lid-not the most she’d ever been paid for her service, but the first time the money hadn’t come through Kiril and the royal accountants. She spent the first coin on a box of expensive sweets and had them delivered to Khelsea.
The matter was closed, as far as Nikos and Kiril were concerned. Not that either of them were happy not knowing the hows and whys of the theft, or what else the wayward vrykoloi might have done before Isyllt found them, but silence and discretion were too important to risk with further inquiry and exploration. Isyllt didn’t speak of her desire to investigate Forsythia’s death, because she knew she would be refused. Her oath to the Crown allowed her the leeway to do her job as she saw fit, but a direct order from the heir couldn’t be easily ignored.
She had other duties besides those of a Crown Investigator, as well. Her loyalty was first and always to Kiril and the Crown, but she was also an alumna of the Arcanost, and the regents believed in using their students as long and as often as they could. So in between any government work she taught necromancy and entropomancy to small advanced classes, and picked up stray lectures for the beginning courses.
On the eighteenth of Hekate she spent the last two hours of the morning in a frigid lecture room that reeked of brine and squid. Several dozen squid lay on slabs of ice all around her, and one unlucky specimen on the dissecting table in front of her, next to knives and bowls and vials. Glass and steel and pale flesh glistened under her witchlight.
“As I hope you’ve already learned in lyceum, squid use their ink to confuse and escape predators. Scribes, cooks, and alchemists all have different uses for it. In spellcraft, the ink is a valuable component in charms of illusion, distraction, and obfuscation.” Had she been in a happier mood, she might have dragged answers out of the students, amusing herself with their wide eyes and stammering, but her head was still tender and the stink and cold weren’t helping.
“Squid ink can be purchased at any alchemist’s, but you never know when you may need to harvest your own.”
Her voice carried to the top of the narrow amphitheater, over the rough susurrus of a hundred students breathing and coughing and sniffling, and the rasp of pens and charcoal against paper. Teaching wasn’t the worst profession she could imagine; had any other mage but Kiril trained her, it might have been hers. Exorcists and ghost-whisperers were eight for an obol in Erisin, but true entropomancers were rare and much coveted by the Arcanost. It might still become her profession, if she crippled herself doing something stupid. She kept her left hand-ungloved for fine control on the dissection knives-from twitching, but couldn’t stop the wry twist of her mouth.
“The squid must be fresh,” she said, lifting her forearm-length specimen carefully by the mantle and shaking it so the spotted flesh rippled. Her magic spread through the corpse, lending shape and animation where it would otherwise be limp and gelatinous. One tentacle twitched, groping cold and wet for her fingers, and someone in the upper tier hissed in revulsion; Isyllt didn’t try to control that smile. “If the meat has turned pink or smells like a fishmonger’s gutter, throw it out.” Half the class leaned back in their seats, grimacing, while a few leaned forward. Some days her purpose was to mark those with strong stomachs and curiosities, but today she wasn’t hunting baby spies.
“There are two places from which to extract ink-the main sac in the body, and smaller deposits behind the eyes. To reach the primary sac, pull the tentacles and head away from the body cavity-the intestines will come with them. You’re looking for a narrow silvery bag.” The squid came apart in her hands, easier for her than it would for the students. With the tip of a knife, she teased the brighter piece out of the gelid white guts and held it up.
Movement at the top of the room caught her eye. There were always stragglers slipping in late, and students from the University or Lyceum trying to sneak glimpses of sorcery-rarely finding it as exciting as they hoped-but this thin, dark-clad skulker was familiar. Isyllt didn’t comment as Dahlia eased the door shut and slipped into the shadows of the farthest row, or even give the girl a second glance. The school employed runners, most of whom were children, but in theory any urchin shouldn’t be able to walk in from the street.
“The ink can be mixed with any number of media, depending on your purpose. Linseed for writing or painting, vinegar for cooking, blood, wine, ashes, grease or oil for unguents, and so forth. For today’s purposes, we can simply puncture the sac and squeeze it into a dish.” Blue-black ink seeped under her fingernail as she did so, and the pungent ocean-smell of iodine cut through the air.
