not to imagine all the things that might be waiting for them at the bottom.
At the foot of the steps Isyllt conjured a light, which Savedra took as a sign that they were safe to speak.
“Where are we going?” she asked, and winced at the broken weight of silence.
“The Alexios crypt.” A muscle worked in Isyllt’s square jaw. The light turned her eyes into cold mirrors. Savedra withheld the rest of her questions, at least until they reached the door.
“Do you have a key?” she ventured then.
“Always.” She laid a hand on the lock plate, and Savedra’s nape prickled with the same sensation she’d felt earlier.
“What is that?”
“Entropomancy. The essence of death and decay.” Isyllt’s voice cracked. “I don’t like to use it. It hurts.”
It also worked. She set her shoulder against the door and pushed, and it scraped inward. Savedra touched the ruin of the lock and her fingers came away red with rust.
Isyllt turned her attention to the queen’s coffin and Savedra’s stomach twisted. “I thought Nikos said the seal on the sarcophagus was intact.” Her skin crawled, ears straining for the sound of footsteps. Mathiros would send them to the headsman for this.
“It is.” Isyllt’s eyes met hers across the carven lid, cold and pale as the marble. “Whatever we find here, swear to me you won’t speak of it until I do.”
“All right. I swear.”
Isyllt laid her hands on the queen’s stone breast and frowned. She stood like that for long moments. Finally blue sparks crackled from her fingers and she straightened. “Help me move the lid.”
Savedra thought she would be sick. She fought it down, forcing herself to take the last steps across the room and set her hands on the coffin.
On the count of three she and Isyllt pushed. Muscles corded and her still-healing arm burned fiercely from the effort. Stone gave way with a terrible scrape, inch by inch until the head of the sarcophagus was open. Wan and sweating, Isyllt summoned the light closer, filling the interior with its opalescent glow.
Empty.
False dawn lit the sky when Isyllt finally left the palace, chasing the Hounds into the west; the Dragon’s breath did nothing against the cold. The palace guards had found nothing, and had finally released the guests. Dancing away the longest night was one thing, but no one wanted to face the dawn of the demon days.
Isyllt imagined she would be seeing all too much of the demons this year.
Kiril joined her in front of the palace gates as she waited through the line of angry and frightened courtiers. More of them had already begun to cough and sniffle, which might merely be chill and fatigue, or the influenza’s touch.
She didn’t look at him for several moments, though she didn’t pull away from the line of warmth he offered, either. A scream coiled in her throat and she feared to let it loose.
“Let me see you home,” he said.
“Afraid your blood witch will come for me?”
“Yes.”
The honesty of it knocked the acerbity out of her. She let him help her into a carriage, and didn’t speak again. The things she had to say couldn’t be spoken in the open. She wasn’t sure she could speak them at all.
When they stepped onto the frost-rimed stones of Calderon Court, she knew she had to try. “Come inside.”
She didn’t take his cloak when she shot the bolt behind them, or offer tea. Familiar ritual was no comfort now, and he knew where she kept the cups. She went straight to that cupboard and poured herself a shot of ouzo. Its anise-and-coriander fire numbed her throat enough to let the words free.
“I checked the wards on the queen’s coffin, when first we investigated the stolen jewels. They were intact, as strong as if they’d just been cast. Too strong, though of course I never thought of it. You opened the coffin, stole her body for a demon, and sealed it again.”
“You see why I didn’t want you investigating this.” His humor was fleeting. “Yes. That was the act that broke my oath, and my power. Listening to conspirators is one thing—that was more than Mathiros would ever forgive.”
She poured herself another shot and downed it. “Why? What possibly justifies such a violation?”
Kiril sighed, and moved past her to pour himself a drink. Cradling it, he sank into a chair. “Had you ever heard of Phaedra Severos, before you found that girl’s body?”