It became a routine: inspect the day’s load, tend the horse assigned to the morgue, attach her to the cart, throw a body on the table, report, hoist it into said cart, repeat. The short report was more gratifying than any bundle of obscure notes I’d made on my own. Cause of death—best guess sufficed, physical description, name (if known), a few other details, and then on to the next.

My bosses, I came to find out, were Qells; a once magnificent house that had long rotted away from lordship. They were pleased by my performance. So much so, in fact, that after only a month they never stepped foot in the morgue again. Their time was better spent in the front office, delving into the keepsakes of freshly brought bodies, dealings with cutthroats, and occasionally supporting the coup of some ambitious rising figure.

Though Snier and Somyellia were gone, I remained in my studio, or I should say my possessions did. The Pauper Morgue became my real home—as the commoners who pass out bread rather than the blade say, “It’s where the heart lies.” Sleeping on a mat of blankets in a favored corner, book in hand, and well-fed from lamplight was my only joy. Street murmurs crawled back to me that, not long after taking employment, an attentive group of urchins took me for evicted or dead. I laugh at the thought of them burgling only to run headlong into my ferine collections.

Some bodies at the morgue needed dissection to root out cause of death. In no time, I bore witness to the many malfunctions of our vulnerable flesh. Diseases that attached to organs, fiercely and without remorse, always made me miss her something awful.

The few bodies that were to accompany tombstones I’d separate early. Piling them like a stack of fingered and footed firewood reminded me a lot of Belot’s place. Once filled, the cart would go to the mass grave and I’d play the game of trying to drop them in ways that would achieve the greatest cracks and thuds. Most memorable, I once invoked a peculiar squeal, after which I softly closed the door and backed away.

My bosses relished the tight-lipped approach. I was met with freedom, more coin, and ample food. My predecessor, I imagined, must have expressed some grievance with their dealings, and I wondered what hill of bones in that subterranean pit he occupied.

In time, I surmised they thought I killed Somyellia. In addition to being tolerant of murder, with my literary skills and build, they figured me the perfect subordinate. I never confirmed this, but a mind educated by both the works of scholars and the streets possesses the ability to cut through clout and inanities like a robber’s knife.

Much like a child enamored in summer, I lost track of time. Weeks became months, and those too seemed to fly by with the wave of dead that gave me my livelihood.