Page 93 of Mistress of Bones
Azul understood the fast glances Esparza sent over his shoulder to the corridor beyond. She wanted to leave, too, but where was she to go? If there were bones in that room, she had to know. And she wasn’t eager to be alone with Enjul.
So, she didn’t encourage him to run, and his stance relaxed. Maybe he had convinced himself there had been no other option but to kill the guards. Maybe it wasn’t such an outlandish occurrence in his daily life. Whatever his thoughts, Esparza eventually approached the door, Azul following him as if tethered by a rope.
“Smaller lock,” he surmised. “Newer. Harder to pick.”
Azul studied the mechanism in question and found that he was right. The whole door appeared new compared with the ones they had seen along the way.
Enjul stepped aside to allow Esparza to try his hand at the lock and glanced at Azul.
In the warm light of the lamp ensconced into the nearby wall, his golden-violet eyes showed no remorse, only determination verging on stubbornness. Such human emotion for such inhuman acts—killing like it meant nothing and not asking for forgiveness in return. This logic, Azul could never understand.
But had she not done the same? Had she not stood by as Nereida had attempted to kill Enjul because he stood in their way? Had she not sworn to kill him herself minutes earlier? She had said it before so many times—at their core, she and Enjul were not so different.
These unsettling thoughts were stopped by Esparza’s exclamationof triumph. The door opened. Azul rushed forward, pushing him out of the way, and stumbled into the room.
Inside were two tables, and shelves lining a wall. Papers, parchment, and sheafs of vellum lay spread over the tables or rolled into scrolls. Azul walked to a collection of small wooden coffers neatly stacked on a shelf, their lids unlocked for her to lift. Pieces of bones filled their insides. Old, new. None felt like Isadora’s.
“What is all this?” Esparza asked, disgusted.
Azul drifted to where he stood, searching for more boxes that might contain bones. He was looking at some of the papers piled on one of the tables, lifting one here and there with the tips of his fingers to see them under the light spilling from the doorway. Most of them featured inked drawings of bones, the rest of the space filled with annotations.
“Studies of human bones,” she told him, herself inspecting some of the pages.
Her words brought Enjul closer.
“A leech’s studies,” Esparza said. “Why keep them behind lock and key and armed guards?” He made a disagreeable sound. “Upon penalty of death, my ass.”
“Can you read?” she asked him.
Esparza narrowed his eyes. “Enough to pass by.”
“I meant no insult,” Azul said. “But try these.”
He did as she asked with the page she was showing him. “I can’t make any sense of this.” Glancing at Enjul, he added, “Valanjian?”
Enjul shook his head. “It looks like an abbreviated version of Sancian.”
“A sort of code?” Azul asked. “Meant to be read only by its author.”
“Some of these look normal,” Esparza said, disturbing more of the parchment.
“Borrowed studies?”
“Why keep them behind locked doors?” Esparza insisted, then looked thunderstruck and snatched his hand back from the table. “Living corpses, you called them? Void arts? No. It’s not possible.”
Azul turned so he couldn’t read her face. The stark denial in his voice did not settle well, nor did his disgust. Her gaze fell on sketches of much better quality. Bringing them into a better light, she openly admired them. Arms, legs, torsos, heads, all in various stages of being stripped of their fleshy layers. Then a series of drawings she recognized well. A human back in different poses, some with arms extended, others with arms close to the sides. Studies that had resulted in a masterpiece.
The masterpiece that hung in her brother’s bedroom.
Alarmed, Azul went through the other pages. The strokes were easily recognizable, with the occasional signature leaping out. Shock left her speechless. Was Isile Manzar the other necromancer, after all? His fascination for the human body was obvious. He could’ve gained entrance here like he had gained entrance to the mortuary—by using his friends. But again, what care would Manzar have for infiltrating the City Guard, the court? For taking over Zenjiel?
No, Manzar must’ve made these sketches for the other necromancer as some sort of commission…
Ah.
She saw it now. On the crest of some of the papers, on the dried rose petals in a vase in the corner. In the handwriting, the same as the letter she’d received at the ambassador’s residence agreeing and delighted to host her and her party at Almanueva.
“It’s my brother, isn’t it? He’s the other necromancer,” she said as if waking from a dream. She faced Enjul. He showed no surprise or interest in the discovery. “You knew this too.”
