On the other hand, if she accepts Smith as her enemy and Hunter’s deliberate—well, if not murderer, at least torturer, and by extension the Fire Judges likewise; and if she assumes on the basis that Smith worked there that the Turnpike Trust is some sort of shell: then the Fire Judges are having a very bad morning. There are constables climbing all over their offices and asking questions and locking things, and Neith has a brief window in which she might gain the upper hand. If Turnpike itself is a red herring, the Fire Judges must still have woken to a tumultuous dawn. Either they killed Smith (in which case they hated him, for surely a simple assassination would have done the job) or someone else hates him and by extension them, and that cannot be reassuring either.