Bone Palace, The - Amanda Downum Page 0,8

dark lashes, fingers caressing strings and rich polished rosewood. Small hands for a musician, but clever. A smile creased one corner of his neat beard.

She pulled a coin from her pocket and dropped it in his bowl. Metal rang against wood.

“Slow night?” she asked as the song finished.

“Police are bad for business.”

“So is murder.”

He leaned down and kissed her. “Murder is your business. You’re cold.” He packed the instrument carefully and stepped off the stage. One arm snaked around her waist and pulled her close. Isyllt let herself lean into his warmth for a moment, inhaling the smoky herbal scent of his hair.

“But why this murder?” he asked. “Wasn’t it just a slasher?” Dark eyes met hers—earnest, honest eyes.

Isyllt chuckled. “What do you know, Ciaran? Don’t make me torture you.”

“I thought you were working.”

The kitchen door swung open and Isyllt disengaged herself. Dahlia emerged, followed by a tall man wearing an apron over the remains of brightly colored drag. He wiped flour off his hands and nodded a circumspect greeting.

Isyllt knew Mekaran Narkissos by reputation, though they’d never been introduced. He’d been Daffodil once, before he retired to run the tavern. Now he sang in flamboyant peacock shows, and fed and housed the Garden’s denizens.

“I’m Mekaran. And you…” Shrewd eyes studied Isyllt, and she could all but see him marking things off a list—white skin, black diamond, ruined hand. “You must be the Lady Iskaldur. You’re here with the marigolds.” The street slang for the orange-coated police was even less flattering when spoken by a former prostitute.

Isyllt fought a grimace; she should have spent more time studying illusion. “I’m not here at all, actually. But I would like to talk to you.”

Mekaran nodded slowly and gestured to a booth. “Sit down. Dahlia, bring us tea, please.” He glanced at Isyllt again. “And something to eat.” The girl bobbed her head and hurried toward the kitchen.

Isyllt raised an eyebrow. “Sheltering the girl?” She shed her coat and slid into the booth, resisting the urge to prop her elbows on the worn wooden table. She doubted she’d see her bed before dawn. Ciaran sat beside her, his thigh a line of warmth against hers.

Mekaran snorted, a silver ring in his nostril flashing. “Shelter a whore’s child? But yes, there are some things she doesn’t need to hear about.”

Isyllt met his dark grey eyes, still lined with kohl and glittering powder. “Things like slashers, or things like Forsythia’s clientele? The ones with sharp teeth.”

Mekaran cocked his head, birdlike. His hair was plumage, short and tousled and washed with pink and orange dyes that caught the light in sunset shades. No pretty cagebird, not with his height and muscle and weight of bone—more like an Assari terror bird.

“Not clients.” He leaned forward. “Forsythia didn’t bleed for money. But she had… a lover.” His mouth twisted on the word.

Isyllt raised an eyebrow. “The jealous sort?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. She didn’t bring him round to meet her friends. She never would have told me, but I saw the marks one day in the bath.” Dark eyebrows rose. “Is that why the Crown is interested in a whore’s death?”

Isyllt lifted a cautionary finger. “The Crown isn’t interested.” She thought for a heartbeat, then unbuttoned the high collar of her blouse. “I have a more personal curiosity.” She tugged the cloth aside to reveal a double crescent of white scar tissue where her left shoulder met her neck. You could never escape gossip, but sometimes you could misdirect it. When the innkeeper’s eyes had widened and narrowed again, she redid the buttons. “Did she say this lover’s name?”

“No.” Mekaran picked at a notch in the table with one painted nail. “But… Syth had been nervous for the past decad. Jumping at shadows. She took fewer clients, stayed in more often. She never told me why.” He looked down at his broad, olive-skinned hands. “I didn’t see her last night, or today. She might have been on her way here—”

He fell silent as Dahlia returned from the kitchen, a tray carefully balanced in both hands. In better light, Isyllt saw the girl’s worn and patched clothes, her peeling shoes and tattered stockings. Not starvation-thin, but whittled lean and lanky. As she drew closer, the smell of black tea and honey made Isyllt’s stomach rumble.

Ciaran raised heavy brows at the sound. “You should take better care of yourself, or you’ll end up on the other side of the mirror yourself.” He poked her ribs where they jutted under her