be done, they're dead." He glances around at the huddles of people, and realizes he doesn't want to say where he was. "Is there anywhere that doesn't have - people -" 

"...The cellar with the other bodies."

"That's fine." He can follow, if it's an offer and not a decision that he should speak out in the open. He really doesn't want to do that.

Yeah it's an offer. The cellar used to be a torture chamber but now it holds cheese and dead bodies.

The Iomedan brings paper and a pen and inkpot so he can record the account. "Alright, whenever you're ready."

He lays Pedro-Lluís down, close to him, anxiously keeping one hand on him.

"I am Llei Napaciza, regent of Ilnea, in Menador, here for the convention. I was staying at Charthagnion Manor, with Archduke Narikopolus. Select Valia Wain of Iomedae denounced us at the constitutional convention this morning, and said that we should be afraid of the people of Cheliax, but Count Cansellarion had dinner with us and didn't seem concerned, so we - were unprepared. He left us midway through dinner to attend to other matters. Shortly after that, a mob came and surrounded the house. We had two lay priests of Iomedae, Marit Tenwaller and Arn - I'm sorry, I don't remember the surname. They said it was fine to defend ourselves. We sent a familiar to the palace with a message, but no one came. We considered going out and offering ourselves to the crowd, but - there were children in the building. Narikopolus sent Marit out to try to talk to the crowd, and ordered us not to kill anyone anyone until they came onto the property. They did, and we shot at them - just the ones who passed the fence, not the ones shouting outside - but then they started throwing torches, and they broke the gate down."

"They tore Marit apart first. I saw them kill Arn, and most of the retainers. They killed my daughter. Archduke Narikopolus, Baron Antonio Ramirez, and Marquis Aniol Reixech were there, but I don't know what happened to them. And - there was another person visiting who certainly needs to be raised, but he didn't want it to be known that he was there, after the denouncement - we promised him not to say, but I don't think he'd want to hide from the church of Iomedae - ?"

"I think if you promised not to say you shouldn't give me his name. I can just - put him down as an anonymous person in the report. If there was an attack there, I am sure the queen's people or the archmage Naima's people will be checking for bodies to raise... the Abadarans too, if anyone was insured -"

This doesn't really feel like the thing Ramirez meant to reassure Blanxart about at all, but he's very, very tired, doesn't remember what Ramirez said, and doesn't want to argue with Iomedans about morality right now. "They might have been. I don't know. The house was on fire, but - hopefully the rain put out in time."

"The archmage Naima can resurrect someone with only a small piece of their body, and her resurrections usually auction for not much more than a raise dead. Is there anything else you remember about the event? Anyone leading the attack? How many were there? Any of what they said or was said to them? Did they kill the children or any other noncombatants? Was that intentional, or accidental due to the fire?"

"I don't know how many, dozens. More than a hundred, I think. Marit went out and - told them there were children inside, and that they'd be shot if they tried to sack the house. Told them that he was a priest of Iomedae. They said to bring out the devils, and Marit said there were none, and asked if they really thought the church of Iomedae would break bread with devils. He told them they weren't murderers. Other things, probably, I don't remember all of them. They came into the house while it was burning and - killed Valentia while she was trying to cover the servants' escape from the cellar, after the fire started. Killed the servants, after her. Hit Pedro-Lluis - the boy - on the head, until he collapsed. He was breathing when I grabbed him, but - it wasn't the fire."

He takes this all down. "Okay. Anything else for the report? Anything else you noticed on your way here? Do you know how many people were in the manor before the attack?"

"They are hanging tieflings in the streets," he says, stupidly, because he noticed it on the way here. "Me, Valentia, Narikopolus, Aniol, Ramirez. Our guest. Arn and Marit. Aniol's nephew, I think he's eleven. Aniol's wizard. Pedro-Lluís. Ramirez's men, at least two. Narikopolus had some guards who died, at least three. I don't know how many servants, they were the Archduke's. At least four of them dead in the cellar room."

