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their names. Many were empty, the intended occupants long turned to dust beneath the old palace, but a few coffins had been salvaged and relocated. Such catacombs riddled Erisín, though the tombs outside the palace were smaller, plainer affairs, and the temples closed their crypts except on holy days.
    Some newer coffins were made of glass, to show off the preservation spells cast on their occupants. A flashymacabre custom, but it kept second-rate necromancers in business. Isyllt studied the dusty glass with amusement; Nikos kept his eyes on the hall ahead.
    Finally they came to the Alexios family crypt and Nikos pulled out an iron key from a cord around his neck. The lock clicked and the heavy door opened soundlessly into darkness. Nikos paused to light his lamp, but Isyllt had already summoned witchlight. The pale glow sent their shadows crawling across the floor and up the walls, but did nothing to dispel the cold.
    These sarcophagi were all stone—the Alexioi tended to conservatism. Nikos’ mother, the newest death, rested on a marble plinth in the center of the room. The likeness carved upon the stone lid was very good. Lychandra hadn’t worn that look of peace when she died, but by the time the body had been prepared she was serene. Isyllt had cleaned the queen’s corpse herself and cast the first of the preservation spells while Kiril recovered.
    A smell distracted her from memories, the sharp scent of lightning. “Someone’s been here. It reeks of magic.”
    Nikos sniffed and stifled a sneeze at the dust. He set aside his lamp and incense and crouched beside the chests piled around the plinth to inspect the locks. “Broken.” He made a face as though he wanted to spit. “Kistos could do a better job with a hair pin.” He stared down at the velvet-lined bottom of a gilded box. “All her jewels…”
    “They weren’t given as alms?”
    He shook his head wearily. “Father couldn’t bear the thought of seeing them again on some other woman’s breast. How did thieves get in here?”
    Isyllt laid a hand on the door and frowned. “The spell may have been tampered with. It wouldn’t be hard, for awitch worth her salt and silver.” There—a faint discord in the gentle hum of the spell. “Someone broke and reset it.” She turned toward the sarcophagus, trailed her fingers over the dead queen’s face. “This one is intact.” She couldn’t stop the upswell of pride; they’d be hard pressed to undo Kiril’s work. Even weakened as he had been after the plague, he was still the most powerful sorcerer in Erisín.
    Nikos sighed, relief on his face. At least his mother’s body had been spared. And the city might be spared the sight of the thieves’ entrails hung from the city walls, when Mathiros found out about this.
    “How did they get in and out of the catacombs to begin with?” the prince said. “I’d like to think the priests would have noticed someone so burdened with stolen goods.”
    “They might have found a way in from the city’s tombs, though that would mean a lot of digging and crawling in the dark—” Her nostrils flared again. Dust, magic, the fragrant sandalwood Nikos had brought. And under that, something musky, bittersweet, like anise and autumn leaves. Like snakes. Isyllt’s brow creased in a frown. “Do you smell that?”
    Nikos moved closer, inhaling sharply. “What is it?”
    “Vampires.”

CHAPTER 2

    A n hour before dawn the Diadachon Garden was fragrant with rain and roses and the tang of wet grass, and bread from the kitchens when the wind shifted just so. Fountains splashed softly and a palace cat sang love songs to a would-be paramour somewhere in the distance. A quiet hour—the staff were either already at their chores or clinging to last scraps of sleep, the nightshift guards trying not to drowse as they waited for their replacements.
    Savedra had nearly given up on the assassin.
    Her mother’s note had arrived this morning, coded in one of the Severoi’s many