sank behind the ragged rooftops of Oldtown, and a flock of birds etched black silhouettes against the sky. The last thing she saw was those jeweled clouds fading into dusk, then a sudden pressure of hands and darkness. Much too quick for death, even as quick a death as this must have been.
Isyllt sighed and looked away, the colors of memory fading into the white and green of the mortuary. “She was grabbed off the street, somewhere in Oldtown. Maybe the Garden.” Death must have come not long afterward; she hoped the woman hadn’t suffered much. “What else do you know?”
“Nothing. There was nothing but rain in the alley, and no one saw anything.” Khelsea rolled her eyes. “No one ever sees anything.” She pushed away from the wall, shaking back her long black braids. “Do you have any magic tricks for me?”
“Nothing flashy.” Isyllt turned toward the back of the room, where tables and benches were set up for students and investigators. “Bring me gloves and surgical spirits, please. And a dissection plate.”
The inspector opened a cabinet against the wall and removed thin cotton examiner’s gloves, a bottle, and a well-scrubbed tin tray. “What are you doing?”
“Testing for contagion. Someone touched this before she did.” She sat down, stripping off her left glove. The hand beneath was scarred and claw-curled, corpse-white after two and a half years bandaged or gloved; she was mostly comfortable with only seven working fingers by now. She scrubbed her hands with cold spirits, then wiped down the tray and tugged on the white gloves. The ring was already contaminated, of course, but every little bit helped. It was much easier to test for transference-be it of skin, hair, blood, or energy-with a suspect at hand, but she could also tune the ring to react to the presence of anyone who had handled it recently, and even to seek them out at close range.
Closing her eyes against the bitter sharpness of alcohol fumes, she touched the ring lightly. Tendrils of magic wrapped around the gold, resonated through the stone. Mages used sapphires and other such gems to hold energy-the cut and clarity of this one made it ideal for storing spells.
The taste of the spirits crept over her tongue, stinging her palate as it sharpened the spell. Alcohol, like her magic, was clean of living things, anathema to disease and crawling necrophages. Against its stark sterility, any contagion should shine clear.
Isyllt opened her eyes and leaned back, wrinkling her nose at the mingled stink of spirits and roses and death. Witchlight glimmered and faded in the sapphire’s depths. “There. Let’s test it.” She stripped off the cotton gloves and touched the ring with her bare hand. The light flared again briefly at the familiar skin, and the spell shivered in her head. She let the essence of the alcohol erase the contamination, and it stilled again.
“Now you,” she said, holding the ring out to Khelsea. Another shiver and flare at the inspector’s touch, and again she let the memory of it vanish. Now the stone should react only to whoever had held it before Forsythia. She found a spare silver chain in the exorcist’s kit in her pocket and slid the ring under her shirt. It settled cold against her sternum, warming slowly between cloth and skin.
“Do you need anything else?” Khelsea asked. “You look tired.” Her tone changed with that last-a friend’s concern instead of a detective’s.
Isyllt ran a hand over her face. “I haven’t had any sleep.” She’d been happier than was healthy when the inspector’s message had summoned her into the night-murder was better than being alone after midnight with a dark mood.
Khelsea’s raised eyebrow must have worked wonders with guilty criminals.
“It’s nothing.” When the eyebrow didn’t lower, she finally conceded: “The usual thing.”
The other woman’s lips compressed. “Kiril.”
Over the past fifteen years Kiril Orfion had been her mentor, her friend, and briefly her lover; Isyllt was still glad she wasn’t the one to say his name. “What else? He’s been withdrawn lately, secretive. More than usual,” she added to Khelsea’s wry snort. Every time she thought she was finished with grief over their broken relationship, something stirred the embers. “I worry.”
Sympathy shone in Khelsea’s long leonine eyes, but her voice was light. “You need a distraction. A vacation.”
