women end up in the river with their throats slit? And hardly any of them are fit to autopsy by the time we haul them out. How will you tell the difference?”
“Thaumaturgical residue. I know the taste of her magic now. Look for victims like Forsythia-throats slit left- handed, no other wounds. She may be mad and murderous, but it doesn’t sound like she tortures them. She has a vampire working with her, but he didn’t feed on Forsythia first.”
She lowered her voice as a pair of women wandered past, though they were too engrossed in an account of someone else’s romantic pursuits to pay any attention. Perfume trailed after them, peach and citrus and honey- sweetness.
Citrus. Isyllt set her mug of cider down without drinking. She’d smelled that bitter orange note before-first on Savedra, and only a few hours ago on Kiril. And if that was the same perfume Forsythia had smelled-
“Where does the fashionable perfume come from this season?” she asked Khelsea.
The woman blinked. “Kebechet at the Black Phoenix. I bought Gemma a vial of her oils last month. Her shop is in Panchrest Court. Why?” she asked as Isyllt reached for her purse.
“I’ve smelled her perfume. If I can trace it…” She counted out coins. “Search the morgues-I’ll meet you when I’m finished.”
Khelsea’s eyebrows arched. “I get wet corpses and you get perfume?”
“I bought you breakfast, didn’t I?”
“You’ll buy me a month of breakfasts for this.”
“I’ll start a new expense account.” Which, of course, she couldn’t, not since Kiril had ruled the investigation closed. She kept her good hand from clenching, brushed it quickly against Khelsea’s dark fingers instead. “Thank you.” She turned before the inspector could respond, bolting for the nearest carriage.
The Black Phoenix was a fashionable shop in an equally fashionable block of the alchemists’ street. The Arcanost frequently bemoaned the baseness of commercial alchemy, but it clearly paid better than academia. Vials of ivory and colored glass gleamed in the rising light, and the rugs and hangings were Iskari, and costly. Even so early in the day shoppers drifted through the shop, young and well dressed, likely scions of the Eight, twittering like mourning doves as they browsed.
The air was surprisingly clear, considering the hundreds of bottles and vials and jars of ingredients Isyllt counted, but as she or the other shoppers moved she caught whiffs of scent: herbs and spices, flowers and resins and a dozen other notes she couldn’t identify. Delicate scents and harsh ones, cloying and tangy, some that made her mouth water and some that made her fight a sneeze.
A clerk followed the mourning doves, opening vials and dabbing scent on proffered wrists. He cast a solicitous glance at Isyllt but she shook her head; he wasn’t the one who could help her. After several moments, a curtain stirred in the back and the proprietress emerged.
Kebechet-the name of an Assari saint, and unlikely her true one-was a tall woman with a fierce hooked nose. Her hair was a black storm down her back, shot through with the glitter of jeweled pins and combs. Despite the chill, her shawl slipped off her shoulders, baring an ample corseted bosom. Rumor held that she was a bastard Severoi who had taken the family device for her own. Isyllt had never heard a member of the house confirm or deny it.
She exchanged pleasantries with the doves, and commended or corrected their choice of scents. When they departed, her black eyes trained immediately on Isyllt.
“Good morning, necromancer. Looking for a scent? Or perhaps a healing oil-something to help you sleep?”
“Is it that obvious? No,” she amended, “don’t answer that. I’m following a scent and it’s led me here.”
“Then I hope it was a pleasant one, and not some of that trash they peddle down the street.”
“Quite pleasant. Neroli and almond and cinnamon, I think.”
“Ah.” Kohl-lined eyes gleamed. “Yes, neroli is a popular note this year.”
“Do you remember this particular scent?”
“It isn’t one of my standards. I make a lot of personal blends.” She shrugged one bronze shoulder and her shawl slipped another inch.
“And I’m sure you remember all of them,” Isyllt said with a smile, “or have notes. I need to know who you made it for.”
Kebechet stilled, flawless and poised as a statue. “That would be a breach of trust. Not all of my customers come to me publicly.”
“I respect that, but this is a murder investigation.”
“Ah.” She turned to the clerk, who was polishing a counter with great concentration. “Kadri, would you be a dear and fetch us some tea, and maybe some cardamom cakes? There’s no hurry.”
The boy left, a flush darkening his copper-brown cheeks, and Kebechet latched the door behind him. “You think one of my customers is a murderer?”
“Someone wearing one of your blends slit a woman’s throat for blood magic. Most likely more than one woman’s.”
The perfumist swallowed. “All right.” She flipped the sign in the window. “I’ll help you if I can. We can sit down in the back.” She led Isyllt through the curtain, past a cluttered workroom and into a cramped but pleasant sitting room beside an equally cramped kitchen.
“Do you remember who you made that perfume for?” Isyllt asked as she sat. Her shoulders wanted to slump with fatigue, but Kebechet’s perfect corseted posture kept her back straight.
“Neroli and almond and cinnamon? Varis Severos. But,” she added quickly, “I’m hard pressed to imagine Varis killing anyone, especially for magic. He won’t even bind spirits.”
“He may have had nothing to do with it,” Isyllt lied calmly, “but the perfume passed from him to the person who did. Did he say if it was for someone?”
“It must have been-he could never have worn something like that. He often gives perfume to his… friends, nearly always personal blends. He has a wonderful nose for combining scents. I remember that one because he brought me a sample, an old bottle with only a few drops left, and asked me to recreate it. Not my work originally, but still quite nice. The cinnamon was much stronger than is popular now-it burns the skin, you know, and no one wants welts on their cleavage.”
“Did he say who it was for?”
The perfumist shook her head. “No. Not even an oblique sort of hint-I hear a lot of those.”
“Thank you. I appreciate your assistance.” She started to rise, and froze with her hands braced on the arms of the chair. “Do you still have the old perfume bottle?”
Kebechet blinked. “I may.” She led Isyllt into the work room, and sorted through the clutter scattered across tables and piled into cabinets. “Here.” She pulled a cut glass bottle from the back of a shelf and held it out. A thin skin of oil rolled across the bottom. “Will this help you?”
“It might.” Isyllt wrapped the bottle carefully in a silk handkerchief before stowing it in her coat pocket. In any proper investigation, she would have enough evidence to go to Varis and demand answers, with the weight of Kiril’s and the Crown’s authority behind her. She clenched her teeth in frustration with Kiril and his secrets. “Thank you.”
Kebechet shrugged gracefully. “Anything to help the Crown. Can I interest you in a perfume, while you’re here?”
Isyllt was hardly in the mood to shop, but she knew the value of a healthy bribe. “I do have a ball to attend….”
Isyllt did know how many dead bodies turned up in the river each decad, at least on average. Part of her job was keeping track of the number and natures of deaths in Erisin, so she would recognize oddities.
That knowledge couldn’t prepare her for the line of corpses waiting for them in the Sepulcher.
The smell rose from the stairwell: putrescence, rich and layered, more than any incense could drown. Neither sweet nor sour and both at once, choking and viscid. It rolled over Isyllt’s skin, coiled in her nostrils and pressed against her tightened lips. And beneath the stages of rot, a fainter metallic bitterness that she associated with the
