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She was thankful for that. Lore closed her eyes, held her breath, lowered her mental defenses until she could sense Mortem again. She reached for it, twirled a thread of it around her necrotic fingers, her veins sludgy and blackened as her blood just barely moved.

The Mortem worked its way through her, death crowding her cells but not taking over. Slowly, it gathered in her palms, and slowly, Lore raised her hands and pushed it out.

It trailed across the vault, a viscous, dark line. It entered the corpse’s slack mouth, the gaping nostrils, the open black eyes. And as it did, the body slowly sank back down, the unnatural bend of the waist lessening by incremental degrees.

She fed death to the corpse and laid it slowly to rest again.

Lore slumped on the floor, pins and needles sweeping down her whole body as her blood quickened again, itchy and uncomfortable. Her breath heaved, her heart working overtime after tithing its beat.

Gabe came to her. Knelt before her, pulled her up by the shoulders, stared into her face.

“I’m fine,” Lore rasped, an answer to the question Gabe hadn’t asked. Not quite true, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. “It worked, and I’m fine.”

The vault door opened, like Bastian somehow knew it was done. He walked in, stopped when he saw Lore and Gabe on the floor. He didn’t ask her if she was fine. Didn’t show any kind of concern.

Because he knows exactly what you are. He knew channeling Mortem was as familiar to her hands as their heartlines.

Light filtered in through the now-open door, dawn blushing the sky beyond the glass-domed roof. They needed to get out of here. She’d done what she had to do.

But Gabe didn’t move, still holding her shoulders, eyes moving from her face to the body on the slab. “What did he mean?” he asked quietly. “When he said find the others, that they weren’t destroyed?”

“He had to be talking about the other bodies from the villages,” she murmured, voice hoarse. She knew she was right, knew it with the same cell-deep awareness that pulled her to Gabe, pulled her to Bastian. “They weren’t burned. August and Anton are keeping them somewhere.”

Footnotes

1 Earliest Compendium translation. Modern Compendiums have eliminated Tracts 690–821; these Tracts can only be found in Compendiums made immediately after being dictated by Apollius (1 AGF).

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Catastrophes come in waves.

—Auverrani proverb

Sleep clawed at the corners of Lore’s eyes, but she didn’t let them droop. At least she tried not to; every few moments, her view of the sitting room in her and Gabe’s apartments would dim, and she had to remind herself to stay awake.

They’d parted ways with Bastian after the vaults; even he was yawning by then. The Sun Prince hadn’t said anything to them, just split off in the opposite direction as they turned toward the southeast turret. Both of them had been too tired to comment then, but apparently the climb up to the apartment had reinvigorated Gabe.

“It doesn’t make sense.” Gabe ran his hands over his shorn hair, elbows on his knees. He was too large for their couch, really, and angry confusion only made him seem larger. “There’s no reason for Anton or August to lie about what they’re doing with the bodies.”

Lore shrugged, seated cross-legged in front of the fire, slumped over and propping her chin on her hand. “So you think I’m wrong?”

“I didn’t say that.” Gabe looked up, flames reflecting in his one visible eye. She watched him toss words back and forth in his mind, trying to find a combination that didn’t sound like an accusation. “I just… how do you know?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? The only logical one to follow, and of course she didn’t have an answer. She could try starting at the beginning, explaining her origins, her strange connection to Mortem and Nyxara and the remains of the Buried Watch. She could tell Gabe the same story she’d told Bastian, the full truth as closely as she could remember it, and hope that it would make him trust her. She could tell him how something in her middle seemed to tug her toward the two of them, him and Bastian both, like they were raindrops running down the same gutter, always destined to meet.

But then she thought of what Bastian said. I don’t think you can compete with a god.

She was already asking Gabe to keep secrets from Anton. It wasn’t wise to push her luck.

So she shifted on the floor, knit her fingers together in her lap, and prepared to lie. “I think it has to do with the Mortem inside the corpse. With me being the necromancer that raised him.”

It was as good an explanation as any.

Gabe shook his head. “Say you’re right, and the bodies from the villages have been kept. Surely that means August and Anton have a good reason—”

“They lied to us.” She turned completely around, now, facing him fully. “They lied to us about what was happening with the corpses. They said that they’re disposed of after being checked over for clues. Between that and their insistence that Bastian is an informant when we know he isn’t—”

“And it all comes back to trusting Bastian,” Gabe sneered under his breath.