Chapter 3 #3
Bair gestured to the makeshift bed. “We need the bulk of the body on the stretcher so it’s easier to lift the rest. After prolonged starvation the bodies are fragile, we want to be careful.”
I nodded as if all this was perfectly normal—my cousin’s best friend giving me advice on how best to pick up a dead body of a former coworker.
I could do this.
I exhaled, pretending this was an excavation site, that I was unearthing an ancient artifact instead of moving the fragile body of a man I had worked beside.
Lifting Ghassan’s leg onto the stretcher, I followed Bair’s lead while he hefted the rest of the body on. We worked in silence, until a strangled scream escaped my throat as we lifted the stretcher up and Ghassan’s hand swung out from beneath the sheet.
I froze, my body unable to move at seeing the horror of his dark lifeless hand drop from the stretcher.
Bair neatly tucked it back under the sheet within seconds.
He didn’t look at me. His face didn’t move.
It was stone, seemingly not affected by the dead hand he’d tucked back in, as if plucking an errant vegetable from the ground and placing it back into his basket.
But when I looked at Bair’s dark fingers curled into a tight fist, so hard the knuckles turned white, I knew he was not unaffected.
And in the midst of the awfulness of what we were doing there was something else on Ghassan’s hand that only I had seen.
Threads of my magic still clung to him, woven around his arm, revealing something hidden.
A thin golden chain was clasped around his wrist and on it hung a key.
My breath caught in my throat, my heart beating so fast I was afraid Bair would turn and stare.
Ghassan had a golden key dangling from his wrist.
And it certainly wasn’t a key that matched the door to his house—that was an old, battered iron lock that would take an iron key. From what I’d seen, this one was a brilliant gold, with a curving, ornate bow and an elaborate key bit that was much too big to fit the door to any house.
But it may fit a fae vault.
I tried to shake off the thought, but it took root in my mind, its tendrils curling through my brain until that was the only thing I could think of.
This was not a key anyone from our village would possess.
Unless one used to work in the archives and found the key to an ancient fae vault.
But where did he get it from?
Something didn’t make sense about it all, the golden key and chain incongruent with his too-frail frame, like a dried-up riverbed next to an overflowing waterfall.
If he had it, why did he kill himself to prevent starvation?
With gold like that, he could have sold it.
Even if owning jewelry was forbidden by the Citadel, there was still a black market where people traded in gold every day.
My own mother was a goldsmith, and even after it was outlawed provided her expertise on valuing gold jewelry for the black market weekly.
“Are you ready?” Bair’s voice cut through my thoughts. I couldn’t very well steal a golden key off Ghassan’s wrist in plain view of Bair, not without drawing attention to my magic.
“Yes, I’m ready.”
I fixed Safiyya’s cloak, making sure to cover my hair again, and we hoisted the body up and out of the house, heading in the direction of the woods.
My mind was spinning, thinking of all the possibilities of why Ghassan would have a golden key his wrist, and what it could open.
I hadn’t looked at the key closely but I’d seen enough fae relics to recognize one the minute I saw one.
And I was betting whoever destroyed his house was looking for it.
And was the reason Ghassan was dead.
I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I didn’t notice we’d already made it to the main street and almost stopped short at how different it was.
Before, the streets were empty, but now people lined the cobblestone walkway, as if they knew we were coming, as if they had waited for us.
Some held each other’s hands, others sang songs so softly you couldn’t even hear the words, just a rush of gentle whispers. Some of them even held jasmine flowers in front of them, the traditional flower of the dead.
A normal funeral procession would have the streets filled with jasmine petals, so that the dead would have the scent of the flowers to guide their way to the afterlife and they wouldn’t be forced to become ghouls, trapped in our world.
But all public gatherings were banned after the last uprising—we could no longer honor our dead, could no longer gather together to perform our rituals.
Until now.
“Why are they risking it?” I hissed to Bair. “The Citadel could find out.”
“Ghassan was loved. When he worked for the Citadel, he often gave away his extra ration to others who needed it more,” whispered Bair, his voice holding all the awe I felt.
I clutched the stretcher poles tight in my hands, trying to walk as quickly as I could and avoid meeting the gaze of any villagers. My eyes burned with the simple act of love they’d shown and something else.
Shame.
They wouldn’t suspect it was me holding Ghassan’s body, not with my work with the Citadel.
But if they did see, if they did suspect me, I knew what they would shout.
Ghassan is dead, and you helped put him there.