Page 48 of Mistress of Bones

XXXIII

AZUL

Isile Manzar stood unmasked on the threshold of her brother’s study, ignoring Azul’s shock while he surveyed the room with open and obvious curiosity.

Voice unsteady, Azul asked, “What are you doing here?”

His attention went to the desk. “What are those?”

Azul glanced down at her brother’s art. “Fingers.”

Joining her at the desk, Isile picked one up. “A sculpture? Painted clay?”

Azul had enough of her brother’s rooms, so she answered as she left, “Bone,” and heard a gasp of dismay and the dull thud of the finger hitting the desk’s surface.

She went to the guest rooms next. Nereida’s door opened easily, her room a haven of tidiness compared to the rooms she had just left. Kneeling by Nereida’s trunk, she began to search its contents.

Isile loitered by the door. “It’s not on me to judge De Gracia’s interests,” he said, shuddering, “but are you sure it’s bone?”

“What are you doing here?” she asked again, pulling a few shirts out of the trunk.

“Is this your room?” he asked, then inhaled sharply. “Have you been wounded? Your hands…”

The concern in his voice stopped Azul. Dried blood still crusted her fingers, and dark smears tinted her breeches where she must’ve unconsciously rubbed her palms against them.

“It’s nothing,” she told him, returning to the trunk and taking out a dagger.

Azul doubted Nereida had any more weapons left in the room, so she slipped it into one of her boots and went back into the hallway.

Isile allowed her through, then followed. “I was waiting for De Gracia when I heard you come in.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“I wouldn’t be waiting here if I knew where he was, yes?”

Azul nodded, then took the stairs to the first floor and stopped abruptly, a muscle working her jaw. Two footmen waited at the bottom of the steps. The one who had opened the entrance door for her, and one of her brother’s victims.

“Sireses, please come back to the parlor,” the former said. “The Marquess de Gracia will return shortly.”

So, Azul and Isile were herded into said parlor and left alone with the other footman, but not for long.

“Sister, stay put until I return, I beg you,” said De Gracia through the footman, the living corpse. “I will explain everything—you have nothing to fear. Isile, I will talk to you later as well,” he added before leaving and locking the door behind him.

Isile was speechless, but also, not for long. “Did the footman lock us in? Why did he call you sister? Why would I want to talk to him?”

Azul went to the window facing the patio, opening it with ease. Insect calls and the scented heat of a summer night drifted in.

“Have you no concern about all of this?” Isile demanded, coming to her side.

Azul boosted herself onto the windowsill, slipping a leg across. “My brother is a necromancer.” She slid into the patio with a small hop. “And he spoke through the footman.”

Dolls. Puppets. That was all her brother’s creations were. That was why they stood by, allowing life to pass them, why they attacked over and over again, and why her brother could speak through them with so much ease.

Their souls were gone, not reborn.

“By the Heart, what?” exclaimed Isile, awkwardly following her. “What do you mean by ‘necromancer’?”

She used another entrance onto the patio to reenter the house, then carefully made her way toward the back door into the small stables area. Apparently knowing better than to make a ruckus, Isile followed without making a sound.

“He kills people, then brings them back to life using their bones,” Azul said once they were by the outer door separating them from the street.

“Such a thing exists?” Isile asked, shocked.

Azul wished Isile could be shocked while helping her with the heavy door, instead of standing uselessly by her side.

She managed to pull it open enough to nudge her shoulder in and push in earnest. A pair of hands helped push from the street side.

Her shadow, she recognized with relief. He tipped his hat after she thanked him.

Isile slipped out after her. “What you say isn’t possible.”

“And yet,” she told him grimly, “you’re about to experience it.”

Two figures approached from the main entrance.

“Sister, I do not wish to harm you,” said the footman. He carried no weapons, but the man by his side held a sword.

Isile stepped back toward the door they had just opened, his gaze darting from the footman’s face to his companion’s sword to Azul’s shadow. “Surely there is no need for violence?”

In answer, Azul took out Nereida’s long dagger. By her side, Azul’s shadow covered her back, his rapier in hand.

“No serious harm,” the footman warned. His companion moved toward Azul.

His aim was obvious—with no vital parts available for him to hit, arms and legs were his only options—and Azul deflected his lunge with ease, then blocked his swinging punch.

She scraped her dagger up his blade to the guard, then pushed it to the side.