Isyllt laughed. “My last vacation ended badly.” She flexed her left hand. Two and a half years ago she’d been sent to stir rebellion in the distant port city of Symir. The mission had ended in murder, chaos, and the near- destruction of the city-a success, as far as the Crown was concerned. “Work is distraction enough. I’ll go to the Garden next.”
“Do you want company? Or backup?”
“No. I’d rather tread lightly. More Vigils will only attract attention.”
Khelsea snorted and tugged her orange coat straight. At least her dark skin let her wear the Vigils’ distinctive shade well. “What’s one more death in Oldtown, after all?”
“Eight for an obol.” Their boots echoed in unison as they started for the stairs, leaving the dead woman on her slab.
Outside, the night smelled of cold rain and wet stone, and cobbles glistened under the streetlamps. Isyllt’s breath frosted as she sighed-the wet chill of late autumn was still more pleasant than the unnatural dry cold of the vaults.
Inkstone was a quiet neighborhood after midnight, scribes and bureaucrats long safe in bed. Shadows draped the columned facade of the Sepulcher, and the twin bulk of the Justiciary across the plaza. Isyllt felt the unblinking granite stares of the owl-winged gargoyles on the roof as she descended the broad steps. Sentinels of the Otherworld. A carriage waited in the street, the driver half-dozing, horses snorting restlessly.
“Speaking of distractions,” Khelsea said with a grin, “I saw your minstrel friend in the Garden tonight. Maybe I should take him in for questioning.”
Isyllt snorted. “Is that the only way you can start a conversation with a man?”
“Better than calling them from their tombs.” The inspector unlatched the carriage door and held it open. “Let me know what you find. I’m sure it will be interesting.”
Isyllt smiled. “This job always is.” She pulled herself into the carriage and Khelsea shut the door. The horses’ hooves clattered against the cobbles as they carried her across the city.
The driver stopped one street from the Garden and Isyllt climbed down. She pressed a tarnished silver obol into his hand and a whisper of forgetfulness into his mind.
The ring swayed heavy against her chest as she walked. A treat for the gossips and rumormongers, certainly, but she doubted the scandal would grow teeth. The king had been campaigning in the north since spring, and the crown prince had enough to keep him busy without visiting-or murdering-prostitutes. This was likely an old ring stolen or lost, fallen into careless hands.
She just needed to convince herself of that.
Nights in Elysia-or Oldtown, as it was more often called-weren’t quiet, especially in the Garden; music spilled from taverns, voices raised in song and anger and drunken confusion. Hooves and carriage wheels clattered against stone and visitors and residents still walked the streets. Some looking for fun, others going home after late shifts. Isyllt remembered the rhythms, though she’d lived elsewhere for fifteen years.
With Forsythia’s empty eyes fresh in her mind, she noticed the differences too. More pale faces in the crowds, fair hair flashing beneath caps and scarves. When she listened to the voices instead of letting them wash over her, she heard the curious mix of clipped, heavy words and musical trills that marked Rosian, much more prominent than the usual Assari or Skarrish curses. The smell of cabbage and beets wafted from vendors’ carts and drifted from open windows-Cabbage Town was the vulgar name for the refugee neighborhood otherwise known as Little Kiva. Fifteen years ago, the sounds and scents and flavors had been Vallish.
Her parents settled in Oldtown when she was seven, fleeing civil war in Vallorn. Not quite the slums, but as much as refugees could afford. When plague killed them four years later, Isyllt had drifted into the tenements and rookeries of Birthgrave, where an obol would buy you more than eight murders on any given night and orangecoats vanished at sundown. The majority of bodies dragged from the southern river gate came from Birthgrave. After surviving nearly five years there, she’d hardly balked at necromancy and the “good service” of a Crown Investigator.
Climbing roses covered the Garden’s crumbling walls, worming into moss-eaten mortar. The scent of the last autumn blossoms reminded her of the Sepulcher, but it was better than the usual street stink. Light glowed through windows and leaked under doors; lamps burned on street corners. Since the Rose Council formed over a century
