snow away from the faded etchings and held the light up to reveal a name and two dates. “Estelle Perrot,” I murmured.
“Do you recognize it?” Chris asked, leaning over my shoulder.
“No,” I said. “I don’t. But there are two other locations in this cemetery.”
Ignoring the icy cold of the wind, I let my feet take me on to a newer section of the yard. The tombs here were more ornate and the writing clearer. I stopped in front of a statue of a hooded woman sitting on the marble top, her head bent. “ ‘Ila Laval. Your sun set far too early,’” I read from the engraving, then reached up to brush some snow from the statue’s arm. “I have no idea what this means.”
“Is there really a body in there?” Chris asked, resting a hand on the top of the tomb. “Couldn’t it be a false grave? A way of her changing lives without anyone the wiser.”
“There’s something in there,” I said, not because I thought he was wrong, but because I could sense it in my bones that the tomb contained more than just empty space. “But I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”
We both stared at the statue for a long moment, then Chris set down the lantern. Bracing his feet against the granite of the next tomb, he shoved against the lid. It didn’t budge. Digging the heels of my boots into the slippery ground, I threw my weight against the slab as Chris pushed. Stone ground against stone, loud even over the wind, but the top of the tomb inched sideways, then it stuck. No amount of pushing moved it any further.
Panting hard, I retrieved the lantern and tried to angle the light into the narrow crack, but I couldn’t see anything. “Hold this,” I said, passing it to Chris. Then I took a deep breath, and slowly eased my hand into the narrow gap. My pulse throbbed loud in my ears, my breath coming faster and faster as I eased my arm deeper into the tomb.
“Anything?”
I shook my head. The stone scraped tight against my skin, but I pressed my weight down and my arm abruptly slid in another few inches, my fingers punching through ancient fabric and into a ribcage.
A shriek forced itself from my lips, and I tried to jerk back, but I was stuck. Chris grabbed me around the waist and heaved me up, but the fabric of my dress bunched and caught. I tried to pull my fingers from the skeleton, but my wrist wouldn’t bend enough, and the body shifted and moved with my jerky motions. “Get me out!”
He lifted me clear off the ground and pulled. Fabric tore and pain lanced through my arm, but then we were both tumbling back into the snow.
“What was it?” he demanded, eyes on the gap as though he expected a creature to rise up through it.
“A body.” My voice was shaking, and I rubbed my sore arm with my other hand.
Chris’s eyes shifted to me, and he was quiet for a long moment before saying, “City living has changed you.”
I flushed at his sarcasm, climbing to my feet.
“Write the names and dates down,” Chris said, going to the far side of the tomb to push the lid back into place. “Maybe once we find them all, we’ll see a pattern.”
I nodded uncertainly as I scribbled the names and dates on the back of the map with a pencil. “Let’s go find the rest.”
* * *
As the night progressed, we found tombs or graves matching all but two of the markings. One lay far to the south of the city, and the other was the location within the castle walls.
It was nearing the stroke of midnight when we pulled our horses up outside the Regent’s castle. Or at least as near to the castle as we could get. The Indre River roared its way down to the ocean, the bridge leading over it to the island gated, and the walls on the far side guarded by men, marked by the glowing braziers they used to keep themselves warm.
I’d gained entrance so easily yesterday, but tonight the castle’s fortifications did their duty. “She has to be here,” I said through chattering teeth. “Every other location has been a corpse – it has to be her.”
“It’s not proof,” Chris said, shaking the map in my face. “There’s the mark located outside the city that we need to investigate, and besides, for all