She grabbed his wrist with her free hand but found gloves instead of skin.

His body shifted. Her knee came up into his groin before he could grab her, forcing him to bend. She pressed her hand against his face and watched his eyes bulge, his skin recede, his blade fall to the flagstone with a clatter before his body followed.

A new pair of arms went around her from behind, pinning her own arms to her sides.

The footman. Azul struggled. By the house, Isile watched it all, wide-eyed and gulping like a fish.

Ramming her booted heel into the footman’s foot earned a small break in his hold.

She wrenched free and spun, but he held her wrist so she couldn’t touch his face.

His other fist delivered a heavy blow into her side. She doubled over, grunting.

Then her shadow was there, digging his dagger into the footman’s neck.

“Not enough,” Azul bit out between needles of pain.

Her shadow kicked the footman’s knee, the crack like thunder in her ears, and the man buckled to the ground. Azul yanked her arm free and gave him a kick to the face.

“We must leave now.” She bent with a grimace to touch the footman’s forehead. Unlike the other bodies, it remained intact. A fresh corpse, she realized, her stomach turning. Maybe killed that very night.

She glanced at the looming house, which grew darker with each passing heartbeat.

If she were to visit the servants’ quarters, how many other living corpses would she find hiding away from her and the emissary?

Her brother had suspected them to be the cause of Zenjiel’s death from the start and had prepared accordingly.

This game, Virel Enjul and Sergado de Gracia had played with each other, with Azul none the wiser.

How smart she had felt sneaking around, so focused on Isadora she had missed how everyone around her was using her as card stock for their games. How shameful to see it so clearly now.

Straightening, she sheathed her dagger and began to walk away.

Azul’s shadow fell into step by her side, and Isile recovered enough to follow them.

“You allowed me to slip away earlier,” Azul said.

“Me?” asked Isile.

The shadow nodded.

“How did you know to return here?”

At the wry twist of his mouth, Azul understood. “You followed me with Enjul to the ossuary, waited while he went inside, then followed me back to Almanueva.”

“What did you do to that man?” Isile asked. “His face… was it some kind of mask?”

“He had been dead for a while,” Azul answered, distracted.

“You were serious about De Gracia?”

Isile’s tone was more contemplative than shocked, but Azul didn’t quite notice. She touched her shadow’s sleeve. A knot in her throat made the next words hard to voice: “Enjul… The emissary is dead. You are no longer employed and are free to go.”

The man flinched, his steps slowing down to a standstill. He glanced at her form, found the bloody smears on the front of her breeches, her dirty fingers.

“It’s true. My brother killed him—”

“De Gracia?” asked Isile, sounding quite incredulous now.

“—so you are no longer required to look after me.”

With a slight shake of his head, he took her by the elbow and urged her forward.

“You are not jesting?” Isile said, keeping up on her other side.

“I am not,” Azul told him, reassured by the grim expression on her shadow’s face. He believed her and still kept by her side. “You should go.”

“I can help,” Isile argued.

“Do you know where my brother could be, or where he might keep a set of private rooms? A studio of sorts?”

“No…”

“Then you can’t help.” Addressing her shadow, she asked, “Did Enjul mention such a place?”

He shook his head.

Azul thought for a few moments. “I know of someone who might be able to help with that, a woman Enjul met for business on at least one occasion. But I’m not sure I can find her house at nighttime.”

“Then wait until daytime?” Isile suggested as if she had lost her intelligence somewhere back in the fight.

“The longer I wait, the higher the chance my brother might disappear.” Disappear with all his treasure, with all the hopes for Isadora’s bones. With no repercussions for the things he had done.

They stopped at an intersection, the crowd pushing them together, the warmth of the torches and lamps mixing with the summer heat. “This is where we go our separate ways,” she said, looking at Isile.

“I can help you track whoever this is,” Isile said. “I know Cienpé quite well.”

“So does he,” Azul retorted, pointing at her shadow.

“But what if you encounter more of your brother’s men?”

“And you were such a help at Almanueva.”

His cheeks darkened. “I was recovering from the shock! I vow that you will not find me quite so useless again.”

“You are in danger, as much as I am,” Azul said. “You know my brother’s secret. Who is to say he might not kill you and take control of your body? No, Sirese Manzar, go home, gather your belongings, hide for a while. This is not your battle.”

“But I wish it to be.”

Azul and her shadow shared a long look. “I can’t stop you, then.”