He had wanted at Rinlot even more than I. For reasons I would never know, now he would have Rinlot’s family, his wealth, and toast fine glasses to having caused such misery. The next thing I saw was he and Rinlot walking out of the front gate. Night had fallen. The two walked like friends. I saw Rinlot’s eyes, in some fashion glazed over beyond their usual simplicity, and then I see it. They shake hands. My mind’s eye, or whoever’s, locks in on these hands and does not move after.

—

Wind was in the trees and rain pelted the gravestones. The three of them descended the stairs. I stayed like a cornered hare.

“Morlia. Sir, a great tragedy has befallen this house tonight. Your cousin, as you have readily identified as the perpetrator, has poisoned your slaves, your guards, and I thought you both as well. I caught him here beginning to loot our dear Rinlot’s final resting place.” I pushed out a grin, or it felt like one.

“Sir, I beg of you—” They had neared to an arm’s distance, walking solemn and in unison. Morlia’s eyes were two black stones above lips whose opening could have contained rows of fangs.

A hand grabbed my ankle, another my belt, ripping it off of me with tatters of my breeches coming with it. Breaking free of this terrible freeze at last, I felt for my dagger, but it must have lain somewhere amid the fallen leaves.

Stone slid with wet grittiness. I found myself looking up at the leering gargoyles. One of my hands pushed against Morlia’s face, which appeared in an instant far less dead. My other hand was clasped around her keys in my pocket, and then they too were taken from me.

Epilogue

Epilogue

Tymothus kicked and screamed, bit and pled. Morlia slid open the lid as Morden and Irion stuffed him into the sarcophagus. The once summer-hued skin of Rinlot, turned coarse and loathsome, clung to the new inhabitant.

As the lid slid back, Irion Ordrid’s grin grew as wide as his son’s. Sons were a theme. It make have taken too many years and two bodies, but the Ordrid soul who Rinmauld had cheated finally avenged the Ordrid House, and sent Rinmauld’s into tortured ashes, his dearest son moaning in this delightful little box.

Rinlot’s hands found holds on Tymothus. Just before the lid was sealed, and what was left of the light of the moon would be conquered by forever black, Tymothus dared look beside him. Rinlot stared back, the agony of hell on his wry grimace.

Leaving a wake of bursting bottles, the runaway mules careened out of the Morgeltine. The last to see it in the district was a bloated Wardsman, watching in disbelief as a ghost-driven wagon wheeled past.