They brought him out at noon, the traditional hour for executions. They had cropped his hair and tied his hands behind his back, and the two big goblins from the Vigilant Brotherhood made Sheveldar look almost delicate, breakable. I reminded myself of the women he had murdered, after seducing each one into believing he loved her. There was nothing delicate about Broset Sheveldar.

He stumbled on the steps up to the dais, but the goblins, not breaking stride, kept him upright until he reached the reveth-atha, where they let him fall to his knees.

The executioner was waiting. He didn’t give Sheveldar time to think of resisting, whatever resistance he might have been able to make, but shoved his head forward and dropped the stock across the back of his neck. The crowd made a low noise, a sort of moan, and I flinched.

Thou didst choose to come, I reminded myself grimly, and then the blade came shining down with a thwack!, and the crowd’s noise was more of a roar. Sheveldar’s head fell into the basket, and that was it. He was dead.

Maybe now I could stop dreaming of his wives.

It was a few days after Sheveldar’s execution that I received a letter asking me to come speak to the Marquess Ulzhavel as soon as was convenient. I gave my black silk coat of office a close scrutiny for frays or dangling threads or other signs of wear, resolutely ignoring how faded it was, for about that I could do nothing. I braided and pinned my hair carefully, and went to visit the marquess that afternoon.

The Marquess Ulzhavel was legendary in Amalo for his stubbornness, he and his father before him. When all the other noble elven families had left the city for their country estates, the Ulzhavada had stayed put. Their property had become a slowly shrinking island amid the Airmen’s Quarter and was now down to the original compound walls, which were mortared stone like the walls of the Veren’malo.

There was a liveried servant on duty at the gatehouse, a middle-aged elven man who watched my approach with frank curiosity.

I said, “We are Thara Celehar, a Witness for the Dead. The Marquess Ulzhavel has requested that we attend on him.”

“Of course,” he said and unlocked the gate.

He could not leave his station, but the way to the main house was unmistakable, broad and straight and lined with elesth trees that had probably been planted when the compound wall was being built. There was a bell rope beside the front door. I pulled it and heard the bell’s muffled answer from inside.

It was a few minutes before anyone opened the door, another elven liveried servant, his hair very white and his eyes very pale against the plum-and-crimson-on-black livery of the Ulzhavada. I introduced myself, and he nodded. “The marquess is expecting you. Please come in.”