Page 13 of Threadbound

Jamie shook his head, still staring at those elegant fingers and trying desperately not to think about what, precisely, he would like them wrapped around. “That would, ah, bestrangulation, not suffocation. Burking—because the method was named after its inventor—was being able to put a hand completely over both the nose and mouth, cutting off the airway that way.”

“Put a hand around the back of the head, and that wouldna be too difficult,” the man mused. Then he must have realized that one might take that the wrong way and offered Jamie a tiny smile that made Jamie’s heart beat faster.

What is wrong with me that I get excited by a guy smiling at me when he’s talking about Burking someone?

“That was idea, yeah,” Jamie replied. “And it worked sixteen times, at least.”

“Only sixteen?”

“That was the point at which some of Hare’s lodgers discovered one of the bodies.”

The man’s eyebrows went up.

“Police convinced Hare to turn on Burke, who was convicted and sentenced to death. His body was given to Alexander Monro”—here, Jamie pointed at a print of Monro’s portrait—“who conducted the autopsy at the Old College, which is now the law school.” Jamie grinned. “It was so popular that they sold tickets and students who couldn’t get in staged a riot.”

“Over the dissection of a murderer?”

Jamie was used to people sounding incredulous, but his current listener sounded curious and interested.

“Yeah,” Jamie replied. “It was settled when they agreed to bring groups through to see Burke’s already-dissected body after the autopsy.”

The man made a soft noise of interest.

Jamie smiled. “Would you like to see him?”

“Burke?” There was an edge of excitement to the question.

Jamie nodded. “Burke.”

“You… have him?”

“We’ve got a book bound in his skin and his death mask.”

“Oh, aye. That I’d like to see.”

Jamie couldn’t keep the grin off his face. “Follow me.”

Chapter

Seven

Darach mac Craobh-na-Beatha, King of the Sidhe, Lord of the Sunlit Court, reclined against the living wood of the Sidhe throne, his moss-green eyes piercing as he glared at the creature standing in front of him. Thin, blue-grey skinned with dripping, tangled hair that looked like kelp, the fuath had her head bowed down, her broad-featured face pointed toward the floor, where water dripped and pooled around her bent knees.

Another Sidhe, the fuath was one of his better agents, although many such had already failed in accomplishing the task he had set them.

“Tell me you have found Cairn’s youngest child.”

“I have not, my lord,” she whispered, her voice made low by fear.

Darach frowned, the dark mottled skin of his forehead twisting with the expression.

“And why not?” Although it was a question, his voice didn’t rise in pitch at the end.

“I believe, my lord, that he is not currently near water.”

It was a limitation of the fuath—while they could move between bodies of water at will, passing from Elfhame toDunehame and back as they wished, anything on dry land was painful and difficult.

Including the fuath’s visit to the Sidhe court.

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