Colum the Eighth had gotten hold of a worn rake and was using that to pull some of the stuff closer. He stuck his hand into the boiling air and scooped out hot ashes, which showed that he either cared very little for his own pain or had a supremely good poker face. He held them out for inspection: whatever had burnt, had burnt down to a sandy grey-white stuff that left grease marks on the Eighth’s yellowed palms.
The necromancer teen was saying listlessly: “I can tell fresh human cremains. Can’t you, Princess?”
Corona hesitated. The Second butted in: “What if they were burning bones? One of the servants may have fallen apart.”
“Someone could … just go ask,” rumbled Colum the Eighth, shocking Gideon with an inherently sensible suggestion.
Isaac didn’t hear: “That’s rendered fat and flesh, not dry bone.”
“They didn’t— Are the Fifth still—”
“Magnus and Abigail are still where they ought to be,” said Jeannemary fiercely, “in the mortuary. Someone’s been killed and burnt up in the incinerator.”
There were long scratches down her face. She was even smudgier than her counterpart teen, if that was possible, and in that moment she looked feral. Her curls had frizzed up into a dark brown halo—one liberally streaked with blood and something else disreputable—and her eyes were welling up from the acrid smoke. She did not look like a stable witness to anyone.
Especially not to Naberius. He crossed his arms, shivered in the morning sun, and drawled: “These are ghost stories, doll. You’re both cracking up.”
“Shut it—”
“I’m not your doll, dickhead—”
“Princess, tell him—tell him those are remains—”
“Babs, shut your mouth and fix your hair,” said Corona. “Don’t discount this straight off the bat.”
As per usual, he looked wounded, and scruffed the towel around his damp hair. “Who’s discounting?” he said. “I’m not discounting. I’m just saying there’s no point. No need for all this Fourth House sound and fury. Anyone goes missing, we assume they’re having a nap in the incinerator.”
“You are being,” said the Second cavalier, “surprisingly blasé.”
“I hope you end up in the incinerator,” said Jeannemary. “I hope whatever killed Magnus and Abigail—and whoever we just found—comes after you. I’d love to see your face then. How will you look when we find you, Prince Naberius?”
Gideon pushed between them before Naberius could round on the ash-streaked, wet-eyed teenager. She stared into the incinerator. The cavalier of the Eighth was still poking around, and to her eye she had to admit there was nothing to find: whatever had been burnt here had been burnt down to greasy, bad-smelling smithereens. Particles of ash floated up from the grate like crumbling confetti, making smuts on their faces.
“Needs a bone magician,” said Colum, and dropped the rake. “I’m heading back.”
Naberius, who had been staring down Jeannemary, was distracted by this. He was more eager and jovial when he said: “You gearing up for your duel with the Seventh? The princess and I’ll ref you, naturally.”
“Yes,” said the other man without much enthusiasm.
“I’ll come with. Should be interesting to see the cav; he’s not remotely like his rep, is he? Ain’t ever matched him in a tournament, myself—”
At the exit of the Third and the Eighth cavaliers, the Eighth looking like he wished he were deaf, the Second went too: more silently, and wiping her hands on her scarlet neckerchief. Only the teens, Gideon, and Corona were left. Coronabeth was staring into the steaming ashes, brief singlet and shorts whipping in the wind, fine dry curls of gold escaping from the wet mass of her hair. She looked troubled, which made Gideon sad, but she was also soaked right through to the skin, which made Gideon need a lie-down.
“I keep seeing things,” said the necromantic teen, emptily. They turned to look at him. “Out of the corners of my eyes … when it’s nighttime. I keep waking up and hearing something moving … or someone standing outside our door.”
He trailed off. Jeannemary put her arm around his shoulder and pressed her sweat-streaked brown forehead to his, and both sighed defeated sighs in concert. The solace they were taking in each other was the bruising, private solace between necromancer and cavalier, and Gideon was embarrassed to be audience to it. It was only then that they seemed at all grown-up to her. They looked worn down to stubs, like ground-down teeth, greyed out of their obnoxious vitality and youth.
The cavalier of the Fourth House looked up at Gideon and Corona.
“I wanted you two because Magnus liked you both,” she said. “So you get the warning. Don’t say I didn’t tell you.”
Then she led Isaac away, him looking like an expectant prey animal, her like dynamite, ushering him back through the salt-warped door. Gideon was left alone with Coronabeth. The princess was closing the huge grate to the incinerator and sliding the handle down to lock it. They both beheld it silently: it did seem big enough to heave a person through, down into what—when set—would have been roaring flames. Clouds passed overhead, plunging what had been dazzling brightness into relative gloom. The clouds were fat and bluish, which Gideon had learned meant that they would soon explode into rain. She could taste it on the air, washing the prickle of smoke off her tongue. When the storm broke, it would break hard.
“This isn’t just Fourth House theatrics,” said Corona. “I don’t think they’re being reckless here. I think we’re actually in trouble … a lot of trouble.”
In the newfound dimness Gideon took off her glasses and nodded. Her hood fell back, sliding down in heavy folds of black to her shoulders. The exquisite eyes of the necromancer of the Third were upon her, and the doleful expression turned into a radiant smile, violet eyes crinkling up at the corners with the hugeness of the grin.
“Why, Gideon the Ninth!” she exclaimed, mourning banished. “You’re a ginger!”
* * *
The clouds broke later that afternoon. The rain beat at the windows like pellets, and the skeleton servants scurried around with buckets, catching the worst of the sleeting drips, putting matting down for the puddles. Apparently Canaan House was so used to this that their response was automatic. Gideon was familiar with rain by now, but the first time she couldn’t get over it. The constant pattering drove her mad all night, and she’d had no idea how anyone who lived in atmospheric weather could ever put up with it. Now it was only a murmurous distraction.
To the noise of the storm she had gone back to check on Harrowhark, suddenly paranoid—convinced that she had dreamt up the arms flapping out of the duvet, the short spikes of dark hair visible from under the pillow, that maybe the Reverend Daughter had made Gideon’s youthful dreams come true by spending all night in an incinerator—but Harrow hadn’t even woken up. Gideon ate lunch next to a skeleton servant carefully balancing a bucket on the table, into which fat drips fell from the windows, ploing … ploing … ploing.
The numinous dread hadn’t really left her since that morning. It was almost a relief to see the shadow of Camilla Hect fall over her bowl of soup and bread-and-butter. Camilla’s grey hood was wet with rain.