9. The Mourners Arch
The Mourner's Arch
Miles
T he heavy oak doors of the Bureau of Noble Appellations closed behind them with the imperious thud of a gavel striking a sounding block.
A verdict of surprise victory.
He resisted the urge to do a little skip on the cobblestones.
“Two weeks,” he said, beaming at the overcast sky as if it were a personal tribute to his administrative prowess.
“Palthor had warned us that a Petition for Nomenclature Amendment regarding a Peerage could take months to find an opening, but we will be seen in two weeks! We just shaved months off the timeline, Gabriel. It’s practically a miracle. ”
Gabriel groaned. He looked impeccable in a dusky violet coat, but his eyes were glazed over.
“My hand is a claw,” he whined, shaking his right wrist. “I signed ‘Gabriel Fairfield’ so many times the letters started to look like abstract art. And the smell in there, Miles. It was like inhaling the olfactory equivalent of waiting in line.”
“It smelled like due process,” Miles corrected.
He tucked Gabriel’s arm through his and aimed them toward the street that would lead them back to the Spires.
He felt light, buoyant. They had successfully navigated the first hurdle without being arrested or laughed out of the building.
The clerk hadn’t even blinked at Fairfield , had in fact seemed relieved with how boring it was compared to the new Lord it purported to name.
It was a secret coup, a little rebellion stamped in official beeswax.
“Admit it. We were efficient. We were undeniable.”
“We were trapped in a room with another Quillmane—Palthor’s cousin, no less—who had a persistent wheeze,” Gabriel countered, though a small, tired smile tugged at his lips. “But fine. You were magnificent. You completed forms in triplicate like you were writing poetry. It was... oddly arousing.”
Miles flushed, pleased. “Competence is a severely underrated aphrodisiac.”
The noise of the city faded as they climbed toward the looming silence of the Spires.
Rookgate Manor waited at the end of the street.
The sight of it usually triggered a prickle of sweat between his shoulder blades—the combat reflex kicking in—but today, bolstered by his paperwork victory, he felt ready to tackle the physical reality of the estate.
Genna was waiting by the iron gates. She looked as she always did, like a part of the landscape of Averdon that had decided to grow legs and judge everyone.
Beside her stood a nondescript cart hitched to a mule that looked fast asleep.
The driver, a burly figure shrouded in a rough wool cloak, gave a curt nod.
“You look terrible,” Genna said to Gabriel by way of greeting.
“Bureaucracy,” Gabriel said, ignoring the insult. “It drains the soul faster than a vampire drains blood.”
“We secured a hearing,” Miles said, refusing to let the mood dip. “The title transfer is in motion.” He nodded to the cart. “Is this for the... removal?”
“Discreet. Reliable. Don’t ask where I found him,” Genna said, jerking her chin toward the driver. She signaled the man to take the cart around the service lane to the side entrance. “I assume you want to check if the house is in a biting mood before we start hauling out bones?”
“Indeed,” Miles said.
He took the lead, walking up the steps. He half-expected the door to be locked, or for the handle to heat up, or for the knocker to animate and shout obscenities. But the latch clicked open smoothly under his hand.
They stepped into the foyer. The smell hit them instantly, a heavy, cloying mix of stale air, dust, and the decay of the bodies they left there.
“Hello?” Miles called out, feeling foolish. “We’re here to clean up. Make you... presentable.”
Silence. No wailing. No shifting floorboards.
Then, with a rhythmic clack-bang-clack , the heavy velvet drapes in the Grand Foyer flew apart. The latches on the tall windows twisted simultaneously, and the glass panes swung outward.
A rush of cool, damp Averdon air swept through the room, chasing the stagnation up toward the lofty ceilings. Weak sunlight lit the room for the first time in what was likely years. The shutters had not been opened since before Madaze had become a vampire, certainly.
Miles stared. “Well. That’s... encouraging?”
“It wants the stink out.” Gabriel looked around warily.
“It’s cooperating,” Miles said, his mind already analyzing the implications. Telekinesis on a macro scale, but specific to the building’s infrastructure. Fascinating. “We’ll take it.”
Genna stepped inside, sniffing the air like a hound scenting a fox. She didn’t look relaxed, but she lowered her shoulders a fraction. “Don’t get comfortable. It’s behaving, but we still don’t know what it is.”
“You mentioned an expert,” Miles said, turning to her.
“Yes, I almost forgot to tell you. I heard back this morning. Her name is Velma. She operates out of the Bent. Fortune teller.”
