Page 27 of Gilded Wicked Mirrors
But she wasn’t just Constance’s idol. Every ballerina loved her and wanted to be her—except for her terrible deal. Jane was the best ballerina to grace the stage of the Queen’s Royalle Ballet. Her artistry was unmatched. But more than that, she was a friend.Someone people could count on in their hardest moments. Someone who understood hardships and was so much more than a teacher. If anyone needed to cry, Jane was there.
She was warm, passionate, and beautiful. She was a light. And now she was gone.
Quinn swallowed; her throat was on fire from the pain of holding back tears. “It’s still possible I did this without holding the weapon.”
“Stop it. Someone else killed her.” Giselle slammed her book closed. “You cannot hold the blame for that.”
“The only thing I can do now for her is find the blade. Find the person who killed her. I owe her that much. I am going to perform an autopsy. But she has a gang tattoo—” Quinn trailed off at the gasps from her friends.
None of them knew it because Jane hid so many things from them—far too many things. Possibly things that got her murdered.
“What?” Both Jevon and Giselle said at once.
Quinn’s shoulders slumped, and she picked at her shirt cuff. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
A vein in Constance’s neck budged as she said, “But that means she’ll have no justice.”
“I know,” Quinn breathed. But she wasn’t willing to let her friend die without justice. She would do something, anything, to ensure that. Now, ballet and the morgue and Mirror-Rites held no importance.
The only thing that mattered was getting revenge for Jane.
Constance wrung her hands. “Screw the gang law. Jane deserves justice. We’ll just have to find the person responsible and make them hang for it.”
Ten
The scents of decomposition and formalin hovered like a cloud over the room, caking Quinn’s pores with rot. Formalin stung Quinn’s nostrils, making the already pungent smell of rotting flesh more concentrated and invasive.
Quinn didn’t mind the smell so much, but Giselle’s normally bronze cheeks faded into a shade of dark olive green, and she kept making gagging noises from behind her book—which she wielded like a sword.
Jevon’s complexion was ashen, and Constance seemed to be wholly undisturbed. Ever since she vowed to find the murderer, something inside her changed. It was like she flipped a switch and buried her devastation within her. That or the flask that she kept drinking out of did the trick. She was almost certainly drunk at this point, and it was entirely possible that Constance was drinking Mirror-Blessed wine. She sat on an exam table, swinging her feet to an invisible beat, and chewed on charmed macarons—the owner of La Pâte Rouge made a deal with a Bargainer for the ability to bake without calories or cavities.
Autopsies never bothered Quinn. Growing up in the morgue and having her hands deep in a chest cavity was normal. But this one shook her. This one was personal, and the only way shemanaged to push through was to pretend that it was a nameless victim.
Otherwise, Quinn would completely fall apart.
A nameless victim. Quinn pinched her lips together and turned her eyes to the external examination. She tried her best not to look at the face. Slowly, she removed the clothing and examined the body.
But the whole while, her hands shook oh so slightly. Quinn could pretend everything was normal, but her body knew it wasn’t.
On thenameless victim’sleft arm was the tattoo of a painting dripping with blood—the same one as Quinn’s. Another secret. So many secrets. The victim also had a Mirror-Blessed tattoo on her thumb and the Fantômes gang tattoo behind her ear.
“Where was she murdered?” Constance asked.
“My guess is she was killed somewhere and then dropped at the docks.” Quinn’s words were matter-of-fact. Scientific. Rational. She would only use ration for this autopsy.She would.She had to.
With a mirror-spelled thermometer, Quinn checked the body’s temperature. 72.3 degrees. The precise temperature of the room. So, the body was fully equilibrated with its surroundings, which meant, “The victim died at least twelve hours ago.”
“Like at the Viridian?” Constance asked.
“Yes, possibly,” Quinn said tentatively. She didn’t like guessing without proper evidence. “We know that the victim was at the Viridian the night of her murder. Her dress is caked in mud and blood . . . and a substance that seems to be glitter. Tucked into a piece of her red hair was a fragment of a purple feather and silver sequins typical on Viridian dancers' dresses. It’s possible she was killed at the Viridian before being dumped in the Marina District. Additionally, there doesn’t seem to be any water damage to the body. So, the killer either didn’t want to dump her in the bay or was unsuccessful. However, the most significant evidence so far is the bloodyfingerprint found on the victim's corset. But I’ll have to check it later and see if it’s hers.”
“Which means the killer was in a rush?” Giselle poked her head out of her book, her eyes still laced with tears.
The sight caused Quinn’s throat to bobble. It was a reminder of the truth. A reminder that she was about to cut open the body of one of her best friends.
Quinn placed her hands on the exam table for stability.Fuck, this is hard.
“Or that they were interrupted,” Jevon added, his shoulder slightly curved and a dark expression lingering in his eyes.
