Bone Palace, The - Amanda Downum Page 0,89
you’ll forgive me or you won’t, darling. That’s up to you. Perhaps when this is over I can explain it to you.”
Her spine straightened in response, and her voice cooled to match. “I hope you can. I hope I can forgive you when I hear it.”
She turned away, sweeping down the rest of the stairs and snatching her cloak off the peg before the miserable housekeeper could reach it. She didn’t turn back, but out of the corner of her eye she saw him, frozen pale and motionless as marble. If he called to her, it was lost beneath the shutting of the door.
Safely enclosed in her waiting carriage, she let her face crumple, pinching her nose against the building pressure in her sinuses. She wanted to scream, but restrained herself for the driver’s sake.
She couldn’t fall apart yet. And she couldn’t do this alone. Her mother wouldn’t endanger the house, and Nikos couldn’t allow anything to threaten the throne. Ashlin might help her, but Savedra couldn’t risk the princess again. Captain Denaris was loyal to the throne—
No. She sat up straighter. She didn’t need a soldier or a courtier; she needed a sorcerer.
Savedra yanked open the panel that connected the interior to the driver’s seat. “Take me to Archlight.”
“What happened to your hand?” Dahlia asked later, as Isyllt measured mint and tarragon for tisane.
“A knife, with a would-be assassin on the other end.” Her fingers flexed at the memory, bone and tendon aching around their pins. The fresh scars on her throat were obvious; she’d been careful not to show the bruise on her thigh when she got out of the bath. Ciaran must have noticed it, but had chosen not to comment.
“What happened to the assassin?”
Isyllt frowned at the teakettle. “I don’t know. I never found her again, only her masters.” She stroked the band of her ring with her right thumb—that had been the only time she’d ever been parted from her diamond, and she meant to keep it that way.
“It would sound better if you’d killed her.”
“It would, wouldn’t it?” She set the kettle on the stove, shivering at the heat pulsing from the tiles. A previous, more culinary-minded tenant had installed the expensive green-glazed cooker; Isyllt had promised herself one if she ever moved into a house of her own.
“What about your wrist? Was that the same assassin?”
Burn scars ringed her left wrist, ridged and glossy tissue in the shape of a man’s hand. “No, someone else. He isn’t dead either.” She smiled a little at that memory, though there had been no humor in it at the time. “We’re friends now, actually.”
Dahlia snorted. “Do you have any stories where someone dies?”
“Oh, a few. We’ll save those for later.”
While the water heated, Isyllt found a spare mirror in the clutter of her workroom, and instructed Dahlia on its use. She also passed along the lecture on the cost and quality of the glass that the Arcanost glassmakers gave her every time she broke one. Next she found a knife—nothing as large or elaborate as her kukri, but a sharp blade all the same, and one spelled to wound demon-flesh.
By then the water was boiling, and even puttering around the apartment had winded her. She poured herself and Dahlia steaming tisane and returned to the sitting room to catch her breath.
Dahlia studied the blade a moment before sheathing it. She handled it competently, which was no surprise. “What do we do now?”
“Someone used Forsythia as a blood sacrifice.” It was the first time she’d spoken the thought aloud. She didn’t like the shape of the words in her mouth. “So we’re hunting haematurges.”
“Blood sorcerers.” Dahlia didn’t try to hide her dismay.
“It isn’t entirely like the penny dreadfuls,” Isyllt said. She remembered all the spook stories children in the city knew, about sorcerers who prowled the streets looking for victims, and what they did with them. Whether or not the murderous mages belonged to the Arcanost depended on the neighborhood, and the storyteller. “Haematurgy is an approved study at the Arcanost. But like necromancy, its reputation is… spotted. And maybe deservedly so. The more blood you have to work with, the more you can do. And after a certain volume it’s hard to find willing donors. The stories about Evanescera Ley and Arkady Tezda are exaggerated, but there’s truth at the core. The same applies to all the stories about the vrykoloi.”
“Blood sorcerers and vampires. And you’re going to hunt them.”
“We’re going to hunt them.” She met