‘Sorry?’ stated Carrot. Whether it’s just a factor, how do it commit murder? A sword is usually a point’ – he drew his personal sword; it produced an almost silken sound – ‘and of course you can’t blame a sword if somebody thrust it at you, sir.’

For people of the City Watch, life includes troubling instances, linked together by intervals of torpid inactivity. Now could be one such troubling time. People are getting murdered, but there’s no trace of anything alive having been at the crime scene. Is there ever a situation in which you are able to blame the tool not the murderer? Such philosophical queries are not the usual domain of the city’s police, but they’re going to have to begin learning fast…