You would have thought Nilghorde would have been desolate in a mere season. No matter the ebb and flow, the city remained as bustling and lively as ever. The occasional stroll to my studio would take me up Red Wolf, examining the living with new eyes. “I wonder when I’ll be seeing you?” I’d sometimes say, a couple of times too loud.

My so-called experiments ceased entirely. Dreams of becoming a doctor were barely an afterthought. A bill on a dusty shelf.

Though dead, Somyellia had not left my heart nor my habits. Nights I would wake to see her gliding from a darkened corner of the morgue. It ended as soon as my mind took the step out of the world of dream and into the forever disappointing world we temporarily occupy. It exposed life’s pallid and stagnant nature, a few punishing seasons of hot and cold. These visions were only a phase, possibly due to another phase of mine, one in which a young womanly corpse would be examined for far too long, though never treated to the carnal activities that had closed my one and only love.

My existence had met a livable rhythm. I’d never expected, or wanted, the sun-soaked slogging of many who claim to live the good life. I knew from an early age I was meant to dwell in other passions. I had money for the few things that interested me. I fought a small war with opium and won, resulting in an additional layer of meat on my hide. I read endlessly, making sure to visit libraries and vendors of the book and scroll. The dead had befriended me, and while sitting among the morgue’s more comfortable nooks I often fell asleep leaned against their silent company.

VII: The Ritual

On the anniversary of Somyellia’s death, I abandoned my duties to sit beside her grave. The bouquet of roses and lilies I had laid were for the day. The wreath of coiled orphedilias, for the coming night.

Staring at her stone, some lettered grooves had been corrupted by a year’s mold. As I scraped the mold with my fingernails, I remembered. It’s funny how the bereaved mind rushes back to the last time we’ve seen the dead when they were not. I was certainly no exception.

—

All Malevolent Masquerade was always our favorite holiday. She’d told me the party at the Rogaire mansion had gone off without a hitch, but I was still sour that I had to spend the night elsewhere. Duty came first, she’d said, but she’d also mused how she too would have much rather joined me on the one night a year the proper spilled into graveyards and disreputable bars, banging drums, running up tabs, puking on headstones, and cutting up roasted pigs while dressed as goblins and muskrats.