"I don't like this."
"To be fair, Matthias, you don't like much."
-- Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

"I don't know," Ilaran said for what felt like the hundredth time. "Haliran hasn't had the courtesy to put a map in the zombie's cage! So I just don't know where it is!"

Abihira couldn't seem to get this very simple fact through her thick skull. "But can't you tell anything about it? Is it nearby?"

Ilaran closed his eyes and counted to ten. It would cause a great deal of awkwardness if he murdered his cousin. "You created it. If anyone can find it, it should be you."

"That's the problem! I can't!" Abihira turned to the other person present. She asked beseechingly, "Lian?"

Imrahil/Lian had been silent during this argument. He looked rather like a deer caught in the headlights now that he had been brought into it.

"What can I do?" he asked.

"You'd know that better than me. You've been a necromancer for longer."

The two of them started bickering about it. Ilaran squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think things through. Fact: Haliran had a zombie. Fact: it was almost certainly already on the planet. Obvious deduction: she planned to use it for something. Fact: causing a zombie apocalypse was not in her best interests, but threatening to cause one would provide her with a bargaining chip. Obvious deduction: it was contained in a very secure place where it couldn't bite someone. That ruled out a city, town, village, and even an ordinary house.

What didn't it rule out?

A castle dungeon. A prison. A cave somewhere in the mountains.

An island.

His eyes snapped open. That made the most sense. An island, probably quite small and privately-owned, somewhere that it would be hard for intruders to stumble across by accident. But where? Somewhere off the coast? An island in a lake?

Or an island in the Weinagan Sea?

In the background Abihira was whining about something and Imrahil was saying, "I am not going to ask Death!"

Ilaran ignored them both. He went to his desk and rummaged around until he found a map of Saoridhlém. Tananerl was the westernmost part of the empire. To the north-east, roughly in the middle of the country, was either a very large lake or a small inland sea. The scientists insisted it was a lake because it was full of freshwater. Everyone else ignored them and called it the Weinagan Sea. The map showed two islands. They were both too large for Haliran's purposes. But there were bound to be other, smaller ones in the sea.

He needed a map of its coastline specifically. And he knew exactly where to find one. Thank all the gods for Irímé organising the archives.

"You've got an idea," Abihira said, finally picking up on his thoughts.

"I've got a plausible theory," Ilaran said. "I need more evidence to prove it."

Haliran could have gone to an island off the coast, in the actual ocean. Ilaran could be completely wrong and she could be holed up in the middle of a city somewhere. But he was willing to bet on the Weinagan island theory. It would be damned difficult to land a spaceship on the coast unobserved. Too many lighthouses, magic academies, and warning spells in case of invasion. And unless she was actively suicidal, she wouldn't have too many people around where they could be bitten.

"The Weinagan sea?" Abihira asked, reacting to his thoughts rather than his words. "Does Haliran own any islands there?"

"Siarvin will know."

"She doesn't have to own one herself," Imrahil/Lian said. "She might be working with Gimalinya Narmirisvóeln, who used to run an organ-stealing operation."

There was a brief, stunned silence.

"A what operation?" Abihira asked.

Ilaran envied her ignorance. He'd had to deal with that crime before. A doctor had decided he could make more money by killing people and selling their organs on the black market than by healing them. This had been during the Anhuenhar War, a territorial squabble between two of Tananerl's kingdoms that had gotten wildly out of hand. It had come damn close to turning into an all-out civil war. One side had developed spells that caused organ failure and used them against their enemies. The demand for organ transplants exceeded the supply.

Ilaran had become very suspicious about the number of healthy people dying in hospitals. When he exhumed the bodies, he found they had been cut open and all their major organs removed.

He had dealt with both the organ-stealing doctors and the magicians who had caused the whole ghastly mess.

Their bodies were still on display along the main road to Anhuenhar.

Abihira followed his thoughts. Her horror was clear both on her face and through their telepathy. "They kill people to steal their organs? They kill people to steal their organs?"

Ilaran couldn't help thinking it was hilariously ironic that the necromancer was morally outraged about this.

"They did," Imrahil corrected her. "Until I found out about it."

"...What happened?"

Imrahil gave her a funny look. "I showed Gimalinya the error of her ways."

