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—The Book of Holy Law, Tract 10041
The physicians hadn’t done anything to make Amelia’s body look… well, less mangled. Not that there was much point. The body was laid where it’d been found in Bastian’s solar, a smear of lurid red against the pale tiles, away from the prying eyes of courtiers. Amelia’s neck yawned open, flaps of skin and sinew folding back to reveal the wet, yellowish gleam of the esophagus. One of her eyes was a bloody mess that Lore didn’t want to examine too closely, but it appeared she’d been stabbed there, too. Her nails were broken from scrabbling on the tiles. The Presque Mort had rolled her over so she faced the domed ceiling, but she’d been found on her stomach, one hand stretched out beseechingly.
A pool of water puddled out from Amelia’s corpse, shining on the tiles, diffused blood lacing the edges like red ribbons. From the angle of her head, though she’d been turned over, it almost looked like it might’ve come from Amelia’s mouth.
Lore had never liked her, and Amelia had made it obvious that she never liked Lore, either. But her throat still constricted, and her chest still felt like it was being squeezed by a giant fist. She still thought of that day at the Demonde estate, when they sat next to each other so neither of them would have to be alone.
Gabe stood behind Lore, very still, his jaw clenched against the grisly scene and one hand hovering near Lore’s back, like he wanted to place it there for comfort and couldn’t quite make himself.
Part of her wanted him to. But most of her attention was on Bastian.
He stood at the other end of the room, back straight and eyes narrowed, sipping nonchalantly from a china cup as if he wasn’t going to let a little thing like a murder interrupt his morning. Gone was the tiredness around his eyes and the pallor in his skin; he looked well rested and alert, regal. He met her gaze, gave her the edge of a sharpened smile, and lifted his cup in her direction like it was a salute.
The sun was high in the sky by now. Bastian wasn’t in control anymore; this was Apollius wearing Bastian like a cloak.
And Apollius seemed anything but concerned about the dead woman in His apartment.
A few Presque Mort had stayed in the room, congregating by the walls, occasionally casting worried glances at Gabe as if they wished he would tell them what to do. The guard outside the apartment had been the one to discover Amelia—apparently, he’d been instructed by the King yesterday to come check on Lore at dawn, and had seen the carnage when he’d opened the door.
That bit of news sat uneasily. Lore remembered the mess of Bastian’s room, how he’d locked himself in to try to keep Apollius from using him during daylight hours. If he remembered getting out, remembered Apollius breaking through his control, he would’ve told her.
But he’d given an order that made it clear he knew Lore was planning to sneak out and wanted to catch her in the act. Which meant that Apollius had taken control at some point, and Bastian didn’t remember, just like on the trip back from Courdigne.
They were in deep shit.
The attending physician by the body cranked open Amelia’s mouth, for reasons unknown to Lore. She flinched back at the cracking sound. Rigor mortis had set in already.
After a cursory look at the inside of Amelia’s mouth—what could the reason for that possibly be, it wasn’t like there’d be clues to her murder in her teeth—and a murmured word with his assistant, the physician glanced up at Bastian. “Your Majesty, I’m afraid we won’t be able to determine official cause of death without performing an autopsy, but—”
“Do you have the tools for such a thing?” Bastian’s voice was crisp, as if this were a normal conversation to be having at breakfast time. “With you, I mean.”
The physician blinked owlishly behind round spectacles. “I don’t know… I mean, I have some tools, but not all—”
“Send your man for them.” Bastian gestured to the assistant with his cup. “Make it quick, please. I’d like to have an answer for the grieving widower sooner rather than later. He’s relishing the theatrics of it all.”
The flippancy of it nearly made Lore flinch. Assistant and physician shared one wide-eyed look, but then the assistant leapt to his feet to comply with the King’s wishes.
“The cause of death looks rather straightforward to me.” Lore raised her voice enough to carry across the cavernous room. “What with the visible esophagus.”
“The bleeding from that particular wound is not heavy enough to have been the cause.” The physician stood from the corpse, leaving Amelia’s mouth hanging grotesquely open. “The cut didn’t hit the artery.”
“Still seems like it did enough damage.”
“Plenty, yes, but not enough to be the cause of death.” He looked down into Amelia’s open mouth again. “She died quickly.”
There was that, at least.
The gleam of his spectacles went back to Bastian. “Your Majesty, I don’t mean to question you…”
“Then don’t,” Apollius murmured with Bastian’s mouth.
The little physician squared his shoulders. “I don’t mean to question you, but surely you don’t intend for me to perform my autopsy here?”
Apollius was quiet for a moment, sipping from His mug. His eyes burned at Lore from across the room. “My court is rattled,” He said. “A murder taking place now, right after the dock explosion, is making tensions run high. I’d rather not stoke them further by carrying a freshly killed body through the Citadel.”
The words made sense. The way He said them didn’t. Like a challenge, almost, His eyes more gold than brown and never leaving Lore’s.
As if He wanted her here for this. Wanted her to see.
