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“I know that it’s strange they wanted the bodies burned and now they want as many buried as possible,” he said sharply, “but my job is to cure this Plague, not question the burial practises of the great city of Dublin.”

“Does Achilles House work with the Morbid Anatomy Department at Trinity?” she said as he tried to walk away.

He only kept walking.

“An article said the government had consulted them. Are you not an entity of the government? How could you possibly find all the funding you need if you aren’t?”

He spun around to face her. “You ask a lot of questions,” he gritted out. “Now is not the time for a history lesson of the Society.”

He stormed off and Atta picked up her shovel, balancing it on her shoulder to follow him. “Do you even know what you’re looking for?” she asked when they’d gone in a circle.

“Stage 3 graves are marked with something. I don’t know what. I thought it would be at least somewhat more obvious than this, I’ll admit.”

Atta bent down next to the plot nearest her. “Hold the lantern over here.”

Gold Stitch did as she requested, and Atta stuck her hand in the grave dirt. It was moist, fertile. She spread the soil out with her fingers, inspecting it. “Closer,” she demanded. Gold Stitch crouched beside her, one of his knees almost brushing her arm. “Jesus of little Nazareth,” she cursed and a distinct snort came from behind Gold Stitch’s mask. “This is fertiliser.”

He turned to her so sharply that the leather beak of his mask almost hit her in the cheek. “To fertilise the grass for regrowth, right?”

Atta dusted her hands off and rose. “I never really go out to the graves, but I would think so. Except. . .” Her words trailed off as she pointed to the grave next to it, the dirt harder there. Much less fertile. It was easy to grow on the Emerald Isle, but. . .

Gold Stitch swung his lantern in that direction, then up, illuminating half a dozen fresh plots. Only one was the dark, black soil awaiting growth.

“Look at this,” he said, sidestepping the grave to set the lantern by the head of it. He reached down and picked up something shiny and silver between his fingers, glinting in the lantern light.

“A coin?” Atta bent to take a look, and he held it out to her.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before.,” Gold Stitch mused. “The material is less dense than expected. Shiner, almost ethereal.”

“That’s a hawthorn tree on it.” Atta held out her hand, and he placed the coin in her palm. The second it touched her flesh, she gasped, a horrible, rasping sound in her ears.

She was instantly standing in a foggy wood, surrounded by endless hawthorns.

She was afraid.

Running.

Running from something. Or was ittosomething?

Someone was calling her name. They sounded even more frightened than she was. She could feel tears on her cheeks, but why was she crying?

“Atta!” The voice again, bellowing. It was familiar, that deep, resonant voice.

The tears fell harder, her legs pumping faster.

“Atta, no!”

She thought her gasp into the hallucination had been guttural, but this man’s cry for her was rife with pure agony.

Lights were flickering in the fog. Blue, like the hottest part of the flame.

Wills-o-the-wispshe heard her own fragmented mind say.Corpse Flames.

She darted further into the fog, chasing one. Breath heaving, she pulled out a vial of black salt and ran harder.

A piercing scream filled the misty night, and everything went white.

“Atta!”