It’s easier for her when the dead are like this: silent and still, certainly unmoving, definitely not talking. Astrid can think of them more like statues, and very much like the rows on rows of fancy statues decorating the gardens and lining the streets headed to the Necropolis. This city likes its statuary.

And when the squabbling nobles finally turn around again, it’s because one of them is gesturing to the tableau in order to make his point— and they stop, squinting at it, confused, trying to understand what looks subtly off about the scene.