A candlemark later, Skif slipped down the stairs of a private chapel in one of the cemeteries reserved for the highborn. The chapel was above, where those who were queasy about any actual contact with the dead could pray; Skif headed down into the family crypts. Said lordling was gone, the house shut up, with only a couple of maids and an old dragon of a housekeeper. So there wouldn’t be any impromptu visits by the family. The chapel had been locked, but that was hardly going to stop Skif.

He’d picked this place in particular because the family was known for piety and familial pride—and because there hadn’t been a death in more than a year. Napping among the dead was one thing; napping among the recently interred was another. And family pride, Skif hoped, would have seen to it that the crypt was kept clean and swept. He didn’t mind the dead, but spiders were something else and gave him the real horrors.

It was darker than the inside of a pocket down here, but his hunch had been right. It was blessedly cool, and he pressed his overheated body up against the cold marble walls with relief while he waited for his eyes to adjust. Some light did filter down the staircase from the chapel windows above, and eventually Skif was able to make out the dim shape of a stone altar, laden with withered flowers, against the back wall. He sniffed the air carefully, and his nose was assaulted by nothing worse than dust and the ghosts of roses.

There were two rows of tombs, each bearing the name and station of its occupant graven atop it. No statues here; this family wasn’t quite lofty enough for marble images of its dead adorning the tombs.

Skif yawned, and felt his way to the stone table at the back of the chapel, meant for flower offerings. Just in case someone came down here, he planned to take his nap in the shadows beneath it.

Stone didn’t make a particularly yielding bed, but he’d slept on stone plenty of times before this; it would be no worse than sleeping on the floor of his uncle’s tavern, and a lot quieter.

He was very pleased to note that his hunch had paid off; even beneath the table there wasn’t much dust. He laid himself out in the deep shadow with his back pressed against the wall and his head pillowed on his arm. The stone practically sucked the heat right out of his body, and in moments, for the first time in days, he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

It seemed only heartbeats later that something jolted him awake.

He froze, his eyes snapping open, and saw the wavering light of a single candle illuminating the staircase he had only just crept down.

“Yer certain-sure there ain’t gonna be nobody here?”