12. The Necromancer
“ T here are better ways to keep someone distracted than locking them in a library,” Viola insisted, trudging down the corridor towards the kitchen.
“Oh yes?” said Nicodemus, arching an eyebrow. He was finally dressed, his chest now covered by a black sculptured shirt, rolled at the elbows and embroidered with a pattern of silver thorns. It was both extremely casual and impossibly elegant. “Care to share them?”
Viola opened her mouth—certain that there were several—only to shut it again. Anywhere else he’d put her, she would have managed to damage herself. He could have stayed talking to her, perhaps, but they’d already done a fair bit of that and she was aware that most conversations anyone had with her tended to be a bit one-sided whenever they strayed into the realm of personal.
“I still don’t like reading,” she insisted.
“I’ll be taking that book back, then.”
Viola hugged the book close to her chest. “This is the exception. There’s always an exception.”
“That there is.”
He held the door open for her and they slipped into the kitchen, a big, busy room, its hearth ablaze with crackling flames that danced beneath the cauldrons and spits. Gleaming copper pots and pans hung from iron hooks, catching the flickering light that filtered through stained glass windows depicting a scene of Umbra approaching a deer in a forest. Aromas of spices mingled with the scent of freshly baked bread, filling the air with a tantalising fragrance.
In front of the cauldron, spooning out bowls of stew, was a familiar girl in a ragged cornflower-blue dress.
“It’s you!” Viola announced. “But I thought—” She glanced at Nicodemus.
“A misunderstanding,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “I thought you were attacking her.”
“I was helping her—”
“Well, I know that now!”
Viola turned her mind back to the day of the attack. She’d been standing next to the girl holding a sword. She realised now what that might have looked like. “You thought a knight would attack a child?”
“I’m not a child,” said Cordelia, pouting. “Or at least, if I am, that wouldn’t matter next to the fact I’m also a necromancer.”
Viola blinked. A shadowmancer would be rare enough, but a necromancer too?
“There’s no way I could have known that—”
Cordelia placed the bowls on the table and held up her right hand. The last two fingers of it were devoid of flesh, instead composed entirely of white bone, held together with thin threads of blue magic, lightly pulsing in the low light.
Viola swallow. “Oh my.”
Magical prosthetics were not unusual in Auro. If a limb was damaged, there was a lot that could be done by a skilled healer before amputation was necessary, but sometimes there wasn’t much choice, or it was the better option. Uncle Antonio, one of the farm hands she’d grown up with, lost most of his hand in an accident long before she’d known him. He had a false one made out of anima, a type of crystal that could be enchanted to imitate life. She’d known a blacksmith with a leg crafted of stone and earth, enchanted by a floramancer. She’d never seen prosthetics made of bone before.
She stared at Cordelia’s fingers, wondering what had happened, whether or not the bones were her own, and whether she should be disgusted or amazed. “Those are… impressive,” she managed.
Something sparked in Cordelia’s eyes. “Thank you,” she said, speaking the words as if they were rusty. She slid into one of the chairs, and Viola took that as her cue to sit down also, accepting the bowl of stew that Nico passed in her direction.
“So, Cordelia. That’s such a pretty name. Do you have a shortened version you like as well? Cordy? Delia? Lia?”
The girl stared at her, expression laced with darkness .
“Cordelia it is.”
Viola lifted the spoon to her lips. For a brief moment, she wondered if it was poisoned, if this whole business wasn’t part of an elaborate ruse, but her hunger quickly overtook. It was venison, rich and plummy, with just a tingle of spice. “This is delicious.”
“Of course it is. I’m a great cook.”
Viola wanted to tell her that it was an excellent dish for one so young, but she didn’t know how to say that without being condescending. Besides, it was a great dish regardless of the age of the chef.
“You’ll forgive Cordelia’s bluntness,” Nicodemus told her. “She has realmwalker’s clarity. She perceives social norms a little differently to most of us.”
“I find it refreshing,” Viola assured her, although the girl avoided her gaze—a common enough trait for those with realmwalker’s.
Nicodemus snorted into his stew. “You will not.”
