Page 9 of Poison Nights & Twilight Alchemy

Reed finished his mead, paid the man with profuse thanks, and left—his digging tools held firmly against his side. The sun had set by the time he reached the market square, and it was easy to stay out of sight as he followed the narrow alleyways parallel to the tree-lined avenue through the town, the buildings becoming scarcer and the houses ever larger while he made his way up the hill. The night air was crisp, autumn approaching fast, and he was glad of his cloak. Here amongst the houses of the rich, there were no pedestrians, only the odd carriage, and Reed stayed within the shadows of the sycamore trees and yew hedges that decorated the neatly cobbled lane as it stretched beneath the stars.

When he at last came to a wall that dwarfed all theothers before it, he knew he had reached his destination, even without seeing its famed gate. Honeysuckle vines covered it in a massive wave of flowers, their fall berries shining silvery in the moonlight along dense foliage, completely disguising the wall of stone beneath them. Reed followed the wall until the gate’s entrance was in sight, lamps lit above it, illuminating the drive, and then he turned around, following the wall back the way he’d come.

There had to be another way in, an entrance for the reeky peasants to do their jobs and vanish from sight.

“Hello,” Reed drawled, finding exactly what he was looking for.

A door of rough pine hidden by vines, its rusted handle hanging half broken from its hinges, saving him time picking the lock. It opened with a soft creak, and Reed froze in the darkness, waiting for any sounds of alarm.

None came.

Time to find this grave, dig up my treasure, and get back home.

The garden proved to be a vast, sprawling affair. Mazes of boxwood hedges, a lake surrounded by willows, their hanging branches waving gingerly in the moonlight, rolling hills that he discovered led up to the rear of the manor, stone and iron that stood imposing and regal even at this late hour. A light within an ornate fence of jagged barbs and artistically twisted metal, its spikes enormous, caught Reed’s eye as he approached the back entrance of the home. The lamp glowed amongst well-tended flowering shrubs, towering roses, and headstones. He knew thatherehe would find his gravesite.

The cemetery gate wasn’t locked, merely decorative,and Reed slipped past it silently, waiting in the darkness behind a fringe tree for any signs of occupancy inside the manor. If anyone remained, they must’ve retired amongst the seemingly infinite rooms within the opposite side of the place. No hint of smoke escaped the manor’s many chimneys, no sound of activity reached the garden, and though its windows were covered in black cloth, no sliver of light shone from its countless panes.

Reed stepped from the tree and passed through the extravagant garden, studying a few headstones before finding the grave clearly belonging to the dead bride. It was piled high with a variety of white flowers, their velvety petals not yet withered.

He extinguished the lamp. If the heiress’s soul actually did need this to light its way back, well, that was just bad luck for her, wasn’t it?

Back in the shadows of the fringe tree, Reed chewed on a piece of already beginning to stale bread—left out for the dead—and waited in silence for anyone to notice the precious light had gone out. But even after twenty long minutes, no one came.

Returning to the bride’s resting site, he struck the earth with his spade and began to dig.

It was surprisingly easy work, perhaps because the grave was so freshly dug, and after a few hours passed, his spade revealed the coffin within. He had half a mind to pass this information on to the professional grave robbers, but then he remembered rule number one and decided against it.

The craftsmanship of the coffin itself was more luxurious than anything Reed had ever seen. Made of what he was fairly certain was pink ivory—a material he’donly seen in the Leper’s own billiard cue—its surface was decorated in copper peonies and crocuses, silver lavender and delphinium, all surrounded by golden herbs.

“Shame I can’t sell the whole bawdy thing,” Reed muttered, prying it open.

The coffin’s lid fell back, and Reed stilled. If he thought the casket was beautiful, it was nothing compared to the beauty of its inhabitant. He remembered in that moment the gravedigger’s practice of kissing the forehead of the dead upon first sight, and though he had thought it revolting at the time, he had to almost force himself not to lean forward and press his lips against those of the bride’s.

“Right,” he whispered, shaking his head to bring himself back to his senses. “Stop gawking like some loggerheaded varlot and focus on the job at hand, Reed. The dead are lost to the maggots…”

The heiress had been buried in her bridal gown, all fine white lace and silk. Her name had been carefully embroidered into the bodice in blue thread, as death traditions demanded.Alexandra Josephine Hale “Dulce.”She adorned three strands of luminescent pearls around her slender neck, and her thick dark hair was decorated in gleaming gemstones beneath a veil of embroidered gossamer. Her pale hands were clasped at her chest, and on her middle finger, she wore a ring of carved gold, its center occupied by a design of white diamonds encompassing the largest ruby he’d ever seen.

Determined not to look at her enchanting face again, Reed reached for the ring, and, avoiding touching her skin, he pulled. But the jewel refused to pry loose.

“Right,” he whispered again, twirling the blade healways carried in his boot as he hesitated. “Will you let your brother die because you’re too much of a qualling canker-blossom to cut one fobbing finger off one fobbing corpse? It’s not as if she needs the thing now, is it? No.”

He made the mistake of looking up at her face again and swallowed deeply. She had, impossibly, become more beautiful, clouds passing over the moon to reveal cheeks tinged a gentle pink in the starlight.

Reed took a deep breath, lifting her hand, and brought his blade to the base of the ring, squeezing his eyes closed, determined to finish what he’d started.

“My beloved mother left me this ring upon her death,” a woman’s voice passed through the silence, and Reed yelped in a decidedly unmanly fashion as he fell back, dropping his blade. “Tell me. What right does a stuffed plague sore such as yourself have to it?”

The corpse’s eyes were open, two gleaming tourmalines in the moonlight, as lovely as the brightest stars in the night sky. Reed gaped at her, filled with horror and shame.

The heiress was alive.

“You’re not dead…”

“Clearly,” she snapped, pulling herself upright with obvious effort. “And you’re a graverobber. A roguish, milk-livered graverobber.”

“Clearly,” Reed said with a bow. How does one even apologize for almost cutting the finger off a corpse who wasn’t a corpse at all just to steal and pawn their belongings? “Rest assured, Your Ladyship, I wasn’t planning to sell your organs. Only your jewelry.”

The heiress frowned, hands on her middle. She hadapparently never heard of the practice. “And you seek thanks for that, do you...?”

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