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Wax dripped down the side of the candle and onto Luis’s thue the way he held it More wax followed, forrabs me by the are at all while he’s doing it It hurts so bad and I’ and that’s when my mother finally turns around, finally sees uy decide? That I scratchedThat I blindedVal’s ar down her spine, the one that told her just how freaked out she really was She thought about the sealskins in his story, about the mermaid body she’d seen by the river, and came to no conclusions, except that there was no escape fro me this?"

"Because it sucks to bestep and they decide I don’t needdeal is

"Dave and Lolli don’t get it" His voice dropped to a whisper and he leaned close to her "They’re playing around with that drug, stealing fro a debt Then they bring you in" He stopped, but she saw the panic in his eyes "You’re stirring shit up Lolli is getting worse instead of better"

The troll appeared at the top of the ledge and looked down at Val His voice was low and deep as a drum "I cannot think what it was you ca you require?"

"The last delivery," she said "It was a… mermaid? She’s dead"

He went quiet, stared

Val sed "She looks like she’s been dead awhile"

Ravus started down the stairs, frockcoat billowing "Show reen of his skin fading, his features shifting until he looked huawky boy only a little older than Luis, a boy with odd, golden eyes and shaggy black hair

"You didn’t change your--," Val said

"That’s the way gla her off "There’s always some hint of what you were Feet turned backward, a tail, a hollow back Soet out of here," Luis said "I was onconversation about you and theto hear that deep, rich voice co man

"Yeah," Luis said, with a half-sroveled"

That made Ravus smile in turn, but even as aat the incisors "I think this death concerns you too, Luis Put off sleep a little longer and let’s see e ht learn"

The only sounds on the waterfront cae of the shore when Ravus, Val, and Luis arrived The body was still there, hair flowing like seagrass, necklaces of shell and pearl and sand-dollar doves caught around her neck like strangling ropes, white face looking like a reflection of the moon on the water Tiny fish darted around her body and swam in and out between her parted lips

Ravus knelt down, cupped the back of the ers, and lifted up her head Herthin, translucent teeth that looked like they ht his face so close to the ht kiss her Instead he sniffed twice before gently lowering her back into the water

He looked at Luis with shadowed eyes, then shouldered off his frockcoat and spread it on the ground He turned to Val "If you take her tail, we can et her back to my workroom"

"Was she poisoned?" Luis asked "Do you knohat killed her?"

"I have a theory," said Ravus He pushed back his hair with a wet hand, then waded into the East River

"I’ll help," Luis said, starting forward

Ravus shook his head "You can’t All that iron you insist on wearing could burn her skin I don’t want the evidence contaminated more than it has to be"

"The iron keeps"Safer, anyway"

Ravus s to keep you safe fronant task"

Val waded into the water and lifted the slippery tail, its ends as ragged as torn cloth The fish scales glittered like liquid silver as they flaked off on Val’s hand There were patches of pale flesh exposed along the mermaid’s side, where fish had already started to feed on her

"What a petty dra from the valley between the mounds

"Greyan" Ravus looked toward the shadows

Val recognized the creature that ca beard But behind hi arms and blackened hands, with eyes like birds, faces like cats, tattered wings that were as thin as sn

"Another death," one of them said, and there was a lowthis tihter

"I came to discover what I could," said Ravus He nodded to Val Together, they moved the body onto the coat Val felt nauseated as she realized that the fishy s from the flesh in her hands

Greyan took a step forward, his horns white in the streetlight "And look what is discovered"

"What are you iuise, he looked thin and tall, and beside Greyan’s bulk, terribly outmatched

"Do you deny you are a murderer?"

"Stop," said one of the others, a voice in shadow attached to what appeared to be a long and spindly body "We know him He has made harmless potions for us all"

"Do we know him?" Greyan moved closer and from the folds of his cracked leather coat pulled out two short, curved sickles with dark bronze blades He crossed them over his chest like an entombed pharaoh "He went into exile because of a murder"

"Have a care," said a tiny creature "Would you have all of us be judged now by the reason for our exile?"

"You know that I cannot refute the charge of murderer," Ravus said "Just as I know it is cowardly to wave a sword at soain"

"Fancy words You think you’re still a courtier," Greyan said "But your clever tongue won’t help you here"