“It means someone’s dead,” Isaac said curtly. “If you’re not coming, I’m out of here in the next ten seconds. I’m not leaving Jeanne by herself.”
Corona dashed over to the training room, sticking her dripping head through the door. Her cavalier was wrapping his body and head in his own white towels, sticking wet feet in his shoes. Coronabeth bothered with neither of these. By now she was being followed by Lieutenant Dyas, whose only nod to training kit involved undoing the top button of her military jacket, and by the scuffed wiriness of Colum the Eighth close behind.
This baffled gaggle was led outside to another broad terrace, though this one had not been built with beauty in mind. They weren’t far from the edge of the dock terrace. This place had possibly shared that function, once—there was room for maybe one shuttle—but it was now focused on a huge steel chimney, metal flue standing up like a flagpole. It was bricked and supported all about with big stone tiles, and there were buckets of old vegetation and filthy cloths. The latter looked as though they’d been used to clean out the pooclass="underline" they were emerald with verdigris and black where they weren’t green. The chimney had a huge metal grate, about two metres tall, where you could shovel in rubbish. This grate was open, and the contents inside were still lightly smoking.
Isaac came to rest in front of the incinerator, beside Jeannemary the Fourth. He had looked stolid and dead, as though what was going on inside him had built up a thick crust, like a volcano; Jeannemary looked like a malfunctioning electric wire. You could practically see the sparks. Her rapier was naked, and she was pacing between the incinerator and the edge, every so often whirling around in a fit as though someone might attack her from behind. Gideon was beginning to admire her sheer animal readiness. When she saw the gang of idiots that her necromancer had brought her, she was intensely displeased.
“I wanted the Ninth and Princess Coronabeth,” she said. Her voice cracked.
“Everyone tagged along,” said Isaac. “I didn’t want to leave you—I didn’t want to leave you alone.”
Careless of her bare feet and her sodden clothes, Corona marched over to the first maladjusted teen. “Sword at ease, Sir Chatur,” she said kindly. “You’re fine.” (It was testament to Corona that the sword was lowered and slid away into the scabbard, though Jeannemary did not take her hand off the pommel.) “What’s happened? What have you found?”
The Fourth said bitterly: “The body.”
Everyone clustered around. With a piece of old flagstone, Jeannemary knocked the still-smoking grate aside so that they could all peer through: down a short shunt, embers still glowing sooty red, there was a heap of ashes.
The cavalier of the Second picked up an iron poker from beside the incinerator and nudged the pile. The ashes were all soft and even, crumbling to a powdery white, the red lumps breaking up under pressure. There was an expectant pause as she stuck the poker into the far corners of the big expanse, and then drew it away.
“It’s just ashes,” said Lieutenant Dyas.
“A body was burnt in there,” said Jeannemary.
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.