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I shivered. Ealhswip had returned and no one moved forward. In Tal, they all stayed, the pressure rising, rising, rising. If Morovara was right, it could not continue.
Despite my determination to keep my distance, I pressed against Dimitri, letting his heat protect me. We entered a spacious stone room illuminated by glassed-in sconces. Three of the four walls were lined with shelved tomes, each one a record of death. Low tables surrounded by reed sitting carpets sat in the middle. No matter how we lived, in the end we would all become an entry here.
An archivist cleared their throat, startling us both, as they stepped from the final wall—a tunnel leading further in.
“What do you seek?” they asked with a voice no louder than rustling pages.
Dimitri, used to commanding those around him and never showing discomfort, recovered before me. “We need the numbers of dead this year from the Temple, and a comparison to previous years.”
The archivist bowed and slid to the wall by the door. “Deaths per neighborhoods and day are copied into these books.” They moved to the left where white tomes the width of my hand stood, goldenfigures numbering them. They pulled out the last three, seeming unbothered by the weight. “On the Day of the Dead, the year’s tally is entered into the death records. Each book covers three years.”
They left them on the closest table and when we did not request anything more, shrank back into the shadows, easy to forget but always watching.
Dimitri looked at me. I shrugged in response and pulled out two of the slimmer volumes. He took three more, and we settled at the table.
While we read, he explained the numbers and columns to me—how the Crown paid the special corpse carriers who took the diseased a fixed daily rate instead of per body like the Temple did for all other deaths. It was supposed to prevent those still alive from being taken, for no one inspected the victims before they were given to the flames—rich or poor, even mages, were not exempt from the plague protocols.
This was a separate line of nameless, causeless death grouped by day next to the Temple’s neat numbers. I wanted to retrieve the records of five years ago, but nothing would distinguish my mother’s line.
In silence, we both sank into memories and numbers, searching for something that did not fit—a pattern, a gap. The thing I could point at and say,See, let’s just follow the dead from there.
Studying was Lumi’s strength, not mine, and after staring myself blind at the meticulously recorded numbers and names, Dimitri squeezed my knee.
I blinked in the low light. “What?”
“The tapping.” His lips curved in a slight grin. “I don’t think this is the place for music.”
“I wasn’t—”
The archivist’s snort made me swallow my denials.
Dimitri released me. “You don’t sit still for long, do you?”
“Not if I can help it.” I laughed quietly. “And this place wracks my nerves.” It was not just the cold seeping into me through the thin mats, but the silence. My magic was muffled, like when I built a wall around myself.Hadn’t Lumi said something similar about where she and Helia had been kept?
“Did you find anything?” Dimitri asked, seeming to recognize the change in me. This place was too familiar.
Distracted, I rose. “Not about the dead. Except that too few have a name. You?”
I walked toward the archivist standing in the half-illuminated tunnel as I spoke.
Dimitri sighed. “Nothing stands out. We would have to tally the dead of this year as it is almost over. I’ll send someone to continue.” I heard his closing steps behind me. “What are you doing?”
I was halfway into the tunnel when the archivist blocked my path, their expression firm.
“Apologies. This part is restricted.”
I took another step, straining my neck to see into the darkness. “How far does the tunnel go?”
They only shook their head.
“Are there floor plans?”
“Apologies. Those are also restricted.”
Dimitri stepped up behind me. “What are you looking for, Tempest?”
Von Lemerch hardly left her manor. I had not seen the priestesses she met with under the Tower again. Despite Dimitri telling me allgate guards had been questioned, there was no trace of the food entering Tal. And through the gate, they could have driven livestock. Why slaughter them in the countryside?
