IMAD MARINUS.

     tamara has made arrangements with the shadow dragons for the body to be brought to her before first light, while the cobbled streets of minrathous are still shades of blue, and cool to the touch. blood magick is as temperamental as it is potent, not to mention, inherently personal. despite ample warning to not give anything of herself, already anonymous in this city, away — she'd needed to create an environment that at least approximates her workstation at home. enough to beckon her more where benedict had taught her how properly to care for a body before their rites when she was a girl, than this stale, sequestered off, underground steam room of a defunct thermae.

     she had taken the morning, then, opening her own soul to the deceased laid before her, sharing in silent conversation while she ensured his body was properly embalmed with her own solution. tamara had been firm on that point, too, learning what the morticians in minrathous used was far from effective, and frankly, egregiously marked up. she lights her usual incense — frankincense, sandalwood, marjoram, and a bit of jasmine — complementing her embalming solution, which have worked their way into her limber hands in the process, and make the room feel breathable, less cloying.

     she spends the last few hours before her appointed time easing the anxieties and grief of the deceased. they discuss closure, and all of the small ways that grief perseveres beyond death. tamara promises that his cat will remain fed — he shares that she'd particularly enjoyed the fish from hal's stand on wednesdays. she also promises to leave his modest collection of serials with the library. as the hour approaches, the spirit is content to walk towards the fade, and she takes a deep breath, as if awakening from a dream, when the door behind her clicks open.

     by design, she does not know anything about the man she is meant to mimic in glamour, and it is meant to remain that way. despite the veil that covers all but her eyes and hands, tamara smiles pleasantly in greeting, holding his gaze when their eyes meet. she gives him a few moments to settle to his surroundings, adjust to the purposefully placed candle-lights. "there is no real dignified way to ask this, but ... i must ask you to remove your clothes."

     she is then quick to turn back to the body before her and begin her work, starting with his remarkable eyes — dark, dark brown, but with a molten warmth in this light, like the long, stretched yawn of a late summer's sunset. a decisive, steadfast sharpness to its beautifully rounded shape. she tilts her head slowly, this way and that, carefully observing her handiwork. she finds that she needs only to close her eyes to recall his, and she makes a few small adjustments. when she is satisfied, for now, she lays her fingers reverently to his eyelids to close them. perhaps it is the smell of home, or the urgency of the work at hand, but her heart feels eased; her magical focus comes easily.

     her phrasing makes him chuckle. a low, soft sound. imad undresses methodically, unhesitating, lingering in the fore of the room. he is wearing only streetclothes—he toes off his slippers unwinds the length of fabric that belts his waist, removing the short, curved sword and dagger that hang there. then a series of knives, a coinpurse, his coarse kaftan that he slides from his shoulders. he hesitates only when he reaches the ties of the loose, tapered pants that sit low on his hips.. but the mage is working, her back to him, and so imad bends to pull the narrow bottom hem free over one foot and then the other, and steps out of these as well.

     his naked skin is richly scarred from a lifetime of fighting. the lyrium brand that renders his blood useless to any mage like her dominates his upper back, a large, strange, and clean-lined tatooo-like scar. much paler than his skin and smooth, pored finely like stone. there are many more tattoos beside this one—gladitores tattoos, heavy and black, set in place meant to highlight the straight, strong, tapered shape of his long body. all this life written on him will be difficult to replicate in the minutia, but imad watches the veiled shape of her as she works, back to him—watches her close the dead man's eyes almost tenderly. the presence of the corpse no more unnerves him than does the idea of standing beside it in only his underclothes. barefoot and nearly naked, imad comes quietly to stand beside her.

     she looks at him with her eyes that glimmer, blueing as though the room were dimming around her. imad holds her gaze, relaxed despite how exposed he is. maybe this magick should be jarring, disturbing, to watch the corpse take on his shape—but imad feels nothing. only a calm, open windlessness. something like the swelling possibility of a humid night's sweet rain. he answers the apologetic smile in her eyes with another soft chuckle, "do not apologize, and do not worry for me. i am in your debt—and i have been naked before."

     reminding himself that he must not tell her his name, that he must not ask to know hers, imad takes a moment to look at the body on the plinth, found dead on the docks only last night. in a city like minrathous, not many bat an eye at a request for a fresh corpse. imad looks at the man's face, at his features, his increasingly familiar browline. he can smell night-blooming flowers, expensive oils. the man's hair is neat and shorn, his beard trimmed. skin scrubbed clean. ashur had called her a death mage, nevarran—

     "you have made a magister of him," imad observes.

     bathed him, embalmed him, honoured him. afforded him dignity rather than reinforce the currency of his life through a fittingly cheap disposal in death. luxuries a man like imad would never be offered. the mage looks up at him and imad infers a spike of something. concern, offense. not at his words, but on his own behalf, he thinks. his, and others like him. imad's mouth barely curls in a closed smile at the decency he reads beneath her indignation. he can sense the tentative shift of her mood, as if a cloud had passed before the rising sun, and imad feels a profound sympathy with her in that moment. a notion of their sameness. "what you have done is beautiful.. but i was a slave. the enslaved cannot be interred alongside altus, even if we are liberati. he will not be laid to rest with the other divinus in the catacombs. he will be burned as i would be burned.. on the public pyre. they will discard the ashes with the rest."

- I let you in.

    the spirits in the lighthouse are chittery — they make for lovely company in the daytime, but tamara has found she has not been able to sleep soundly for weeks. and so it is sensible enough that only she and rook occupy the foyer, at this late hour. aside from quietly exchanged good evenings, they are equally content to share their silence. a quilted kerchief holds the heat of her steaming kettle, and the herbal tea she has prepared.

    usually, journaling helps tamara to quiet the mind; to distinguish her own thoughts from the dissonant voices of spirits that flood through her. she is curled in a too-big armchair with her legs tucked under her knees, smoothing out the pages with the palms of her hands, but she now finds her focus on the page cloudy; lightly drawn instead to rook, who pours over a tome.

    time spent alone together has been few and far between, but mara has noticed that with rook, the cacophony in her mind naturally quiets. or rather, his presence, his spirit — drones out the collection of wayward chatter of wisps and spirits. like a rumbling laugh from the belly felt resting the ear against one's chest, than the consistent and erratic pinpricks against the shell of her ear. something of his spirit radiates; warms the room better than a fireplace would. it is a soothing warmth she feels down to her bones.

     "thank you," he answers easily in his dark voice, low and sincere and utterly without awkwardness at the intensity of the compliment. he's not a shy man. he does not mind to be stared at, not, especially, by tamara—nor does he feel compelled to hide what is inside him. imad closes the book in his lap to make it plain that all of his attention now is on tamara—a palpable shift, though he is aware that at least half of it had already been on her, even blindly, with his eyes on the text, she had occupied his mind, his senses, like the moon behind a mountain, still present in the fan of the silvery glow in which the mountain makes its silhouette.

     "you have seen the lyrium brand on my back." whether mortalitasi leverage the threat of tranquility over their students as is done in the south, imad does not know—but tamara is a powerful mage. imad has no doubt that she is aware of what such a mark means, the effect it has on the person who is subjected to it. "in the south, they call it tranquility. it was peaceful, in a way. i had no troubles. only a sense of devotion. calm. but also of wrongness. like a fish out of water, or a bird in the sea."

     air and water are alike enough until it is time to breathe.