Page 100 of Mistress of Bones
Azul described some of the more memorable alleys and riverbanks she had seen through the mouse. Her shadow nodded or shook his head at Isile’s suggestions, eventually growing tired of the discussion and simply stalking away.
Following him through the carousing crowd, Azul and Isile remained side by side.
“Why are you so interested in helping us?” she asked, stepping aside to avoid a man in a hurry. “Sergado is your friend, why help me against him?”
Isile waved that aside. “He is notthatmuch of a friend.”
“Friend enough for you to wait in his house late at night. Friendenough to gift him a masterpiece for his rooms. Friend enough for you to make sketch after sketch of nothing but human body parts.”
Isile fell silent until they arrived at an alley so low the river’s water spilled over the edge. It smelled of dampness and rot, weeds sprouting everywhere. Azul recognized this from the mouse’s travels. Conjuring more of the memory, she chose one direction, and they continued their trek through Cienpuentes’s alleyways and narrow paths, stopping here and there while she tried to reconcile the mouse’s viewpoint and how things looked to the human sight.
“I cannot condone it, if he’s truly killing people,” Isile said.
“Why did you think he asked for so many sketches?”
“Curiosity? Studies?”
“Like Sirese Norel at the mortuary?”
Isile brightened. “Indeed! Just like him. Why should I arrive to some bizarre conclusion? It’s not unheard of, these tendencies to investigate human nature. What do you think he’s trying to accomplish, making those fingers? Controlling those men?”
“I don’t know. At first, we—I—thought maybe he meant to spy on the court,” Azul said, worried. “But you don’t need knowledge of the human body for that, and he’s already a marquess.”
“Might that be it?” Isile asked thoughtfully. “That he means to create a body?”
Azul stared at him, aghast.
Isile shrugged. “Why else practice making fingers—out of love for doll-making?”
“But a body needs blood and flesh.”
“As you say,” was Isile’s noncommittal answer. He said no more, but became thoughtful, paying no attention to their surroundings until Azul found their destination—a two-story building of gray stone and dark brick squeezed between an overhead bridge and a more elegant house.
They pounded on the door to no avail, then settled on finding somewhere to rest nearby and trying again at dawn. There would be no point, Azul supposed, to breaking into an empty house when the owner was all they needed.
Luckily, it didn’t take them long to find someone willing to rent out a room for the night. They were lent a small storage space, dusty and empty with some rags thrown into a corner. A second, smaller room was adjacent, not unlike Sergado’s rooms.
Isile walked inside, surveying it with distaste. “I suppose this one is mine, yes?”
Azul and her shadow exchanged looks again. Isile snickered. “You don’t think me smart enough to know you mean me to remain locked up for the remainder of the night?” He offered up his wrists. “I am your brother’s friend, after all.”
Azul’s shadow grabbed and tested one of the rags. Approaching Isile, he motioned for him to turn around.
With a groan, Isile complied. “This will make sleeping quite difficult. Have you no pity?”
Her shadow didn’t, apparently, since he deftly brought Isile’s wrists behind his back and tied them tightly.
Azul watched this with relief. She hadn’t wanted to hurt Isile—he was curious, yes, too curious, and had surprisingly taken everything in stride—but she couldn’t risk him having a change of heart and running off to tell her brother of her plans. Shock had made her tongue too fluent. She had said too much; she had shown him too much. At the time, it hadn’t mattered.
But now her tired limbs begged for mercy, and the throb in her side reminded her of the damage a fist could do to a body. Now the woman the emissary had contacted was gone, or dead asleep, or dead.
Now Azul only wanted the nightmare to end.
Her shadow closed the door between the rooms. It had no lock, but he didn’t seem bothered by that. He gave his half cape to Azul and pointed toward the floor. She thanked him, made a roll out of it for her head, and lay on the thick coating of dust. Her shadow had closed the shutters in the other room, but he kept these partly open, and Azul could hear some distant shouting and singing, could see a slice of the dark green sky.
Her shadow sat across from her, back against the connecting door, rapier close at hand. Ah yes. Azul took out the dagger she had pilfered from Nereida’s room and put it under the roll.
“You still won’t tell me your name?” she asked.
