The Dragon Round (Dragon #1)(77)

Ravis stands in front of a wooden door with a hang lock. Livion looks through the iron bars of two other doors in the room. They lead to barely lit passages lined with cells. The flag of Blue Island is painted on the wall at the end of each. These are holding cells, the least valuable investment in the complex because prisoners don’t stay in them long enough to pay for board and sundries and the maintenance fees the city pays are minimal, although, like the other cells, Ject does guarantee that nine out of ten will be occupied.

Several minutes later, the general marches up one of the passages carrying a lantern. His mustache sags from lack of sleep; not a single fold of his uniform does. He produces two keys and hands them to Ravis, who uses the first to let Ject into the small room and the second to unlock the wooden door.

Ject says, “I need your experience.”

“In what way?” Livion says.

“You’ll see.”

Ravis opens the door. Livion gags at the smell of fresh blood. The others don’t. Around the walls of a large room are scarred chairs, split bamboo rods, coils of rope, heaps of chain, iron bars with pins, and other implements. Chains with hooks hang from the ceiling. In the middle of the room atop the drain are three bodies shrouded in bloody burlap.

“Let’s start with the one on the left,” Ject says.

Ravis unwraps a woman. Livion’s seen men burned to death and drowned. He’s seen limbs torn off and bodies horribly scarred, but he’s never seen a person eviscerated. Her rib cage has been wrenched wide to get at her heart and lungs. A black chiton still dangles from her shoulders and covers her thighs demurely.

“She was found on the roof of a warehouse in the Harbor,” Ject says, “spotted by someone farther up the Hill. There was no access to the roof from the warehouse. Now that one.”

The middle bundle is roughly the same size as the first. The canvas is peeled away. Livion follows a barely crusting line of blood from a bare foot up to a scrawny knee and the hem of a black chiton. Blood pools in the fabric. Her neck is gouged halfway through. One side of her face blushes purple, grit embedded in the skin.

“She’s our girl,” Livion whispers. He realizes he doesn’t know her name. She’d only been with them three months. Trist doesn’t think it worth learning a girl’s name until after she’s served a year.

Ject is surprised. “When did you last see her?”

“Last night,” Livion says. “Seven chimes. A little after. She brought me a note from my partner. Where did you find her?”

“Her dorm mother found her in a cut through between two Servants’ lanes,” Ject says. “The mother was out looking for our first victim, actually. She lived in the same dorm and hadn’t come home after reportedly meeting some man. Did your girl go back to your house?”

“Yes,” Livion says. “Maybe. My partner wasn’t waiting for a response. She might have gone back to her dorm.”

“When did you go home?”

“I didn’t,” Livion says. “I stayed in my office, waiting for word about Omer.”

“Of course. Let’s see the third.”

The third body is a man’s. His belly is ripped open, his viscera apparently gnashed to pieces. The rest of him is strangely untouched, but for a bruised chin and dried blood on his lip from a shattered tooth.

“And that’s my rider,” Livion says.

“He was found not far from the piers,” Ject says, “tucked in an alcove in an alley. Curious, you knowing two of them. And you might have been the last to see each alive.”

Livion edges toward the door. “I had nothing to do with—”

“Did I say you did?” Ject says. “Are you sure you don’t know her?” He points to the first body.

Livion shakes his head.

“Come here. I want you to look at these wounds.” Ject squats beside the hollowed girl and waves Livion to him. He says, “What happened here?”

“She looks . . . eaten. I’ve seen rats do this to galley cats.”

“Pretty big rat, don’t you think?” Ject pulls out his dirk and holds it over the wound. “Even if it took two bites to tear away the belly, its mouth would have to have been at least this wide.”

“Where is this going?” Livion says.

“What has a mouth that wide that could also leave a body on top of a roof?”

Livion can’t say it. It seems impossible. Ject does. “Your dragon’s moved north.”

“Dragons avoid cities.”

“Maybe this one is too young to realize it should,” Ject says. “Hanosh would look like a feeding trough.”

“What really happened to them, though?” Livion says. “He does look devoured.” Dragons, he saw during the first attack, savor the organs. “And our girl, maybe a knife did that. Maybe a claw.”

Ject stands beside him and pats his back. “You’ve already done the right thing,” he says, “by speaking. However tough that was, it’ll be tougher to keep doing the right thing. But you’ve survived two dragon attacks. Few can make that claim. Your word, on top of what you said at Council, on top of your status, can stop this madness.”

“What if I bring the madness down around me?” Livion says.

“You already have,” Ject says. “I could easily say you’re behind these deaths, couldn’t I?”