Page 66

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that,” Nedra said, shock on her face.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen at all!” I roared, throwing back my chair.

“Don’t tell anyone,” she said immediately. “I’m still learning—”

“Learning?Learning?” I snarled. “Nedra, that’snecromancy.You can’t belearningnecromancy! This isn’t just against the rules. This is illegal. And... wrong.” Wrong on such a deep, fundamental level. That rat had beendead.And then it wasn’t. And now it was again, but much, much worse.

I stared blindly around the room, at a loss for words. I saw Master Ostrum’s name scribbled on the sign-in sheet at the door. “Isthiswhat Master Ostrum had been teaching you?” I asked.

“No, no, Grey—it’s not what it looks like.”

“Really? Because it looks like necromancy.”

“Not to practice it,” Nedra insisted. “Tostudyit. I think maybe... maybe it could help us figure out the plague.”

“Don’teverdo it again.” My voice was vicious, but I didn’t care. Nedra never thought about the consequences. She could be imprisoned for a deadrat.“Promise me,” I ordered.

“I—” she started, but then gasped, her hand reaching for her head as if it suddenly pained her. Through her fingers, six long strands of her black tresses turned solid white.

“This kind of stuff—it’s bad, Nedra. You understand?”

She nodded, her eyes on her hair.

“Even if it has something to do with the plague, don’tyouget caught up in it.”

Nedra wound the white strands around her finger and yanked them from her head. She scooped up the bones of the rat, cradling them as if they still had life, and moved toward the rubbish bin.

“Someone will see it there,” I said. “Here.” I thrust out my copper crucible to her. She dropped the remains and her hair inside, and I sealed the crucible, hiding the evidence of Nedra’s first necromancy experiment gone wrong.

We didn’t speak again as we left the lab. The other rats watched us, their beady eyes focused on Nedra as I turned off the lights and darkness swept over us.

THIRTY-FIVE

Nedra

I was waitingat the iron gates before the sun rose the next morning.

“You’re up early,” the gatekeeper said. He was friendlier than he had been when I first met him, so many months ago with my trunk and my ideals and my ignorance.

He moved in aching slowness. I knew Grey would be waiting for me at my dormitory, expecting another day at the hospital. But I couldn’t see him, not today.

I slipped through the door before it was fully open. Heading downhill, I chased the sunrise. Behind me, long streams of sunlight spilled onto the street, but in front of me it was still dark, the oil lamps flickering. I ran to the shadows.

Blackdocks was not quite awake yet, but a few ferries cut through the hazy water. I found a bench overlooking the main dock. My eyes went north, to home, where my family waited for me to finish an education I was no longer sure I wanted.

The sun finally caught up with me.

Light spilled over the water first, twinkling up through the caps of the small waves in the bay before turning the air golden, burning away the fog.

The housing units uphill seemed to wake all at once, people pouring from the buildings and heading to the factories along the waterfront. It was particularly cruel, I thought, that the workers resideduphill, giving them an easy walk to work, but a harder climb to get back home after they were tired and broken.

Younger boys and girls started walking up and down the streets, shouting the headlines of the news sheets they sold for a copper coin. “Wasting Death claims life of government officials! Epidemic growing!” a girl said, her voice pitched low but loud. She stood on the top of a stack of news sheets and waved one around emphatically. “Governor Adelaide shows signs of illness after recent hospital visits!”

I couldn’t afford to spend a copper, but I did it anyway, tossing the girl a coin and taking the news sheet from her hand. I scanned the top stories. Lord Anton’s infection was worsening, and he wasn’t expected to make it. Other politicians—notably a handful that were close to Anton—were also infected or dead.

Governor Adelaide’s photograph from her coronation with the Emperor dominated the front page, along with a story detailing all the work she’d done for the sick since the plague first hit Lunar Island. She’d spent her own personal funds supporting the hospital, pled in the council for stricter governing of the factory owners, and often visited the sick.

The Emperor was distinctly left out of the article, save for a single line that read only, “His Imperial Majesty currently resides in the castle but has distanced himself from Governor Adelaide after her personal alchemist declared her too ill to continue with her charitable works.”