“A fortune teller?” Miles couldn’t keep the skepticism out of his voice.
He respected Genna, but card readers were usually charlatans who preyed on the gullible with cold reading techniques and vague theatrics.
“We need an arcanist, not someone who shuffles a deck and tells you you’re going to meet a tall, dark stranger. ”
“She’s not that kind of fortune teller,” Genna said dryly.
“And the cards aren’t just paper. I don’t pretend to understand her methods—she talks about fate like she’s filing a tax return—but she’s accurate.
Terrifyingly so. She’s out of the city on a consultation, but she’s agreed to take the case when she returns.
I’ll send word when I have a date.” She gestured to the open windows.
“In the meantime, let’s get this place cleaned out before whatever is here decides it hates us again. ”
Gabriel nodded, though he turned in place, studying the entry as if the secrets to its nature might be scribbled somewhere in a corner.
“I’ll get the tarps,” Genna said, her voice devoid of inflection. She turned on her heel—boots crunching faintly on the grit that covered the parquet floor—and marched back out to the cart.
Miles was left standing with Gabriel in a pool of weak sunlight, staring at the mold-covered heap of stained leather and heavy wool crumpled at the foot of the grand staircase.
It had been a man, once. A hired sword. The guard had been reaching for his blade when the chaos of the raid erupted six months ago.
Miles remembered the specific, sickening thwack of impact, the way the man had folded.
He didn’t want to remember it. He wanted to catalog it, file it under ‘Necessary Actions: Tactical Successes,’ and close the drawer.
Instead, a tremor of recoil ghosted through his palms. His breath locked up in a shallow rhythm he recognized from the war in Lyonnor. Physiological response to stress stimuli, he told himself firmly.
Gabriel stood motionless. He’d turned to face the body, but he wasn’t looking at it; he was looking through it, staring at a history only he could see. “He knew what was happening in the basement.”
“Then he earned his place on the floor,” Miles said. He reached for his partner’s hand, squeezing tight. Gabriel squeezed back, his grip desperate.
Genna returned. She dropped the bundle with a heavy thud .
“Right,” Genna said, kicking a fold of heavy, waxed canvas open. “Let’s get this done.”
They laid the tarp parallel to the corpse. Miles stepped back, needing the distance, and reached into one of the pockets of his caster’s coat. His fingers closed over the Kinetite disc. It was cool and smooth except for the etched spiral under his thumb.
He held it palm up and focused on the body—not as a person, but as mass—and murmured a focusing phrase.
The disc hummed, a vibration that traveled up his arm and settled in his chest as a dull, sympathetic weight. A faint, silvery distortion—like heat haze over summer tarmac—shimmered into existence around the corpse. The resistance in his mind was a mental drag of dead weight. He lifted his hand.
The body rose. It didn’t jerk or flail; it drifted upward with a gruesome, silent grace, all the bits supported evenly by the spell rather than falling to pieces from decay as it would have had they lifted it manually.
With a slow sweep of his arm, Miles guided the floating form over the tarp and lowered his hand. The pressure in his head eased as the body settled onto the canvas.
“Wrap it,” Genna said.
As they folded the corners and secured the ropes, the reality of the task settled in. It was intimate, dirty work.
“It’s tidy,” Gabriel muttered, watching Genna tighten a knot. “The bureaucracy, I mean. We spent all morning practically begging the Crown to tax us, filling out forms to legitimize this... inheritance. And here we are, taking out the trash that the city couldn’t be bothered to notice.”
“They were criminals,” Miles said. Genna and Gabriel grabbed corners of canvas at the body’s head, and Miles took his feet.
He grunted as they lifted. The magic made the shift to the tarp easy, but they had several bodies to move today, and he had to manage his reserves.
“Unregistered muscle. No Guilds, no families willing to claim them.”
“Or families too scared to ask questions,” Genna added. They shuffled toward the broken side door.
They heaved the body into the back of the cart. Miles wiped his hands on a rag Genna offered. He forced a calming breath. Task one complete.
“It feels... unfinished,” Gabriel said as they walked back inside for the next one. He gestured at the opulent, rotting foyer. “We killed Madaze. We burned him. But the system that let him keep a dungeon in his basement? That’s still drinking tea and sending us invitations.”
Miles frowned, selecting the disc again as they approached the second body, a crossbowman sprawled near the cloakroom. “We cut off the head, Gabriel. The Order did what it could. Madaze was a singular threat.”