The murdered girl’s father was sweating, though in the early morning air their home was cold enough their breath was visible and the mother had an extra shawl draped across her shoulders. Ilan made a note, though it meant very little. The citizens of Silgard often squirmed and sweated before him. Gratifying as the fear was, it made getting information slow.
At least he’d gotten a few hours of sleep after leaving Csilla. Few people would trust you if you were yawning during an interrogation.
‘Please, Inquisitor,’ the mother said, placing a hand on her husband’s back. ‘We have to prepare her. We’ve readied her place in the...’ The woman choked on the last word, eyes unable to meet his. ‘They won’t even let us see her body, much less sit for her. She was loved. People need to see that.’
Ilan cleared his throat. ‘She can’t be interred inside the city, I’m afraid.’
They didn’t need to see the obscene wounds on what they doubtless remembered as perfect skin or spread the secret of what those wounds actually were. None of the victims’ families had been allowed to see what the killer had made of their loved ones.
‘She’s already been put out for the Servants of the Road.’
The travelling priests swept up everything too far from the provincial Church seats to warrant congregational involvement or theologically messy deaths with bodies no city would claim. They would burn her without ceremony, but they would treat her with respect.
The father’s fists clenched, his wife’s face now the bloodless white of a scar. Ilan held up a hand.
‘I sent her with a writ. Vasya will see her soul to Asten if she’s earned it.’ He could at least give them that comfort.
‘We can’t even send her back to Saika?’ The mother’s accent slipped through in her anguish, tugging an irksome note of sympathy in him. He knew as well as they did how long that road was. No one would be willing to carry a desecrated corpse through the eastern wilds and the endless mud that would come with the spring thaw or even hold ashes that long. ‘Somewhere family could visit her remains, even if she can’t be here...’
‘I’m sure her soul is at peace with the eternal,’ he said.
He hoped it was true. The one blessing in all this was that even the defiled spirits seemed to be passing on, no matter what the Izir was preaching about lingering souls and ghosts.
‘The body is only a vessel, after all. And she’s already gone.’
That was why he’d waited to speak with them. Any questioning that spent the whole time debating where to put the body would be a waste of everyone’s time.
The mother murmured a prayer, a balm for grief, but the words were slow in her mouth. The father’s eyes were still wary.
Ilan leaned forward, pressure with nowhere for them to run. ‘I need to know if you saw anything suspicious in the days before her death. Was she meeting anyone new? Did she mention being followed, or seeing anything strange?’
The woman gave a little shake of her head, the man rubbing at his knuckles.
Ilan narrowed his eyes. ‘Think carefully.’
The two sat silent, breath heavy. That was fine. He’d set the temperature to one he was well used to; he could sit here as long as it took for them to boil and crack.
The father leaned forward first.
‘She—’
‘Karlos.’ His wife grabbed his sleeve.
Ilan raised an eyebrow. ‘If there’s something I should know, say it. She’s dead. There’s nothing that can stain her now. All we can do is try to give her justice.’
The mother’s hand dropped back to her lap. Her husband continued.
‘Lili had come to resent going to service.’ He spoke slowly and with struggle, as if the words were being fished from his throat. ‘She was going to see the Izir. I worried for her soul, whether she’d even be allowed to stay in the city.’
The Izir. Just one more wretched thing in the middle of an already wretched business.
‘Why was she visiting him?’ It didn’t reflect well on her, worse on them for letting her stray. ‘Was she ill? Or perhaps... other interests?’ She would hardly have been the first to lust after the angel.
The man’s eyebrows drew together.
‘It began after that first body was found. She couldn’t sleep for worry and nightmares – she was always a sensitive girl.’ Now his words were tripping over themselves in eagerness to be done talking. ‘She said his prayers and tonics helped, stopped her from pacing all night at least. But I don’t think she believed his heresies – she was desperate. She’d even talked about joining the Church, so it doesn’t make sense. She couldn’t have believed him. She just liked that he was divine. That he was a comfort.’ The man’s voice rose with every anguished word.
‘What sort of nightmares?’ Ilan asked. They’d been careful not to let word of the marks on the bodies slip to the public. Novitiates, however, were young and gossip-prone.
