Bone Palace, The - Amanda Downum Page 0,34
you’re buying dinner, then?”
Most of Inkstone closed at night, but a few taverns and kiosks stayed open for late-working bureaucrats. Isyllt and Khelséa sat beneath a vendor’s awning with plates of olives, bread, and cheese. The air was sluggish with haze, blurring the edges of buildings and bleeding golden halos from the streetlamps.
“What next?” the inspector asked, neatly sucking the flesh off an olive.
Isyllt frowned at her food. Even chewing made her shoulder hurt. “Back to the sewers, I suppose. I have to find the bastard who bit me, and the rest of the stolen jewels.”
“I hope you’re taking more than a minstrel with you this time.”
“Are you volunteering?”
Khelséa’s eyebrows rose. “Can you think of anyone else you trust?”
Maybe Kiril was right. Maybe it was time she took an apprentice. She ripped off a piece of bread and chewed, ignoring the pain. Relishing it.
A shadow fell across the table before she had to answer. She looked up at a tall cloaked figure, face lost beneath a cowl. A stripe of light kissed one pale cheekbone as he tilted his head, and the rich taste of goat cheese turned metallic as blood on Isyllt’s tongue. Her right hand clenched around the diamond’s chill.
“Good evening.” Spider nodded to Khelséa before turning his attention to Isyllt. “I’ve missed the chance to ask you to dinner, but perhaps I can buy you a drink.”
Khelséa tensed, one hand vanishing beneath the table. She might not be a mage, but she had a good nose for danger. Isyllt caught her arm, feeling muscles flex as the inspector reached for her pistol. “It’s all right.”
The woman’s dark eyes flickered from Spider to Isyllt and back again, shining with skepticism in the lamplight. “Misadventure?”
“Exactly.” Isyllt stood, reaching for her purse. “I’ll talk to you before I do anything stupid.”
Khelséa’s hand caught hers, forcing coins back into the bag. “I’m buying, remember. Next time.”
Isyllt nodded, and regretted it quickly. She followed Spider down the dark and misty street, feeling Khelséa’s eyes on her back until they turned a corner.
“What kind of drink did you have in mind?” she asked. She walked slowly, leisurely, but her nerves thrummed with his nearness. Their first altercation had been a misunderstanding, but he made no secret of his appetites. The truce forbade killing, but there were always people who disappeared in a city as large as Erisín. And those like Forsythia, willing to bleed for love or money.
His chuckle made her shiver. “How’s your shoulder?”
“I’ll live.” She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “He didn’t bite as hard as you.”
He laughed again and took her arm, covering her hand with his. Grey gloves hid his claws, supple as snakeskin and as cold. But only as cold as the night, not the aching chill of death. She touched his arm; it might almost have been living flesh.
“You’re warm. Who did you kill tonight?”
He arched an eyebrow. “There are always willing donors. You should try it.”
She rolled her eyes toward her wounded shoulder. “No thank you.”
“It doesn’t have to be unpleasant.”
She ignored him, and felt his shoulders shake with amusement. They managed to walk comfortably together despite his gangling height. The vrykolos’ magic was a subtle thing compared to human sorcery: instinctual, blood-born instead of studied. It crawled over her skin, wrapping her in his glamour. Alien, but not—as he said—unpleasant. She tried to push the thought aside. She’d slept with a demon once, but she didn’t need to make a habit of it. The Arcanost didn’t look fondly on those who did.
The vrykoloi were unusual among demons. Among the Arcanost’s countless classifications of spirits they were katechontoi—possessors—and more specifically moriens—the possessors of the dead. But they were nothing like the shambling monstrosities that came of unburied corpses. They hungered, but with wit and intellect instead of mindless drive and animal cunning; they lived together in societies instead of warrens, and they had their own secrets and rituals that no living scholar had learned. It was nearly curiosity enough to let Isyllt forget how dangerous Spider was.
Streets wound and twisted like dark ribbons through the city’s core. Elaborate stonework decorated the quarter—gargoyles crouched on roofs, their snarling faces smoothed by years of wind and rain, and lichen-skinned nymphs danced in fountains. Here and there ancient graveyards nestled snug between buildings, tombs worn nameless with time; they had stood before the city sprawled so far, and the builders had simply wrapped the streets around them. Autumn leaves dripped from trees, skittering in the