Several different things proceed more or less at once. Ivar goes back to the stirring in the swamp, but when Gil (the charismatic leader) comes to test the mixture, it fails. A little more work discovers that the igniting agent does not work (because Baba replaced it with something inert, but they don't understand enough alchemy to know that). Gil leaves in a hurry. Everyone stops stirring and Ivar heads back into town.
Meanwhile, Sasha is looting Gil's apartment, discreetly. She discovers some writings on religion, a wand hidden beneath his clothes, and a box which sounds like it has a snake in it. Nothing is worth the possible disturbance of taking, especially the trapped box. Sasha returns to the apartment, meets Ivar, and the two go out shopping (well, Ivar goes with Sasha while she shops).
Meanwhile, Gaius and Lucia are staking out the graveyard. They are eventually rewarded when Gil arrives and leaves a note. Lucia follows him into the city, and Gaius retrieves and reads the note, which says that the fire substance did not work and a new shipment is needed.
Following Gil into the city, Lucia is not quite sneaky enough and ends up being ambushed by him in an alleyway as he pulls a wand of lightning on her. She responds with fire magic, and a short and extremely violent time later Gil is down, badly burned, and Lucia is still walking, more or less, though her clothes will never be the same. She waits and the watch arrives and takes her into custody very gingerly, somewhat surprised that the sorceress is so willing to come along and so polite. At the watch house, the guards are willing to refer the issue to the Imperial Eye when Lucia insists, and the Eye agent who arrives is a polite and cautious woman who somewhat believes Lucia but wants confirmation. An Eye agent is dispatched to wait by the rented apartment for Gaius to return, as he has the official warrants.
Meanwhile, a thug breaks into the rented apartment, but Gaius's manservant Buntrian brains him with a chamber pot. The Eye agent, taking this to be someone useful coming home, comes in after and ends up waiting with Buntrian for someone else to come home. That turns out to be Ivar and Sasha, back from shopping, and then Gaius fairly soon thereafter. With the proper papers, the cooperation of the Eye is secured. The Eye plops a truth helmet on Buntrian's captured thug, who reveals that he was sent to find out what was up with these people, since Gil was getting suspicious. He knows the general plan (set up catapult, throw burning stuff at a prayer mill) but nothing about their backing. Gil, unfortunately, is still too wounded for interrogation.
Section Unicorn decides that things have gotten far enough out of hand that they need to bring in who they can quickly. They get some of the watch and go to take Mela. Luckily, she seems not to know yet, and after night falls Sasha is able to sneak in to her apartment and kiss her into unconsciousness using knockout lipstick. Her apartment yields copies of some of Gil's writings and a strange fruit which turns out to be some sort of horrible trap fruit, exploding into a hundred snakey things when Gaius touches it. He is brought low by their poison, but survives it, waking in the morning with something like a hangover from hell. Ivar, meanwhile, has spent the night in the graveyard, but no one checks any of the drops there that he notices.