“Sorry,” she said, returning her attention to her task, slotting more of the white thread through her needle. It was stupid to fantasize as she had when she was younger. Life was difficult for everyone now: for a year, the city had been under quarantine. Instead of eating sweets in sunny rooms, half the people of the city were dead, rich and poor alike, and the other half lived in fear. As the cloud had deepened and darkened, strange flashes and rumbles disturbing its noxious peace, the Pestilence raged through the population, spreading its fever of hallucinations and shivers that left each victim dead in a matter of hours. The disease had visited three times—always in the warmest months, as if it thrived on the meager heat of a mountain summer. It was September, and the latest flurry of deaths was drawing to an end.

“Why not be a mortician?” Vigo went on, warming to his subject as he pulled out the intestines. “People need us more than ever. We are busier than we’ve ever been. And the Justice knows he won’t find any mages among our number. You’ll be safe here.”

“The Justice,” Lena whispered. “Yes … I am glad to be safe from him.” Ever since the Duke had fallen ill, the Justice had ruled the city with a cold, hard grip. Like most of his citizens, the Justice knew the unnatural storm and Pestilence could have but one cause: magic. Unlike most of his citizens, the Justice had dedicated his attention to searching for the mage or mages responsible. He was obsessed, the other cryptlings whispered, ordering his guards to search for evidence of magic, burning the few magical books and toys in the city, his vicious hounds chasing suspect after suspect to an early, gruesome grave at the city walls. Lena could hear the dogs sometimes, howling in the kennels at dawn, and the sound chilled her to the core. But the cryptlings, dedicated to serving the Ancestors, had never suffered under his rule. The Justice loved the Ancestors. Since he’d accepted the reins of power, the ceremonies and rituals dedicated to their honor had grown threefold—old prayers and rites resurrected, new ones invented.

Vigo slid the remains of food from the intestines onto the floor, a system of flowing drains transporting the waste out of the city. “But what do you say, Lena? Would you like to be a mortician?”