“–identification is that this is the landseur de Raзan. And once his family is informed, the odds are we lose any chance of discovering anything more from that body.”

Fanier made a sympathetic noise. “I’ll do what I can, of course. And I sent for Istre, but I suspect he has a class.”

“I gave it up as a bad bet.”

Rathe turned, to see b’Estorr standing in the open door, the same apprentice who had escorted him from the door scowling at the magist.

“Magist b’Estorr,” she said, with icy reproof, and Fanier nodded.

“I can see that, and we still don’t need you. Run along.”

The girl’s scowl deepened, but she closed the door gently enough behind her. b’Estorr wiped one hand over his mouth, and Rathe guessed he was hiding a smile.

“Students finally got to you, then?” Fanier asked. “Only took you, what, three years to cancel a class during ghost‑tide?”

“It wasn’t the students,” b’Estorr answered, and this time the smile was rueful. “It was the other masters. What have you found, Nico?”

“A body in the Tyrseia,” Rathe answered, and was meanly pleased to see the other man’s eyes widen. “Drowned, and no obvious place to do it in, and Fanier says the body’s not been moved. Can you tell if there’s a ghost?”

With a sigh, b’Estorr crossed to the shrouded body, gently lifted the drapery away. He stared at the dead man for a long moment, then lightly placed a hand over the man’s heart. His expression was calm, remote, eyes fixed on something the others couldn’t see, and then Rathe sensed a shift in the vague–presence–that he recognized as b’Estorr’s constant ghosts. Then b’Estorr’s hand closed and lifted, and the magist turned away from the body, one eyebrow rising.

“Oh, yes. There’s a ghost. Thought something of himself, did he?”

There was a strange note in b’Estorr’s voice, the whisper of the upcountry Chadroni vowels that years at the university and the Chadroni court had beaten out of him, and Rathe blinked. “Why do you say that?”

b’Estorr shook himself. “I can’t blame him for not taking kindly to being murdered, but I do dislike that kind of arrogance.” He smiled wryly. “And that’s arrogance of my own, I know. So he drowned, Fanier? Drugged?”

“If your lordship wouldn’t mind waiting,” Fanier said, and b’Estorr’s grin became more genuine.

“Sorry.”

Fanier nodded to the waiting apprentice, who had a tablet ready. “All right. There’s no evidence of gross violence done to the body, either before or after death. That leaves poisons and other subtle violence, which it’s now my duty to examine for.”

The apprentice scribbled rapidly, charcoal moving across the sheet of rough paper, and Fanier glared at the body. “You know how much I hate trying to prove murder during the ghost‑tide,” he said. “And that’s what you’re after, Nico, isn’t it?”

“I’d really rather it wasn’t,” Rathe answered. “But drowning on a bone‑dry stage isn’t likely to be accidental, is it?”

“No, no, I’ll grant you that,” Fanier said. “But it’s going to take time.”

“Fan–” Rathe stopped himself, tried again. “I’ll wait. I want to know for certain before I send to the family.”

b’Estorr’s head lifted. “Do you mean we’re sitting on a body whose family hasn’t been notified yet?”

“Istre,” Rathe began, and b’Estorr lifted both hands.

“I think I’ll wait, too.”

Fanier snorted, reaching beneath the table to clatter his tools together. “I thought you might.”

“Do you know how many ordinances of the university are being broken by your acting without notifying the family?” b’Estorr demanded. Fanier ignored him, evidently taking the question as rhetorical, and the necromancer shook his head. “As a master of the university, it’s my duty to remain and make sure you don’t break any more–than you have to.”

Fanier grinned at that, hands busy with something that was like but not quite an astrologer’s flat orrery, and Rathe sighed. “Thanks,” he said, and b’Estorr waved the word away, his face suddenly sober.

“If you’re right, you’ll have enough to worry about.”

And that was all too true, Rathe thought. He made a face, Watching out of the corner of his eye as Fanier stooped over the body, laying tiny brass figures over heart and lungs and viscera. The polished shapes seemed to catch the available light, concentrating it, and for a second, Rathe thought he saw the wet dark red shape of the man’s liver, floating ghostlike above his unbroken skin. He looked away then, swallowing hard, saw the landseur’s clothing discarded on a side table.

“Think there’ll be a problem if I look through that?” he asked softly, and b’Estorr glanced at him, an expression almost of indulgence hovering on his face.

“It shouldn’t bother them,” he said aloud, and Rathe moved to the table, grateful for the distraction.

There wasn’t much to find, and he hadn’t expected much, but he went methodically through pockets and purse, laid out his meager findings beside the man’s stacked shoes. They were newly soled, Rathe saw, and a part of him winced, thinking of now‑unnecessary expense. But the man could afford it, he told himself, at least by the look of the rest of his goods. There was a posy in a gilt‑filigree holder, a simple spray of tiny bell‑shaped blossoms poised against a single dark green leaf, a lace‑edged handkerchief and a Silklands amber snuffbox, and a pair of bone dice. Rathe’s attention sharpened at that–gamblers created their own personal hazards, more often than not–but a second look made him put that notion aside. The dice were carved with the signs of the solar zodiac, a child’s toy, for idle fortune‑telling, not the tool of a serious gambler. There were no small coins in the flat purse, just a couple of square pillars, and, folded very small, a recent letter of credit for an amount that raised Rathe’s eyebrows. The man had not been kept on a short leash, that much was certain, but there was no way to tell if any or all of the draft had been used. There were no letters, threatening or demanding or even a scrawled invitation card, and the fashionable red‑bound tablets were empty, the wax stiff from disuse. Little enough evidence of a life, he thought, saddened in spite of himself, and turned away again. Nothing to help him, certainly.

It was more than an hour before Fanier straightened at last, motioning for the apprentice to put away his tablets and recover the body, and b’Estorr met him with a faint smile. Fanier scowled.

“All right. What is it?”

b’Estorr looked down at his hands, but the movement didn’t quite hide the smugness of his smile. “I don’t think you’ll find it’s a traditional form of poison.”

“You are not,” Fanier said, “going to tell me it’s some rare Chadroni poison, are you?”

b’Estorr shook his head. “I’m not even going to tell you it’s a rare Silklands poison, which is what I was thinking–since the body does seem to be remarkably untouched.” He paused. “Are you still cataloging Chadroni poisons?”

“Man has to have a hobby.” Fanier pushed his glasses back to the top of his head. “Damn it all, there are changes consistent with poison, and for my best guess a vegetable poison, but I couldn’t tell you which one, or how it was given him–not in food or drink, I suspect, but I can’t swear. But the poison isn’t what killed him, what killed him is the Dis‑damned water in his lungs.”

“So you’ll swear it’s murder, and not accident?” Rathe asked, and reached for his own folded tablets.

“I’m not happy,” Fanier said. “Drowned he is, and probably poisoned, and on a dry stage, Nico.”

“Fanier,” Rathe said, and the alchemist cleared his throat.

“I’ll swear to it. I just wish I had more to swear to.”

Rathe nodded in sympathy, and looked to the clock that stood on the shelf that ran along the far wall. It was a pretty thing, painted with a wreath of flowers that went badly with the brass instruments surrounding it. Almost three o’clock, he saw, and made a note of it with a sigh. “All right, Fan.”