"One moment," the spirit said again. The screen went blank. Then the spirit started writing on it The first set of data it gave me was for the earlier period. Things there looked pretty normal. A few cases of second sight, a changeling whose condition was diagnosed earlier enough to give her remediation and a good chance at living a nearly normal life: nothing at all out of the ordinary.

When the birth defect information for the year just past came up on the ground glass, I almost fell off my chair. In that year alone, the area around the Devonshire dump had seen three vampires, two lycanthropes, and three cases of apsychia: human babies born without any soul at all. That's a truly dreadful defect, one neither priests nor physicians can do a thing about. The poor kids grow up, grow old, the, and they're gone. Forever. Makes me shudder just to think about it Three cases of apsychia in one year in a circle with a fivemile radius… I shuddered again. Apsychia just doesn't happen except when something unhallowed is leaking into the environment. You might not see three cases of apsychia in a year even in a place like eastern Franlda, where the toxic spells both sides flung around in the First Sorcerous War still poison the ground after three quarters of a century.

I finished writing up my notes, men told the spirit, Thank you. You've been most helpful. May I ask one more favor of you?"

That depends on what it is."

"Of course," I said quickly. "Just this: if anyone but brother Vahan tries to learn what I've been doing here, don't tell, him, her, or it." Scriptorium spirits, by their nature, have very literal minds; I wanted to make sure I covered both genders and both Sides.

The spirit considered, then nodded. °I would honor such a request from a monk of the Thomas Brothers, and am instructed to treat you as one for the duration Brother Vahan specified. Let it be as you say, then."