Marietta’s hand was clutching mine, and the tendrils attached to her vow marks pulsed strangely in my chest. “Can you obtain the sketches of the Vein Ripper’s victims from Coroner’s Court?” I tried to keep the desperation, the abject terror, from my voice.
Frank looked thoughtful. “For how long will you need them?”
“Five minutes.”
“Then, of course. That shouldn’t be a problem. I can have them here and back before anyone notices. And there’s a bloke who owes me in case I can’t. Now’s the best time, while everyone is in a tizzy. Give me my own five.”
Frank exited the room, leaving me alone with Marietta.
“What happened downstairs, Gabriel? I couldn’t see around your shoulder well, but what I did see was gruesome.” She shuddered. “Nightmare inducing.”
“Yes,” I said absently, thoughts coiling and refusing to connect.
“Gabriel?” She touched my chin and turned my face toward her. “We can leave. I’m sure we can come back later.”
A fierce surge of something passed through me. She was trying to shield me. “I’m fine. We need to do this before Dresden puts a halt on our ability to move freely.”
Spirits. What if my ugly suspicions bore fruit?
Frank hustled back inside. “It’s mayhem down there. I think five minutes is about all wecanspare.”
I nodded and took the sketches. Cold fear crystallized as I looked at the first one. Older and mangled, but I could fit the shape of her hands to my memories, my nightmares. I flipped to the next.
The crystals turned to ice.
I fiddled with the edge of the paper. I didn’t want to see the last one. To confirm.
From the corner of my eye I saw Marietta watching me.
I flipped the page. The image wavered in my view, then broke. I placed the sketches on the desk before my shaking hands could scatter them to the floor.
The three images combined with the fourth body made identities simple.
The one identified victim had been a woman with a surname that caused no alarm. Phineas would send a note from the records office any day now confirming her natal name. Forester. Iris Forester, not Sinclair.
A rushed wedding, Marietta had said. But I should haveknown. The man Ipaidto keep track of the six of them shouldhave told me immediately that one of them hadchanged her name.
Where was he? Why hadn’t he sent anything?
What would I have done had I known the first victim’s original name earlier? Before the investigation had begun?
“Master Noble?”
“Yes. Thank you, Frank.” I forced a smile. “This was very helpful.”
Helpful in the way that someone helped you dig a grave in a cemetery plot that just happened to have your name on the headstone.
“They are still working on the identities,” he said. “I’ll let you know when they pop the second.”
“Why is it taking so long to identify them?” Marietta asked. Her hand reached for the sketches.
Frank put his hand on the pages. “Destroyed their magic. Ripped out their spiritual veins. We use those to identify each other, to find connections, so them being gone...” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t look, mistress. Their faces, well, there’s a reason they’ve been waiting to release pictures to the public for identification. Even the personal effects have been withheld. Gruesome thing, a family realizing their loved one is a victim from a public outing.”
“But they need to be identified. At some point—”
“It’s just time, mistress. A potion that can piece together broken magic has been used on each body. The second victim’s potion needs another five sunrises to mature. Then we will know.”
“What if there’s a fifth victim before that?” she asked. “The killer is going faster. They must know there is a timeline.”
