Suddenly Constance hesitated beside a particular sarcophagus. The occupant was on the floor, facedown, chestnut hair spilling over the flagstones. Her face was turned slightly to one side, and Lena could see the glint of her gemstone eyes still in place—almost lifelike. Except for the shrunken, skeletal hands, Lena thought, she could have been alive. Her time as a cryptling had taught her to judge the age of an Ancestor—she guessed from the skin that this woman had been around fifteen years dead.

“You see, the spell’s not really bringing the dead to life at all,” Constance continued in the same tone, but somehow changed. “It’s just turning them into tools for its own ends.” Her voice sank to a whisper. “Only bringing the spell under a mage’s control can change that. Only a necromancer can bring back the dead’s very essence.”

Turning abruptly from the Ancestor, Constance led them on, Lena and Winton walking side by side behind. Winton flashed her a small, sad smile. “I think that was her mother,” he whispered very quietly, and Lena nodded in understanding.

A narrow archway at the far end of the chamber opened onto a spiral staircase leading down. Lena had heard of the chambers beneath, where dukes and duchesses of past centuries—millennia, even—were moved once the main accessible chamber had been filled to capacity. Nobody ventured down there anymore, not even cryptlings—no one would until the main chamber filled again and the older bodies had to be relocated—and the staircase was thick with cobwebs.

Lena heard Winton swallow nervously at her side. “Is this really necessary? I’m sure with the trapdoors shut and this far into the tombs, no one—”

“You promised, Winton,” Constance said firmly.

The torches on the next level sprang to life with another wave of Constance’s cane. A small chamber opened out, a honeycomb of doorways leading off into darknesses beyond. The scene here was similar—the open tombs, the corpses on the floor—yet these were in a greater state of decay, barely more than bones and rotted clothes, the skin on the skulls shrunken to a thin, brown film baring yellowed teeth. The preserving potions of morticians could not last forever.

“Lie down here.” Constance pointed to an unoccupied plinth set in the center of the floor—the length of a grown man.

Nothing repulsed Lena more than the thought of the cold stone sarcophagus against her back. “Whatever we’re doing, I’d rather stand,” she said, her voice shaking a little with determination.

“Too bad. You’ll have to lie down: I can’t restrain you standing up.”

“Restrain me?”

Constance nodded slowly. “You’ll need it, Lena. I told you this wouldn’t be easy.”