She had the attention of the whole class, but she still felt Dahlia’s gaze, interest sharp as needles on her skin. Whatever reason had brought the girl here, curiosity held her now. Isyllt remembered being in the girl’s place all too well, and found herself standing a little straighter and brightening her witchlight.
“Next, the ink behind the eyes. First squeeze the head to remove the beak. Perhaps I could find a volunteer?”
After her demonstration, Isyllt summoned the students down to the floor and set them on a squid of their own. When they were engrossed with the task-or slumped in chairs breathing shallowly and trying not to vomit-she scrubbed her hands on a towel and waited by the lower door for Dahlia to join her. The girl moved soft as a mouse, not taking her eyes off the dissections in progress. Isyllt studied her torn stockings and tattered gloves out of the corner of her eye and tried not to frown.
“You said to find you if I learned anything about Forsythia,” Dahlia murmured, her lips hardly moving. Now she looked at Isyllt, and her wide slate-blue eyes were hard and serious. “Do you still want to know?”
The citizens of Elysia were long used to Vigils nosing around and quickly losing interest in deaths and disappearances. Isyllt imagined that Forsythia’s body had already been shipped to a pauper’s grave on the edge of the city, to free the slab for someone with family to miss them.
“I do,” she said, just as quietly. “Walk with me.” The girl lingered for a moment on the threshold, staring almost wistfully at the slabs of ice and dead squid and softly cursing students.
“Do you enjoy dissections?” Isyllt asked as they maneuvered through the halls, already clogging as instructors released their students to lunch.
Dahlia gave her another measuring look. “I enjoy learning how things work,” she said. “And what they’re good for.”
An underclassman stumbled out of their way, wide eyes trained on Isyllt’s ring, and held the door for them. She gave him a smile for his attentiveness and nearly laughed as he blanched and scurried away.
The day’s chill was pleasant after the bite of refrigeration spells. Brown leaves rattled over the lawns and cobbled walks, and the sun was a pale disk behind a low vault of clouds. Starlings and swallows clustered on the domes and spires, occasionally scattered by an encroaching hawk or raven. Voices rose up all around as students crowded the paths and converged on vendors’ carts for their noon meals. A protest gathered across the square.
“Let’s find something to eat,” Isyllt said, “and you can tell me your news. What do you want?”
Dahlia shot her a sideways glance. “Calamari?”
Isyllt snorted. “You missed the first part of my lecture, about the uses of the ink.”
The girl’s eyes glinted with a repressed smile. Sandy olive skin and black curls were common enough in Selafai, but her long-lashed blue eyes were striking. “No I didn’t. I listened at the door. Illusion. Distraction. Obfuscation.” She stumbled a little over the last.
“Confusion,” Isyllt supplied, “obscuration. Hiding. Sometimes hiding in plain sight.” She licked her ink-stained finger and smeared a faint grey smudge on Dahlia’s forehead, like a temple’s ashen benediction. Her own look-away charms worked well enough, but to divert attention from two people in a busy place she was glad for the ink’s extra focus.
Dahlia let Isyllt take her hand and didn’t flinch from the touch of her crippled fingers. After a few steps, it became apparent that the spell was working very well indeed. Some of the more perceptive pedestrians stepped around them, even as their eyes slid past, but more were entirely oblivious, and would have run them over had they not dodged. Dahlia had the grace and slightness of youth, if not a decade and more of practice, and they passed the worst of the crowd without collisions.
Isyllt knew she was showing off, and shook her head at her own folly. From the directions she caught the girl’s gaze wending, she was also encouraging a young pickpocket.
She dropped the spell in front of a kiosk at the edge of the quadrant, startling two young men enough to claim their place in line. The vendor hardly blinked, inured to sorcerers’ tricks. Isyllt bought two trenchers of fried calamari and dolmathes, and found a seat on a low wall beneath an alder tree.
They ate in silence for a while, punctuated by the crunch of breaded rings. “What information do you have?”
