They, a man who had once dedicated himself to healing people and a man who stole bodies from graves, stood in the dark, looking over the rolling mounds of dirt and the near-toppling headstones.

“You’ve seen corpse-lights?” Palmer asked his companion, not for the first time.

“All of us what ply our trade in these yards ’ave seen ’em.” The man spoke in gravelly tones, with no indication he found the occurrence the least intriguing. “I’ve a mate who comes from Wales. He calls ’em canhwyllan cyrph. Another bloke what plies the trade quotes some Scottish poet, writing about dead knights and their graves glowing bright in the dark.”

It was a poor summary of Sir Walter Scott’s “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,” but Scott was hardly the only writer to recount such a thing. Irish poet Thomas Moore spoke of them as well. Many accounts existed of such things. And if Palmer’s theory that these lights were the result of decomposition were true, the sight of them in graveyards made perfect sense.

Then, where were they?

Palmer paced among the graves, making note of those headstones still standing, careful of those toppled over. The grass grew high and wild. Perhaps that was hiding the lights he’d come to see. Perhaps conditions weren’t right. But he didn’t know what the “right” conditions were.

“Have you seen corpse-lights in this churchyard?” Palmer asked the resurrection man.

“Oi.”

“And was it on a night like tonight? Clear skies. Cold. The previous night was quite wet.”

“Oi.”

That, Palmer had decided, was part of the equation he was attempting to discover. The air needed to be cold. The ground and therefore the body needed to be wet, though it need be not raining at the time when the lights were expected. That the pattern still held true was a promising thing.

He would find his answers tonight. He was determined to.

“Have you ever seen these lights when the ground was not wet?”

“This ’ere’s London.” The man spoke sardonically, a tone he’d struck from the moment Palmer had first approached him about this undertaking. “When is the dirt at our feet ever not wet?”

It was a fair enough question. “Have you seen these lights anywhere other than graveyards?”

“Oi. And I’ve heard tell of them appearing in odd spots. There were a man drowned at Ettrick. Couldn’t find his body at first, but then the corpse-light gave him away. Found him straight off.”

Bodies even glowed in the water. This was not a trick of his imagination. Palmer was right. He would be believed, and he would not rest until he was. If he had to hire the assistance of dozens of resurrection men and house breakers and criminals of every ilk, he would do so. No more would he be ignored and dismissed and pitied.