Bone Palace, The - Amanda Downum Page 0,83

his liege in the face. “That would be unwise, Highness,” he says instead.

Mathiros grunts and nods. “Do as you see fit, then.” He turns and strides back to the path, boot heels ringing on the stones.

When the prince is gone, Kiril kneels beside the body. He might have closed her eyes, but the lids are ruined, and straightening her limbs is out of the question. Instead he calls spellfire. It licks cold and silent around his fingers, flaring brighter when he touches Phaedra’s frozen gore-stiff gown, running and pooling as if the damp fabric were soaked in oil. The blue-white flames grow only colder as they burn, but cloth and flesh char and crumble all the same, till all that remains is greasy ash and a few blackened nubs of bone.

The ashes freeze Kiril’s hands to aching as he scatters them into the river.

CHAPTER 12

A pleasant side effect of necromancy was that Isyllt’s magic warded off any foreign life that tried to take root in her flesh, from plagues like the bronze fever to the little coughs and colds that spread through the streets every day. But even that required a modicum of strength and self-preservation.

Which was how Isyllt found herself bedridden and feverish for days after she summoned Forsythia, coughing and sneezing and choking on phlegm. Her former disregard of the influenza quickly vanished, leaving her weak and aching and wishing for death. She might have asked the landlord’s daughter to put her out of her misery when the girl came with soup and ginger tisane, but if so her request was ignored.

The fever brought dreams. Strange, dark dreams, full of wings and towers and the smell of cinnamon. And blood, always blood, oceans and messes of it. Slit throats and torn veins and the thick black vomit of fever victims. More than once she woke gasping in the dark, the taste of copper in her mouth, certain that the slickness on her skin was more than sweat.

On the seventh day she woke to afternoon sunlight and the feeling that she’d been beaten with truncheons and dragged behind a carriage. Her eyes were crusted with grit, and the taste in her mouth didn’t bear contemplating. Despite a head stuffed with snot and dirty rags, she knew someone else was in the apartment. She croaked a question that even she didn’t understand.

A rattle of dishes answered from the other room, followed by soft footsteps. The smell of something full of salt and garlic cut through the clinging reek of sweat and sickness, and Isyllt flopped back on her clammy pillows with a sigh.

“For a powerful sorceress, you whine a lot when you’re sick.”

She started, sticky eyes opening again. The voice, and the shadow that fell across the bed, belonged not to the landlady’s daughter but to Dahlia.

“What are you doing here?”

“The girl downstairs let me in. I told her I worked with you, but mostly I think she was tired of listening to you moan.”

Isyllt snorted and propped herself up on the pillows. The bedding stank, and her nose had cleared enough to remind her of it. Her scalp and back and breasts itched with dried sweat. Only sweat. Though from the ache tightening beneath her navel, her courses would begin soon. “You can make yourself useful, then. Is that lunch?”

Dahlia handed her a tray of bread and soup; the garlic and ginger in the broth were enough to sting her sinuses.

“You’re lucky,” the girl said. “People are dying of the influenza.”

“They always do. The young and the old, the weak and the starving.”

“It’s worse this year—the fever is worse. I heard a man in Harrowgate died vomiting blood two days ago.”

That made Isyllt flinch. Her spoon shook, spilling broth back into the bowl. She sopped bread instead and forced herself to chew and swallow. It burned the back of her throat, but she felt more alive after a few mouthfuls.

“So you work with me now?” she asked, trying to put aside thoughts of plague.

Dahlia shrugged, perching on the edge of a chair. Her eyes flickered around the room; Isyllt hoped she wasn’t casing it. “I convinced Meka to help you. And you might need more help, looking for Forsythia’s killer.” She lowered her voice at the words, and Isyllt didn’t blame her. The memory of Forsythia’s sobs was enough to steal warmth from the room.

“I might,” she mumbled around a mouthful of bread. Isyllt didn’t insult the girl by mentioning the danger. She’d come back after witnessing an unpleasant