It was true, I supposed, at least to a degree. I’d seen the Chapwyn fliers swell in numbers and the pitchfork wielders soon follow. Although the poor and wretched had swollen even greater, a formidable army of limpers and squabbling hags, oaths to eradicate the world of wickedness seemed all that was necessary to satisfy the barking mob. But to people like me, such social ebb and flow meant about as much as what Lotgard shit last and where. I didn’t want to tell Mr. Belot that those whose entire cosmos is the calling cookpot and alley didn’t concern themselves with such prattle, especially dying royalty. But even I drank from the trickling stream of gossip—Maecidion, that lauded patriarch of Somyellia’s, had indeed fallen ill.

Mr. Belot looked over the rim of his glass, “Times are changing, my hulking friend.”

I am no hero, nor am I the stuff of legend. No kraken to best. No dragon to slay. My war was painfully simple. I had to survive, and even amidst the brawls and illness and thievery, I still clung to the hope of one day being, yes, a doctor. It was perhaps my greatest fortune then that Mr. Belot and I’s interests shared a common component: bodies.

I left with a friend, a mentor, and most important of all, an employer. By the time Maecidion died, I was leading a pack of rogues. I would put intimidation to even better use, but Mr. Belot’s thoughts on confrontation were even more prudent than my own. Most of the time, I would be working alone, and, at Mr. Belot’s direction, digging up graves.

V: Seasmil and Snier

And what are you fine gentlemen gabbing on about?” Somyellia larked, appearing at the base of our stoop with groceries. “How Maecidion is still rumored to rise again, even after these six long years we’ve been without him,” her hair thrown back by the wind, “or how that immortal monument to stupidity over in Do-Gooder’s is finally showing its figures below their knees?”

“Snier here,” I replied, not done taunting my colleague, “studied math. Below the knees is, that’s over eighty percent done. Right, Snier?”

“Oh, we’re just talking about the time you tried to sneak him into your old place,” Tymothus Snier said from the top step as I bounced up to lend Somyellia a hand.

“That one,” she said, handing me the basket. “Seasmil tell you how—”

“How the fiendish guards persuaded me to find shelter elsewhere,” I said, “yeah yeah.”

“Well,” said Snier, who had a fashion for clasping his hands together more girlish than any third Somyellia’d ever brought into our bed. “And shelter elsewhere you lovebirds did. Shall we?”

We all went inside, where, as per usual, Snier began his prattle about our “menagerie of skulls” and the “religious graffiti.” My contributions, at least, were gradual preparations for the Institute, but even I had to concede how Somyellia’s flare for gratuitous macabre had taken over our decorative tastes. But, though he was reluctant to admit it, our decorations were becoming as neighborly to Snier as we who owned them.