The Bone Palace - Amanda Downum [106]
The perfumist shook her head. “No. Not even an oblique sort of hint—I hear a lot of those.”
“Thank you. I appreciate your assistance.” She started to rise, and froze with her hands braced on the arms of the chair. “Do you still have the old perfume bottle?”
Kebechet blinked. “I may.” She led Isyllt into the work room, and sorted through the clutter scattered across tables and piled into cabinets. “Here.” She pulled a cut glass bottle from the back of a shelf and held it out. A thin skin of oil rolled across the bottom. “Will this help you?”
“It might.” Isyllt wrapped the bottle carefully in a silk handkerchief before stowing it in her coat pocket. In any proper investigation, she would have enough evidence to go to Varis and demand answers, with the weight of Kiril’s and the Crown’s authority behind her. She clenched her teeth in frustration with Kiril and his secrets. “Thank you.”
Kebechet shrugged gracefully. “Anything to help the Crown. Can I interest you in a perfume, while you’re here?”
Isyllt was hardly in the mood to shop, but she knew the value of a healthy bribe. “I do have a ball to attend….”
Isyllt did know how many dead bodies turned up in the river each decad, at least on average. Part of her job was keeping track of the number and natures of deaths in Erisín, so she would recognize oddities.
That knowledge couldn’t prepare her for the line of corpses waiting for them in the Sepulcher.
The smell rose from the stairwell: putrescence, rich and layered, more than any incense could drown. Neither sweet nor sour and both at once, choking and viscid. It rolled over Isyllt’s skin, coiled in her nostrils and pressed against her tightened lips. And beneath the stages of rot, a fainter metallic bitterness that she associated with the Dis. Her right hand clenched against the burning chill of her ring.
Dahlia, whom Isyllt had collected from the Briar Patch, pressed a hand over her mouth and turned grey.
“Can you stand it?” Isyllt asked, breathing shallowly. Opening her mouth was a mistake. She had probably smelled worse at some point, but she couldn’t remember when.
The girl shot her a glance of pure vitriol. “This is why no one likes necromancers.”
“One of many reasons. Come on.”
Fifteen bodies lay on slabs in the vaulted chamber, swollen, mottled flesh illuminated with the brutal efficiency of witchlight. The oldest was at the limit of its preservation spells, no more than a day from deliquescence. The freshest was still damp. The river cared for no one’s vanity, but from the ribbons tangled in the corpse’s long ash-brown hair, Isyllt imagined the bloated, peeling shape on the table had once been a pretty girl. The body of a small bronze-black crab clung to the hair above one ear like a ghastly fascinator. The tiny necrophages clustered on the bars of the corpse-gates, where food was plentiful. More than one of the corpses here had likely been eaten hollow before the Vigils pulled it out.
Several of the bodies Isyllt was able to dismiss quickly. Two had traces of white foam in their mouths and nostrils, evidence that they’d been alive when they went into the water. The third had been stabbed multiple times in the chest and stomach—angry, vicious wounds, but not meant to exsanguinate. Swelling stretched the gashes, baring layers of skin and flesh and white-marbled fat. The macerated skin had begun to slough from the corpse’s hands. The oldest was so far gone that even Isyllt wasn’t willing to inspect it closely.
Of the remainders, four bore slit throats, and three of those carried telltale traces of cinnamon. Isyllt wondered if she would ever enjoy pastries or spiced tea again.
Three women dead since Forsythia, and saints only knew how many others they hadn’t found.
They left the Sepulcher by the afternoon bells, as the light began to thicken and slant.
“We can search for more tomorrow.” Isyllt said, scrubbing a hand over her face. She regretted it as soon as she did—the smell of corpses clung to her. Dahlia and Khelséa were still ashen, and she doubted she looked any better; no one suggested