"Apparently you didn't do it well enough," Ilaran observed. "None of the ones I dealt with will ever cause trouble again."

Imrahil glared at him. It might have been intimidating if Ilaran hadn't died less than two months ago. "Gimalinya has never committed that crime again. But I think she still has the storage building where she hid the organs before selling them. It was on an island she owned near Weinagan's west coast."

"Why didn't you mention this before?" Abihira asked.

"Never thought it was important before. If I told you about every crime I knew about, we'd be here for the next century."

Ilaran left the two of them to argue about it. If they wanted to keep Imrahil's identity a secret, they were going the wrong way about it. Anyone could tell at once that they were siblings. Even though they didn't look very alike — Abihira resembled her father's side of the family while Imrahil looked more like his mother's parents — their bickering made their relationship clear.

He went to the archives. Before Irímé, the maps would have been shelved haphazardly anywhere there happened to be a space. Now they were all in the same bookshelf, grouped by country and in alphabetical order. Ilaran spared a moment to thank the gods for Irímé.

He found a detailed map of the sea and brought it back to his room. Abihira and Imrahil had stopped arguing and were now using his blackboard to... Ilaran stopped and squinted at their doodles. Were those meant to be guns that shot fire instead of bullets?

He decided their wild ideas were none of his business. "I've found a map. Which island are we looking for?"

Imrahil took the map and opened it on Ilaran's desk. He pored over it.

"This one," he said, pointing at a small circle labelled Jeilósh-chiyen.

Cliff Island. How very... mundane. If Ilaran had been asked to name it, he'd have said something like Hesheng-chiyen — Evisceration Island[1].

"Can you get us there?" Abihira asked Imrahil.

He shook his head, pursing his lips. "Technically yes. The trouble is, we'd immediately set off every alarm in the place. What about this? I take you to the shore. You turn into a phoenix and fly over. They won't expect that."

"Not very subtle," Ilaran observed. He remembered only too well the destruction Abihira's fire could cause.

