Gabe’s doublet rasped over the brocade couch as he turned to look at her. “If it’s not anyone actively channeling,” he said slowly, “then it has to be something left over from when you did it.”
“No.” The denial came quick. “Mortem doesn’t work that way. It only—”
“I am well aware of how Mortem works.” He rose from the couch, towering over her even though she stood at least a yard away. There was something different in his tone, his stance. He looked like the Mort who’d cornered her in the alley, prepared for violence if necessary, not the man she’d started counting as something like a friend. “And I’m well aware that the way you use it has no precedent, not since they killed all the necromancers.” His one eye narrowed, fingers curling into a fist to hide the candle inked on his palm. “Even then, nothing dead could stay risen on its own.”
Lore narrowed her eyes to match his. Straightened, found the spine that belonged in the Harbor District, not the Citadel. “If you’re accusing me of something, Gabriel, say it plain. Don’t dance around it like you’re at another one of Bastian’s parties.”
Something about the other man’s name seemed to startle him. Shake him out of the Presque Mort and back into the man. A reminder of a common enemy, a common goal; a reminder that he and Lore couldn’t afford to be on opposite sides.
Gabe ran a weary hand over his face. “I’m not,” he said finally. Snorted. “You seem just as confused about how your magic works as the rest of us.”
“I’m glad that’s comforting to you.” Lore leaned against the wall, tipped her head back. The chandelier hanging in the center of the ceiling was dull with dust. “I find it rather terrifying, myself.”
He made a noise she couldn’t interpret. When she looked away from the chandelier, Gabe was sitting again, elbows on his knees. “That might be our explanation, then,” he said. “I guess this is just… part of it. Part of your power.”
“If it’s any consolation,” she said, sitting down next to him, “I would tell you how it worked if I knew.”
“If you happen to figure it out anytime soon, that would be most excellent.”
“Noted.”
They sat in the gloom for a moment before Lore’s mind circled back to their other problem, the potentially bigger one.
“If Bastian knows who I am,” Lore said, “then why not just tell me? Or kill me? Isn’t that what he’d do if he was really a Kirythean informant?”
Gabe rubbed at his eye patch. “Bastian gets spied on quite a lot. Just because he knows you’re spying doesn’t mean he knows why.”
“His big show of revealing the dead horse makes it seems like he has an idea,” Lore said. “Surely he’s smart enough to make the connection that his father bringing in a necromancer has something to do with the villages. And if it’s Kirythea that’s responsible, it’s not a leap to deduce that said necromancer is likely to expose him.”
“Maybe he’s just really excited about his pet dead horse and hasn’t made all the connections yet.”
“Or maybe he’s not working for Kirythea, no matter how much August and Anton think he is. They have no real reason to suspect him; at least, not one they’ve told us.”
“Anton wouldn’t be so insistent that you investigate Bastian if he didn’t have a good reason.” Gabe propped his elbow on the arm of the couch and his forehead in his hand. “And what other reason would he have? Just because they haven’t shared all the information with us doesn’t mean they don’t have it.”
Clearly, she wouldn’t get anywhere with Gabe. The man had been programmed to march to whatever tune Anton played. Her thoughts turned again to Bastian, to what he’d shared while they danced. My uncle has controlled his life for fourteen years.
With a sigh, Lore pressed the heels of her palms against her brow, rested her elbows on her knees, and changed the subject back to something that didn’t have the potential to become a fight. “How did he even get the horse? I know the story he told us was bullshit.”
“Maybe not,” Gabe said. “Bastian does have friends in the Citadel guard. Some lovers, too. They carted the body away from the Ward to be burned, but someone might’ve told him about it as an idle curiosity. He must’ve been intrigued enough to have them spirit it away, and the other guards just let it happen.”