He passed her the butter dish and a basket of bread rolls, then got up to collect the goblets. Viola smeared a generous helping of herby butter across a roll of bread and moaned as it met her mouth, wondering if she could steal a second roll before she’d even finished with the first.
“Wine?” said Nico, appearing at her elbow.
Viola stared at the bottle in his hand. It was a rare vintage.
She dropped her spoon. “Where did you get that?”
“I liberated it from an airship bound for the estate of Baron Du Broveny,” he said.
“You stole this?”
“I stole everything in here, why does that surprise you?”
Viola stared down at the food in her bowl, the spices no longer so tantalising. She should have known this. Of course everything here belonged to someone else.
“He shot the deer,” Cordelia added. “If that helps.”
“I did. The deer I came by honestly.” Nicodemus poured out two goblets, handing one to Cordelia. She seemed a little young for wine, but Viola suspected the girl was probably too young for a lot of the things that had happened to her.
Nicodemus held up the final empty glass. “You sure I can’t tempt you?”
“This is wrong.”
“This is delicious. Notes of peach, wouldn’t you say, Bones?”
Cordelia sipped her goblet. “Summer fruits, certainly.”
Viola scowled at them both.
“Oh, lighten up, Windbright,” said Nicodemus, admiring the contents of his goblet. “Who do you think deserves this more? Baron Du Broveny or you? I guarantee you’ve worked a lot harder for a lot less. ”
Viola refused to drink the wine, but knew she had to eat. She decided to have as little as possible, just enough to sustain her.
She finished the entire bowl, though, and the first bread roll. She didn’t want to be wasteful.
Lunch over, she retired to her bedroom to carry on with the story, stopping every so often to take a turn around the room. Nicodemus appeared at one point to offer her fresh clothes and a basket of goods—vials and tinctures for her wounds, but also bathroom accoutrements should she fancy freshening up.
“I know you seem to object to the origins of our offerings, but sometimes needs must. I’ve included some menstrual supplies, should you have need of them.”
“I have the contraceptive rune,” she explained, thinking of the small rune below her naval which both prevented her from conceiving and stopped her monthlies altogether.
“Convenient.”
“It really is.”
She hadn’t been with anyone who could get her pregnant for a while, but most knights had them as standard regardless of preference or relationship status. The lack of monthlies alone was reason enough.
Viola frowned. “Why do you have menstrual supplies?”
“For Cordelia.”
“Is she old enough?”
“She’s thirteen.”
Viola blinked. The girl looked hardly any older than ten, maybe eleven—Miranda’s age. “She’s… small,” she said, realising she was supposed to say something.
Nicodemus stared oddly, his expression flat. No whisper of a smile or a smirk. “You remember the famine nine years ago? You must, surely.”
Viola nodded. Who didn’t? Her family had been one of the lucky ones. Whilst many of their crops had failed, they had enough to feed themselves and enough saved away that the famine didn’t ruin them like it did so many others. She still remembered going hungry, her family desperate to give as much away as they could, not wanting their neighbours to starve. She remembered the harrowed, hollow looks of the people in the town, the swollen bellies of the children. It was not something she would ever forget.
“Cordelia would only have been around four, then. I’m not sure of the specifics, but it clearly took its toll on her. She’ll never be the size of other, more fortunate folk.”
Viola paused for a moment to take all of this in. “How long has she been with you? ”
“Three years. I discovered her living in a cemetery outside of Florenwall.”
“She’s lucky to have found you,” said Viola before she could stop herself. It sounded far too much like a compliment.
“We were lucky to have found each other.”
Strange, Viola thought, that he’d never taken the girl with him on any of his heists, or utilised her power in any way that she could see. If Cordelia was capable of creating skeletal prosthetics that functioned as well as real fingers, Viola could only imagine what else she could do. Why didn’t Nicodemus use her?
She thought she might already have an answer to that, but she didn’t want to give it a voice. The Shadowmancer already seemed far more human than she wanted him to, even with that ridiculous mask.
“Well,” said Nicodemus, his face brightening. “I’ll leave you to it. Take it easy, Windbright. I’m most likely to kill you in the morning.”