“Perhaps you’re right.”

“Thank you. Besides, who knows? Maybe he’ll pull a knife on you, and you’ll get an excuse to punch him anyway.”

“Don’t get my hopes up,” he said, then gave her a nod, and walked across the room.

The gates to the Seran New District Cemetery were topped with a crouching statue of the Survivor, scarred arms spread wide and gripping the metalwork arch on either side. Marasi felt dwarfed by the statue’s looming intensity—brass cloak tassels spreading out in a radial flare behind him, his metallic face glaring down at those who entered. A spear through his back pierced the front of his chest, the polished tip emerging to hang a foot below the center of the arch.

When she and Wayne passed beneath it, Marasi felt as if it should drip blood upon her. She shivered, but didn’t slow her step. She refused to be intimidated by the Survivor’s glare. She’d been raised Survivorist, so the gruesome imagery associated with the religion was familiar to her.

It was just that every time she saw a depiction of the Survivor, his posture seemed so demanding. It was like he wanted people to recognize the contradiction in his religion. He commanded that people survive, yet the death imagery associated with him was a cruel reminder that they’d eventually fail in that task. Survivorism therefore was not about winning, but about lasting as long as you could before you lost.

The Survivor himself, of course, broke the rules. He always had. Doctrine explained he was not dead, but surviving—and planning to return in their time of greatest need. But if the end of the world hadn’t been enough to get him to return in his glory, then what could possibly do so?

They wound through the graveyard, seeking the caretaker’s building. Evening had fallen, and the mists had decided to come out tonight. She tried not to take that as any kind of sign, but it did make the place look extra creepy. Gravestones and statues were shadowed in the churning mists. Some nights, she saw the mists as playful. Tonight their unpredictable motions seemed more a crowd of shifting spirits, watching her and Wayne, angered at their intrusion.

Wayne started whistling. That sent another shiver up Marasi’s spine. Fortunately, the gravekeeper’s building was now only a short distance up the path—she could see its lights creating a bubble of yellow in the mists.

She stuck close to Wayne, not because she felt more comfortable having him beside her. “Our target is a man named Dechamp,” she said. “Should be the night gravekeeper, and one of those whose ledger entries show regular upticks in income. He’s grave robbing for sure. In fact, this cemetery showed the highest frequency of that, and the ledgers listed it as the place the city pays to take care of unidentified bodies. I’m reasonably certain the kandra’s remains ended up here; we just need to find this man and get him to dig for us.”