He set down his lantern, then reached down and picked up a page. Book eighty, verses twenty-seven through fifty. Verses about Harmony’s quest for Truth.

Someone, likely Bleeder, had written all over them the words Lies, lies, lies.

Wax dug up other sheets. Most had something written on them, a word or phrase, though many were just smeared with blood. Something bothered Wax about it all, something that made his eye twitch. He couldn’t say what it was.

I was there, one sheet read. Nobody, said another. It was, said another. He started laying them out. TenSoon—whom he’d almost forgotten—sniffed in the doorway.

Wax glanced back. “Did you see these?”

“Yes,” TenSoon said.

“What do you make of them?”

“I … did not stay long,” the kandra said, then looked to the side. “I do not spend time in this room, human. I am not fond of it.”

[...]

TenSoon eventually padded up to him. “They look,” TenSoon said, inspecting the sheets, “like they might say something if you string them together.”

“Yeah,” Wax said, dissatisfied.

“What is wrong?”

“It’s too much,” Wax said, waving his hand at it. “Too convoluted, too sensational. Why would she write on a bunch of pages, then rip them out and leave them here?”

“Because she’s mad.”

“No,” Wax said. “She’s not that kind of mad. The way she’s been working is too deliberate, too focused. Her motives might be insane, but her methods have been careful.” How could he explain it? This case had his instincts fighting with one another.

He tried again. “When someone leaves something like this behind, it means one of two things. They’re sloppy, or they’re trying too hard. She’s not sloppy, but I don’t think she’s trying to be cute either, dangling clues and playing games. When I talked to her…”

“You spoke with Paalm?” TenSoon demanded, his ears perking up. “When?”

“Earlier tonight,” Wax said. “There was something regretful about her. She claimed to not be playing games, but this seems like a game. A thousand discarded pages, left to be put back together and form a clue?” He shook his head. “I don’t buy it. Madness or not, she had to know that other kandra would eventually find this.”

[...]

He looked again at the sheets on the floor. She wanted Wax out of the way. An elaborate puzzle? It was a time waster, a distraction. She’d ripped out these sheets not to tease him, but to remove him from the investigation long enough to accomplish the next phase of her plan. She’d led him here with that dust on her robe. She’d planted it there for that purpose.

“She knows,” Wax said softly. “She knows what you’re going to do, TenSoon. What you’ve done.” He felt cold, and met the kandra’s inhuman eyes. “She’s planned that you would send your kandra to try to win back the hearts and minds of the people. That exposes you. Her next step is to bring them down.”