18. The Bones in the Graveyard
I t was a crisp autumn day when Nicodemus first met Cordelia. He’d just completed a heist in the north-west town of Drakewatch, but his escape wyvern was growing thin and his energy fading. A shadow—of a cloud, he suspected—alerted him to the presence of a small village below not far from the Feywood, and he set down intent on staying just long enough to regain his energy and make it the rest of the way.
It was a fine day, so after purchasing a simple meal of a bread roll filled with pork and stuffing, he found himself drawn to the shade of a prominent oak tree overlooking a nearby graveyard. He stretched out beneath it to enjoy the last of the pleasant weather.
He’d almost finished his food when he noticed a young girl in a faded, raggedy dress, drifting amongst the headstones. His first thought was that the girl was too young to be left unsupervised. She was a thin, wisp of a thing, barely taller than he was when he’d first been cast out into the world alone, but a quick look at her face and he decided she was probably older. She had bronze skin dusted with dirt and a haggard expression far older than her stature suggested.
Old enough to be alone in a graveyard during the day. Not old enough to be alone in the world. And he thought she might be, given how she was dressed.
It’s none of your business, a voice reminded him.
But he wondered where he would be now if everyone he’d come across when he was alone declared he was none of their business. He might not have a limp and he’d likely have a full face… but he could also be dead.
And despite how badly things had ended, he thought his years between six and thirteen might have been his favourites. He knew he’d been happy before then, but it was that type of half-remembered happy, a scratch rather than a scar.
She might not be alone, the voice argued instead.
He’d finished his food now. He could probably get up and go. There wasn’t any reason to stay here, watching the girl.
And yet the shade around him felt heavy, pinning him in place. Perhaps he needed to rest just a while longer.
Not long after, another group of children arrived at the graveyard. At first, he thought they might be friends of hers. They laughed when they saw her, but they didn’t rush out to greet her. They hovered by the side of the temple, peering round the corner and snickering in a way that pulled at the hairs on the back of Nico’s neck.
The girl didn’t seem to have noticed them, or, if she did, she wasn’t paying them any heed. She was digging in the grass beside one of the graves, foraging for weeds, by the looks of things. Nico knew from experience that several of them were edible… and all of them would soon be out of season.
One of the children stepped out from behind the wall and hurled a rock in the girl’s direction. She dodged it, and another small white stone shot out of the ground, struck an empty nest on a nearby tree, and sent it flying in the faces of her attackers. One of them screamed. Another started to yell. But the strange little girl hissed back, and when the ground started to rumble, their eyes widened and they hurried off.
A floramancer, perhaps, if she could control the earth. Or a stonemancer by the way she’d hurled that pebble from the ground itself. The two magics were closely linked, ruled by the same god.
Curious, Nicodemus got up from his spot and slid down into the graveyard. He stopped at the abandoned nest and found the stone that had struck it. It was long and white, sharp at the ends.
Nicodemus froze. It wasn’t a stone at all.
It was a bone.
Only one kind of mancer could make dead things move, which meant the girl was as illegal as he was.
A necromancer.
“What are you looking at?”
Nicodemus looked up at the girl standing a short distance away, staring at him crossly. The basket of weeds sat at her hip, containing not just foliage, but bone too.
She’d come armed .
“Oh, nothing,” he said. “It’s just been a while since I met someone like me.”
The girl raised an eyebrow. “Like… you?”
Nicodemus smiled. He checked around him to make sure no one was watching, and then he bent his shadow on the wall behind them, making it bow to the young girl.
Her eyes widened at the display. “You’re a shadowmancer.”
“I am.”
“That’s not like me.”
“You control bones. I control shadows. We both hail from Umbra, the goddess of darkness and death.”
The girl looked at him like he was insane.
“You don’t know the stories?”
She shook her head.
“Where are your parents?” he asked her.
The girl shrugged. “Died when I was little. A witch took me in.”
“And where is she now?”
“Died two years ago this coming winter.”
“How old are you?”
“Ten.”
Nicodemus inhaled sharply. Too young. Too young and too small.
“And who looks after you now?”
The girl looked down. “No one,” she said. “It’s just me and Moon Bunny.”
“Moon… Bunny?”
She nodded, and lifted up her weeds to the pile of bones beneath, which leapt out of the basket and dropped onto the ground below, reforming in the shape of a rabbit skeleton. It hopped over the grass, pulsing with quiet, blue strings of magic.
Nicodemus gasped. “Extraordinary.”
He’d heard of necromancy before, but he’d never seen it. He wondered what else the girl was capable of. He looked back at her. She grinned at his response, smiling as she tugged on one of her curls.
Two of her fingers were heavily bandaged in filthy scraps of fabric.
“What happened to your hand?” he asked.
The girl looked away again. “The village children throw stones. One time, they threw them too hard. Broke the fingers. Fixed the bone, not the muscle. Infection set in and…”
“And?”
The girl chewed her lip, as if she wasn’t sure if it was safe to answer. But she glanced at their shadows on the wall and decided to trust him. Slowly, she unravelled the fabric wound around her fingers, revealing that the last two digits were but bone .
Nicodemus stared, not sure whether or not to be impressed or horrified or a little bit of both. “Can you move those?” he asked finally.
She nodded, flexing them for him. They pulsed with the same blue thread wrapped around the rabbit.
“Your own bones?”
“They were what I had handy…”
“And they stay like that? All the time? Even when you’re asleep?”
She nodded again.
It defied most of the rules the rest of the mancers’ magic was bound to, much like his own, although literature on both necromancy and shadowmancy were hard to come by. He wondered if there were other necromancers like her in the world, and if so where they were. It wasn’t safe for her to live like this, so out in the open. She’d been lucky so far.
She wouldn’t be lucky forever.
“Come live with me,” he muttered, before the words had even fully formed in his mind.
The girl blinked. “Come again?”
“You. Come and live with me in my castle in the forest. It’s not safe for you out here.”
“I… don’t even know you.”
“Forgive me,” he said, sweeping into a bow. “I am Nicodemus Nightshade, a shadowmancer of dubious origin. I’m a thief and a murderer. I’m on a quest for revenge and I wish to die surrounded by riches. When I’m not plotting nefarious deeds, I enjoy sketching and reading. I have a cat called Lord Azrael. Come with me, and I will teach you all that I know, and protect you as well as I am able.”
The girl’s stare didn’t let up. “Is this sarcasm? Because I have realmwalker’s clarity and I sometimes struggle with—”
“No no, I’m in earnest, I assure you.”
“But… you don’t even know me, either.”
Nicodemus sighed, as kindly as his patience could muster. “I know you’re alone in the world, like I once was,” he told her. “And I know it’s dangerous for you to be out here by yourself.”
The ground rumbled again. “I can protect myself,” she assured him.
Nicodemus shook his head. His voice turned stony. “Not against a hundred of the Crown’s finest knights, you couldn’t.”
The graveyard stilled. The girl shrunk back, like it was the first time she’d ever imagined such a thing. Nicodemus waited a moment before speaking again.
“What’s your name?” he asked her.
“Cordelia,” she replied. “But you can call me Lela.”