Reaper

Chapter 1: The Butterfly House

Death never smelled the same.

An hour after dusk, it had been sweat and onions, old man Grom passing into the Night Realm face down in his stew. Now, deep in the winding, lantern-strung lanes of the Witching District of the Crux, with the moon high over the black fingers and lace of the swamplands, cardamom and lilies scented the humid air.

Death Warden Ava Longbane flicked back the tails of her dark coat and crouched by her second corpse of the night. Harquim Sorrel, the idle spawn of a silk trader, dead in a pleasure house's moon-lit bath. Reed slim—unlike most human's of wealth—he was as waxen as the lilies drifting in the scented water with him. His face, once the picture of youth and privilege, hung soft and wrinkled on bone just below the surface.

Ava met hazel eyes gone still and wide. At eighteen years of age, Harquim Sorrel had died as he'd lived: steeped in the dark pleasures of the Crux. Beneath the aroma of soap and flowers, more astringent scents tainted the air. Medicinal herbs or those that bewitched.

Scents she shouldn't have smelled. Not as diluted as they were.

A fine shudder passed through her, which she ignored.

"How long's he been here?" She glanced over her shoulder, peering past her hood's worn edge and the dark strands of hair that escaped it.

The bath attendant, a diminutive blue water sprite called Skit, jittered on the courtyard's porcelain tiles: nerves and the barely contained energy natural to her kind. Like the fire bugs battering the metal bell-flower lantern she held, sprites lived fast and died young.

A fitting philosophy for someone who worked in the Crux's notorious Butterfly House, a club for the avant-garde, amorous, and bored rich.

"I don't know, do I?" The sprite hitched up the strap of her dress, a garment so spit-thin there was little point to its existence. "The flop hired the suite yesterday for a full two days. Said he wasn't to be disturbed. Not even to re-spell his water or nothing."

Ava arched a brow, holding the sprite's gaze. "Flop?"

Cerulean blue skin flushed a delicate purple. "No offense intended, warden. I just meant—"

"That he was human. Impotent in magic. But from what I hear, not his nether regions."

Skit snorted. "Aye, he was a regular at Lady Hellebore's gatherings. Liked the mixed company and all. Fancied them tall and potent, if you take my meaning."

Ava's pulse quickened a beat. That double entendre meant trouble—of the powerful fey kind. Most Whym, like the sprite beside her, were born bound to a single branch element of the God Tree: fire, air, water, earth, or spirit ether. But one breed could wield more, anything from two to all five elements.

"Any particular elf?" She forced the words out, needing but not wanting an answer. Despite being a human city, the Crux, as a trade hub, wasn't short of elves and other Whym species. Like humans, elementals enjoyed life's finer things: spices, ornate fabrics, metals, and gemstones. With the Tempest Sea to the west and the God Wood's mountains and lakes to the east, snake toads and midges weren't the only creatures to plague the flooded forests of the Black Glades. On any given night, avoiding the adept and their magic required sharp wits and light feet.

Skit wrinkled her snub nose. "The nix had to take what he could get. You know elves. Bit snooty. The poor thing had slim pickings, mostly just those too poppy hopped to see straight."

Nix. Short for 'no tricks'. Ava bit her tongue this time. Nulls, impotents, flops, the ungifted, the godless, the forsaken; the list of pejoratives for humans and others born without magic was as long as the Glades were wide. If she challenged every slur aimed at her or others, she'd have no time for the dead. "Your client have any visitors tonight?"