He waved a hand to move to the next slide. “At the time of her death, Viviana was in excellent physical health. She had already given birth to four children by the time she was thirty, while many in her village of Uzès still regarded her as the town beauty, even more lovely than the young women seeking husbands in their twenties. Unfortunately,” Dalton said, “Viviana was hit by an automobile a matter of weeks ago. She died instantly.”
Another wave, another slide, this one showing the accident before moving onto the details of Viviana’s peculiarities. “As you can see,” Dalton said, pulling up a side by side comparison with two sets of similar cadavers, “Viviana’s internal organs stopped aging around twenty-one.”
He swept through quickly, comparing incomprehensible （to Parisa） portions of her body first to those of a twenty-one-year-old, then a comparable forty-five-year-old.
“Her skin had not lost any elasticity. The features of her face were unchanged. Her hair did not turn grey. Most of her village simply believed she had exercised and eaten well, and perhaps dyed her hair. As for whether Viviana herself noticed anything suspicious, it appears not. She seems to have merely considered herself lucky—inordinately so, but not extraordinarily.”
The slides concluded as Dalton turned to face them.
“As far as we can surmise, Viviana would not have died of natural causes if not for her accident,” Dalton said, clarifying what had already been heavily implied. “Her death was not the result of any form of degeneration. What we do not know,” he emphasized, “is how long she would have lived had she not met an untimely end, nor how frequently this occurs in other undiagnosed medeians.”
“Did she show any signs of regeneration?” Tristan asked.
“Damage that repaired itself magically, you mean? No,” Dalton said. “She simply didn’t degenerate as a mortal should.”
“Would she have been more or less susceptible to disease?” （Reina.）
“Unclear. Her village was particularly homogenous.”
“Did she contract any significant illnesses?” （Tristan again.）
“No, but she was regularly vaccinated, so that would not be out of the ordinary.”
“The common cold,” Callum suggested drily, and Dalton shrugged.
“Most people do not take note of commonalities,” he said, “hence the inadequacy of our existing research.”
“What exactly are we supposed to do with this?” Nico asked, his fingers tapping impatiently at his sides. “Her magical specialty was… life?”
“Somewhere in her genetics is the ability to not decay,” Dalton replied, which appeared to be confirmation. “We have no way of knowing how common this ability is, which is part of the purpose for research. Is Viviana the only one?” he posed to the group. “Have there been, historically, others? If none have lived long enough to become remarkable, then do people blessed with longevity typically attract fatalities? Is it possible they habitually die young, and if so, is this a result of magic?”
“Or,” Dalton asked after a moment of silence, “is it somehow proof of fate?”
Parisa felt her eyes narrow, at odds with Dalton’s offhanded remark. Magic the way they typically studied it was narrow, predictable, scientific in its results. Fate was inherently not. The magnetic quality of being drawn to a particular end was to remove the option of choice, which was so displeasing as to prick her slightly. Parisa did not care for the sensation of not being in control; it filled her mouth with bitterness, like excess salivation.
“You said something had come up,” Reina said in her low voice. “Is this not what was planned for our next subject?”
Dalton tilted his head, reconciling with what appeared to be his own thoughts. “Yes and no. The unit of study following the initiation rites is always death,” he said. “Most often we perform the traditional rituals on the eliminated member.”
Tristan twitched with discomfort. Callum, solemnly, did not move.
“This particular case is, contrary to its appearance, fortuitous timing,” Dalton flippantly remarked. “The Society’s work remains uninterrupted, in a sense.”
“Does it?” said Nico blisteringly, and Dalton slid a glance to him.
“For all intents and purposes, yes,” he said. “Initiation will move forward as scheduled. You will also find that the units on life and death will allow you to access far more of the library’s resources.”