Chapter 16 · The Dead Take Their Seats

The last candle went out.

Darkness dropped over the Council chamber like a curtain soaked in ink. For one breath, Noa heard nothing but the ragged pull of Evelyn’s breathing beside her and the child’s small fingers tightening around Evelyn’s coat.

Then the dead began to speak.

A chair scraped across the stone floor.

Another answered from the far side of the chamber. Then another. Wood groaned. Fabric whispered. Someone inhaled through ruined teeth.

Noa’s burned hand flexed at her side. Beneath her skin, the architecture of every name in the room shivered into view—thin silver threads suspended in the dark. They ran from the walls to the guests, from the guests to the long table, from the table into the black glass basin at the center of the chamber.

The basin was empty.

No. Not empty.

Something pale moved beneath its surface, as if a moon had drowned there.

Evelyn shifted closer. The child made a frightened noise.

‘Stay behind me,’ Evelyn whispered.

Noa almost laughed. It came out as a dry scrape.