The room was lit only faintly. A candle by the bed, and a candle by the mirror.
Those in the windows were left unlit, so that they wouldn’t draw attention
from the street.

In the last grey vestiges of night, Magnagora's towers loomed enigmatically, as
shadows that cower beneath the light.

Mama was sitting before her vanity table, pulling long strokes through her hair
with a brush. Behind her, Papa’s lanky form was just a silhouette at the
window as he watched for the dawn. This was our ritual, mostly silent and
rhythmic, every morning.

“Mama,” I said. When I woke, she said we had to speak in whispers, because
it was before dawn. “When will the sun come out?”

But today was not the same. In the mirror, I saw that Mama’s dark eyes were
not as attentive to her grooming as usual. She was watching Papa.

“Very soon, Sabina. Too soon,” Mama said.

“I thought you loved the sunrise, Mama.”

“Not today.”

I sat up further in the bed, watching her reflection. The stiff sheets were
still warm from where we three had all lain for the short night, so I stayed
close. But Papa hadn’t made the fire this morning, and the dark's chill was
pressing into my limbs, stiffening my spine.

“Where are my pearls, Vladmir?” Mama set her brush aside. Her hair curled
from the bristles like strands of ink.

The floor groaned as Papa shifted at the window, and turned to her. He was
standing on the warped spot, the place I always stood at midday to watch for
him to cross the Centre of the Necropolis on his way home.

“In your bone box,” he said to Mama.

“Pearls?” This I murmured, barely breathing. Mama almost never wore them.

I remembered once, when they had an invitation to the theatre. Mama came home
with her cheeks flushed though she owned no rouge, and the pearls were like
pale stars against the dark ringlets she’d painstakingly curled.

But now she took them both from the box, and held them in her palm. She drew
her hair over one shoulder. Papa and I both watched.

“Wear your crimson dress today,” she said to me. “Your gloves are lain
out at the bedside."

“The crimson, Mama? Are you certain?” The last time I had worn it was for
the late Warlord's wedding. I doubted whether it would even fit me now; my hips
had begun to swell since then. Mama said I would soon be a woman.

“Do as your mother says, Sabina.” Papa’s voice was grim.

“Yes, Pa.”

We watched Mama. Her skin was pale and smooth in the curve of her neck,
ghostly white as she threaded a pearl through each ear.

I took her brush from the table and drew one of her long hairs from it. I
caught it between my lips, as I often do. Mama uses honey in the water to wash
her hair, and it tasted vaguely sweet on my tongue.

“Put on your clothes, Sabina. It is time,” said Papa. The sun had crept
into the morning and threaded the sky with pink.

I wound the dark hair about my thumb, and began to dress.

==========

The sky was still pale when we stood before the Gates, and the Megalith's
sweltry soot laced its fingers around the sun. It had been a long, slow walk
from our manse up the lane, completely quiet but for our feet on the
cobblestone.

But there were others from town, quietly waiting. They were gathered around a
cart at the Northern Gates: some in their colourful silks, and some in greys
and blacks. When they saw us, some faces fell. Some leered. Mama
straightened her shoulders.

“Traitor,” one whispered. "Treasonist, fink!"

Now she is up there, on the cart. I see the hem of her skirts, and they are
pristine. She had been careful not to dust them up on the way. It is her best
black dress.

“What about the pearls?” I say to Papa. He grips the back of my neck and
doesn’t hear me. His eyes, like glass, are on the executioner.

"For treason by way of sedition! May her death become her!"

The noose is still as it is set about her neck. When they push the cart, she
snaps downward, her skirts billowing with the quick force. She writhes.

We have been to hangings before. I lunge upward and throw my arms around her
knees, hanging from her with my feet barely brushing the ground. She stops her
squirming quickly, and is still with my weight as her peace.

As I sway there, I see a pale glistening on the ground below. When I let go of
her finally, I kneel down. I dust it off, and cradle it in my palm.

It is one of Mama’s pearls.