Dema’s. “Where?” she asked. “Where was she? Back in Khapik?”
“No,” Dema said tersely. “She was at the foot of the last emperor’s statue in Achaya Square. They didn’t tell me until she was taken to Noskemiou Thanas, so I wouldn’t risk pollution by getting too near the body.” His mouth tightened into a grim line. “They won’t try that little trick again.”
They rode on to Noskemiou Way, where the great hospital lay directly across the Piraki Gate from Khapik. Tris gasped when she saw the sprawl of buildings, larger than any of Winding Circle’s infirmaries or Summersea’s hospitals. Four storeys high, white stucco over brick, Noskemiou was laid out like a series of ladders. Between the wings that were the ladders’ rungs lay courtyard gardens where the healers grew herbs for their medicines.
Dema led them past the wings, each with a sign that named it as a House in Tharian, Kurchali and Tradertalk, the main languages spoken here. They rode by Children’s House, Mothers’ House, Elders’ House, Poverty House. Beyond them the blazing white stucco was painted black. This part of the hospital had no windows, only a few doors, and no signs at all. An arurim stood in front of one of its small doors.
Dema rode up to him and dismounted. “The arurim will mind the horses,” he said curtly. “It would be better if the dog remained, too.”
“Little Bear, stay,” ordered Tris as she slid out of the saddle. “What is this place, anyway?” she asked.
“Noskemiou Thanas,” Keth said, his voice more crackly than usual. “The House of the Dead.”
They followed Dema into the building. Magical signs for preservation, cold, and permanence shone in Tris’s vision from the walls and floors. The people who walked here were civilians — who quarrelled, wept, or bore their losses silently — or they were those who worked here, silent prathmuni dressed in black tunics or kytens.
Dema led them to a door that bore a brass number five and opened it, motioning for Tris and Keth to go in. Two black-robed prathmuni, at work there, turned towards them. “Number eighteen,” ordered Dema. They led him, Tris and Keth to a covered form on a wooden table.
Tris clenched her hands until her ragged nails bit her palms. She hated the sight of dead people: they looked sad, alone, abandoned. Though she had seen a great many dead since her career as a mage began, they still made her flesh creep.
The prathmuni drew the cover away from the dead woman’s face.
Tris bit her lip. The woman had been strangled. Under the mud splatters of last night’s storm the weapon showed yellow at her throat: the head veil of a yaskedasu. While she and Kethlun had revelled in lightning, rain and cool air, the Ghost had struck. His way of killing had changed the woman’s face enough that her own family might not recognize her, but Tris knew the lavender scent, the soggy brown curls and the embroidery on the dead woman’s kyten.
Keth was not as slow as Tris to recognize the victim. He dropped to his knees, burying his face in his hands.
“Oh, Yali,” Tris murmured, her lips trembling. She closed the dead woman’s staring eyes with one hand. From her sash she brought out a pair of coppers and used them to weight Yali’s eyelids, so that the soul could not return to its old home, which had begun to decay. Chime crept on to Yali’s body, making the screeching metal on glass sound that was her distress cry.
Now at last the prathmuni, who had seen people behave as Tris and Keth did a thousand times, showed emotion. Chime caused them to step away nervously as they sketched the circle of the All-Seeing on their foreheads.
Tris put a hand on Keth’s shoulder, then offered him her handkerchief. He ignored it, though tears dripped to the floor through his fingers. Tris looked around: where had Dema gone?
She found him in the hall, talking to an arurim. “I don’t care what it takes in bribes to the secretaries, I’m good for it,” he said fiercely, his dark eyes ablaze. “I want to talk to the Keepers of the Public Good today.”
“But dhaskoi, what can they do?” enquired the arurim. “They aren’t equipped to investigate criminals!”
“They can shut down Khapik!” snapped Dema. “Close it down until we find the rotted polluting Ghost! So get moving. Lay those bribes on as thick as you can. Stop by Nomasdina Hall and get chits from my mother for it,