"We don't have time for subtlety."

~~~~

The first thing that struck Abi — literally — was the icy wind. She shivered. She was still wearing the light, formal clothes she'd picked out back in Gengxin. Was it really only two days ago? They were dusty and smelt of smoke, there was a tear at one of the elbows, and she'd chosen them for a warm summer's day in a palace. They were sadly unsuited to racing all over the empire.

From a sightseer's perspective, Lian had brought them to a very nice beach. A bit chilly, but excellent for building sandcastles and with the sea stretching out to the horizon. To the left further along the coast was a mountain. To the right the beach gradually turned into rocks.

It was deserted. A whole army of zombies could have marched out of the sea and no one could raise the alarm.

"Where's the island?" she asked, her teeth chattering.

Lian pointed. Abi followed the line of his finger and saw a black dot on the horizon.

"That's its highest cliff."

Abi thought of the people brought here to be murdered for their organs. That tiny speck looked so innocuous. Had they been conscious? Had they seen it from this beach? Had they known?

"All right," she said quietly. "I'll fly over and—" A thought struck her. "Wait! I'd better make sure the monster's still there."

It would be just like Haliran to move it somewhere else. Assuming she'd ever been here at all and they weren't chasing a false lead...

Abi pushed that thought away. She closed her eyes. The telepathic link was still there. She just had to focus.

Either she was focusing too much, or it had somehow changed. Abi frowned and tried to examine it. The original link was the same as before. Connected to it was... Oh gods. A faint but definite second link.

"It's bitten someone," she said aloud.

Lian swore in Saoridhin and several other languages. "Only one person?"

Abi didn't reply. She was busy following the second link to its source.

"Only one?" Lian repeated. "Or has it already spread to the entire island?"

"Be quiet," Abi said, more harshly than she intended.

She could see through the second monster's eyes. She wished she couldn't.

From her perspective she could tell nothing about the person themselves. They were strapped to an operating table in the middle of a hospital room. Their mouth was held shut by something that didn't feel natural. Two women stood off to the side. Only the first one's face was visible. She was so non-descript that she must have been wearing a magical disguise. Abi could only see the top of the other woman's head. She recognised her voice, though. Haliran.

Who else? she thought grimly.

"So far the longest lasted two days," the first woman was saying. "This one won't last that long."

"This is taking too long," Haliran complained. "I want to take one and set it loose in Tananerl."

Abi felt as if someone had stabbed her in the heart with a dagger made of ice. Ilaran! she yelled telepathically.

He replied immediately, suggesting he'd been waiting for her to tell him what was happening. She felt slightly guilty about making him wait for so long.

Of bloody course she does, Ilaran said, able to pick up on Haliran's last words from Abi's thoughts. Please tell me you can destroy the monster in the next five minutes.

There are two. And one of them's... Abi stopped. Suddenly she realised what was happening. She felt sick. One of them is still alive. They're being turned into a monster.

Kill them. Now. Underlying Ilaran's words was a flash of memory: how he had felt when the parasite took over his body, how he wouldn't wish that on his worst enemy. (Well. On second thoughts, he wished it on Haliran.) How being dead had actually been preferable.

The first woman's words came back to her. "The longest lasted two days." Abi realised with a sinking sense of horror that Haliran had taken the zombie just over two days ago. The original zombie was still alive and well, for a given value of the phrase. That meant...

She's done this to other people. She's turning them into zombies to see what happens.

I hope you're proud of yourself, Ilaran said sourly.

Abi winced. She couldn't dispute that this was ultimately her fault.

The first woman was speaking again. "We still haven't got an antidote."

"We don't need one. Set it loose in Tananerl then leave the planet."

"We've no way to contain it in Tananerl. Sooner or later it will spread to the rest of Saoridhlém. I happen to live here. I'd rather not have my home overrun with the living dead."

Abi briefly hoped that the disagreement would lead to the other woman killing Haliran. That would solve one problem for them all. Unfortunately Haliran didn't continue to argue.

"The longer we keep it here, the more likely someone will find us. I say we should announce we have the monster. Tell everyone to leave us alone or we'll release it. Then continue to work on an antidote, and release the monster as soon as we have it."

Abi didn't hear the other woman's response. The person on the bed suddenly thrashed. Her sight went dark. Something hit her. She opened her eyes and found herself back on the beach.

Did you hear all of that? she asked Ilaran.

"What's happening?" Lian asked in the background.

Ilaran said grimly, Yes.

Abi searched for the telepathic link again. Her heart sank. The person whose mind she'd just been in was gone. In their place was the same mindless anger as the other monster.

I'm going to burn this whole island to ash, she thought.

"Excuse me if I'm interrupting," Lian snapped, "but what is happening?"

From his perspective it must have looked as if Abi was staring vaguely into space. One hasty explanation later, and his impatient expression was replaced with one of sheer horror.

"So I'm going to burn the entire place," Abi finished.

"Excellent idea."

Even after several transformations, Abi still wasn't used to turning into a phoenix. The disorientating and slightly frightening moment when she was no longer standing on solid ground, when her arms suddenly turned into wings holding her up, when she was suddenly wrapped in warmth as if she was wearing an extra coat, when she remembered that she was on fire and she wasn't being burnt... It was interesting, certainly, but not something she wanted to experience frequently.

Lian retreated to a safe distance. He sat down on the grass at the top of the beach. Abi circled overhead once to get used to flying again.

"Wait!" Lian yelled suddenly.

Abi's first thought was that she'd come too close and burnt him. She panicked. She closed her wings. She plunged head-first into the sand.

It was a painless but embarrassing accident. Abi shook the sand off her head. Some of it had gotten lodged between her feathers. She looked up.

Lian was still a safe distance away, staring intently at the island. His head was tilted ever so slightly to one side, as if he was listening to something only he could hear.

"Don't you feel it too?" he asked.

Abi listened. She heard the waves lapping on the beach. She felt the wind ruffling her feathers. That was all. She shook her head.

Lian kept watching the island. "There's something strange out there."

We know that, Abi said, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes.

He didn't hear her. He continued, "It feels like... necromancy. But not your necromancy. It's much weaker." His suspicious expression disappeared, replaced with a nauseated one. "I don't believe it. The whole place is guarded by revenants!"

Chapter Footnotes:

[1] "Chiyen" is Saoridhin for "island", "jeilósh" means "cliff", and "hesheng" means "to disembowel; to eviscerate".