Three priests walked around the edges of the fresh grave garbed all in their silver-and-gilt finery. The robes, by now, were soggy and just a little transparent. Many Ras Tiegan priests had some talent with bugs, having been conscripted as soon as their talent emerged. They also tended to be lean, muscular fighters in their youth. So even after an hour walking around in the mud swinging pots of incense and flogging themselves with strings of holy beads while intoning the same monotonous prayer about resurrection, they were holding up pretty well. The little red dots drawn onto their foreheads with ink—the symbolic eye of god donned by this particular sect—had begun to tear and run, leaving crimson rivulets dripping into their faces like bloody tears. Only the very rich could afford this many priests for a wake. Most folks got an anonymous beheading by some underpaid graveyard swordsman. Eshe watched a man of just that sort trekking down the far side of the graveyard, long sword over one shoulder. A shimmering trail of bloody entrails sloughed off the sword as it bounced along.

Eshe stood on a low rise well behind the funeral party with his reluctant partner, Isabet Softel. She was pensive in the gray morning. Some of her dark hair had escaped her white wimple. Her loose hair clung in delicate tendrils to her pale face—pale even for a Ras Tiegan. He once asked her if she was part Mhorian, and she’d been offended. Most things he did or said offended her. Why it was the Madame de Fourré kept pairing them together was beyond Eshe. He had caught her without her wimple once, and the spill of her hair reminded him so strongly of Corinne that his heart ached.

But Isabet was not Corinne. Isabet had a head full of honey and strong convictions, and where he was from, being pretty and haughty didn’t get you a promotion. It got you your head chopped off by some woman who was less pretty but had a better sense of humor.

Now, after half the night on watch, she appeared sodden and exhausted. Her dark eyes were shadowed.

Putting her on watch hadn’t been fair, he knew, but he had last night’s priest to take care of, and he didn’t want her there for that. Not like last time. So far as he knew, she wasn’t a shifter, just one of the handful of sympathizers who’d come over to their side. In some ways, it meant she was safer than any of them, no matter what task he gave her.

“Shouldn’t be much longer,” he said.

Isabet rubbed her eyes. “I’m fine. Did you learn anything last night?”

“It’s like I expected. It’s Jolique.”

“At least we can finish what we started now.”

“You mean what I started,” Eshe said. She was always trying to take credit.