Anything else? No, nothing that goes in a report, but he speaks anyway. His voice doesn't sound right. "We came here in friendship. The archduke sent three hundred men to the wound for the Iomedans. We left the only Select and our best guards in Menador to cover the loss. We followed the rules, we didn't retaliate for anything anyone said, and then -"

He's writing that down too. It won't go in the report to the palace, it won't go in the final incident report, but it'll go in with the interview notes and will hopefully be useful context for whoever writes that incident report. He really really hopes they send someone from Lastwall and don't assign it to him.

"I'm so sorry. It was unexpected, it caught us all by surprise too... Are you planning to stay here tonight? There's one more channel that will happen upstairs in an hour and a half unless an emergency occurs first and - well, we're out of beds and blankets are scarce but it's dry and safe, at least."

He's angry and afraid and exhausted and cold. And still can't think of anywhere else it's safe. For all he's upset, he does not feel like anyone is about to stab him.

"I don't have anywhere else to go."

"You are welcome to stay here. Upstairs or... down here, if that's your preference. If you come upstairs you should leave the body, you can pick him up before you leave and we won't bury him, but -"

"I'll stay down here for a while, if that's all right. If someone can get me for the channel."

"I will get you if it happens as scheduled. There may not be time if there's an emergency. If you miss it there will be another an hour after dawn... If you're in more danger from your injuries than you look, you should probably come upstairs now and stay where someone will see if you collapse."

He doesn't want to go upstairs. He wants to be alone, if he can't be with men who see him when they look at him. He wants to stay with Pedro-Lluís. He wants to have his daughter back. He wants everyone even tangentially involved in murdering her to burn, as they tried to burn her.

He doesn't think the injuries are serious, but he can't deny that he feels shockingly exhausted, and that if they were deadly he isn't entirely sure that he'd be able to tell, right now. 

He nods, and lays the body carefully with the others, and heads upstairs.

He manages to stay upstairs long enough to get the channel. By that point he's wanted to crawl out of his own skin for - too long. He can't change his face, and his ragged clothes are still the kind that were obviously expensive when they were whole, and people stare, and whisper, and know without knowing, and he can't kill them, can't yell at them, can't challenge them, can't tell someone else to do it, can't defend himself at all -

He heads back to the basement. Bodies, he thinks, will bother him less.

There's a wind in the basement. No unquiet dead. He checks the bodies twice, and apologizes for disturbing them. But something stirs, and whispers, barely loud enough to hear. Devil, devil, devil, devil, devil, devil -

"I have done nothing to you," he snarls. "I have set foot in this city once in my life, before this. I was good to it then, and have been as good to it now. I've done nothing but speak on defense, and on fathers caring for children, and on training men to send to the wound, when gods know three quarters of the good men the queen gathered here couldn't care. Let Ilnea burn me, if I deserve it, but it won't. Any evil I've done, I've done to protect it. The only complaint you can possibly have is that I defended my daughter when you monsters came to burn her alive. I won't apologize for that. I won't. No devil out of hell would care, but I'm not -"

The wind picks up, and dies, and picks up again. It whispers awful things, as he argues with it. Pleads. Apologizes to Pedro-Lluis, and then to the others, not for killing them but for failing to save them. The ghosts are all the dead together, angry and grieving with him by turns. He swears that the spirits will have their justice, any among them who have not had it.

He doesn't sleep at all, all night.

He checks the temples nearest Charthagnion first, but nobody's seen Llei there. Eventually he winds his way back into the Regio Sacero and the grand Iomedan temple. The one where Valia Wain would be staying. He doesn't know whether to hope to run into her there or not.

...She's not there. Llei is, down in the cellar, or so the priest says. He's glad, he thinks.

"Llei."

He looks awful. He's sitting against the far wall, with Pedro-Lluis stretched out beside him. It didn't seem right to leave the body with the others, not when he could keep it company.

"Antonio." He reaches out to touch Pedro-Lluis again, and shakes his head. "He was breathing when I grabbed him, but - not by the time we got here."