He'd taken her staff with him, Lillian thought irritably. Maybe Kal-Cel-Ael - she was really going to have to think of what to call her. Kaltain was probably safest. Maybe Kaltain would return it to her later.
She didn't want to go back to sleep. She pulled her exploration clothes on, strapped her knives into place, and pulled a regular morning dress on over everything before stuffing her maids' livery into a bag with a bit of wrapped cheese for Glory.
"Early, isn't it?" One of the guards outside her door asked. He didn't sound upset, just curious, but in his defense Lillian usually went out the balcony or secret passages if she went out at this time of the morning.
Lillian smiled sheepishly and showed them the cheese.
"She gets fed," the other guard said. Lillian didn't know all their names yet, unfortunately - the rotating schedule was kept unpredictable for a reason, so she had difficulty remembering from day to day - but they both seemed amused anyway.
"It's a bribe for her affections," Lillian said.
"Still?" the first guard asked, but he was chuckling even as he waved her off.
She swung by the kitchen for a meaty bone, smiling at the sleepy nightcook who waved a spoon at her on the way out.
The kennels had a supply of sturdy rope, a length of which she stuffed into her bag along with some more cleaning rags and a waterskin. She picked up a lamp and some matches too, making sure the oil was topped off, and after a moment of consideration a few of the cheap candles. One of the dogs gave a quiet inquiring boof, so she hurried out of the supply room. The dog making noise was Tabby, who quieted when she saw Lillian, wagging her tail.
"Yes, fine," Lillian sighed, and broke off a corner of the cheese for her.
Like a wave, the other dogs woke. The kennel workers poked their heads out of the loft.
"Sorry," Lillian said, wincing.
"Nah," said Ress, Dorian's preferred handler. He slid down the ladder. "If Tabby was up the rest of them were going to be. Save some cheese for yours, Lady Lillian, the rest of them'll be fed in a minute."
Lillian smiled at him, gave Tabby the promised bit of cheese, and hurried down the row to Glory. Nobody looked twice at her bag or lantern.
Glory accepted the cheese and the leash, trotting happily alongside Lillian when they went out. The only hiccup came when Glory tried to go to their usual courtyard - Lillian tugged her away. The dog gave her a quizzical look but no further resistance as Lillian led her to one of the few outside ground entrances to the secret passages and inside.
Glory immediately began sniffing. Lillian kept hold of the leash as she struck a match and lit her lamp, but Glory, despite her clear curiosity, didn't wander any farther than the edge of the circle of light.
It wasn't difficult for Lillian to find the tombs again. All she'd had to do was remember the main tunnel layout and then the turns and approximate number of steps. This time the light was fading and shadows stretched over the floor at odd angles.
Glory looked into the room, sniffed, and looked reproachfully up at Lillian, but she followed when Lillian went in and set up a few candles around the edge. The light improved the atmosphere immensely, and when Lillian handed the bone to Glory the dog decided it wasn't so bad after all.
She still kept an eye on Lillian when Lillian made sure candles and matches were well-wrapped and secured in the bag before removing the cleaning rags. She hid the bag in one of the piles of debris and, after a moment of hesitation, slid one of her knives into the bag too.
Elena's tomb was as Lillian had left it, top tipped over and resting on the floor. Lillian approached cautiously, though whatever had been in the sarcophagus had to have cleared away by now. She didn't really want to leave Elena's mortal remains exposed to wind and rain and who knew what else, which was something she admittedly hadn't considered up to this point. Maybe she could drag the stone cover back over by bracing herself on this side -
The sarcophagus was empty.
There were perfectly natural reasons for it to be empty, Lillian told herself. Birds were on the cliff, she knew. Maybe some of them had gotten hungry.
Hungry enough not to leave dilapidated cloth? Hungry enough not to leave bones?
Fine. Maybe the tombs weren't entirely unknown. Maybe someone had moved whatever was left of their hero-queen's body to keep it from being further disturbed.
There hadn't been any footprints in the hall aside from hers and, now, Glory's. Lillian went to the window to look out again, Glory at her heels. The fast-falling dark outside didn't have the same oppressive feeling as the room and the tunnels, but it was disconcerting nonetheless to look out and hear the waves but be unable to see them. She leaned out and to the side anyway, holding the lantern out. There still wasn't anything that looked like handholds or tied-off rope or anything.
"The obvious conclusion is that the body was never here in the first place," Lillian told Glory. The dog appeared unimpressed by her logic, and went back to gnawing at her bone.
"Fine," Lillian said, surveying the other rectangular lumps with her hands on her hips. "I am going to find out what's going on here."
The windowsill and just inside it had plenty of puddles. She soaked one of the cloths and laid it aside for after she scraped and dusted the next - what, memorial? Whatever.
She started with the one closest to the window, with the same side Elena's head had been carved in. She hit a set of carved feet, which she muttered about as she switched sides. She got most of the gunk off and rinsed away the rest to reveal a man's face glaring out at her. Even in the carving he was recognizably related to Elena, though he did not have the Stag of the North set over his head.
Lillian frowned. Another of Dorian's ancestors, maybe? She moved on to the next, another man facing the same direction as the one closest to the window, and the next, and the next. After the sixth she took a breather, sitting with Glory and checking the level of oil in her lamp.
It hadn't used nearly as much as she thought it would have. In fact, it looked like it hadn't used any. She looked at Glory, gnawing happily on a much-reduced bone, and back at the lamp, and thought, it burned a long time last time too.
No. She'd put it out last time, hadn't she? There had been light, and she wanted to save the oil. She didn't remember lighting it, but she'd had to blow it out and stash it before going to Kaltain's room.
Lillian closed her eyes, thought a quick prayer at Deanna, goddess of maidens, opened her eyes, and looked at the candles she'd left burning.
This is why my parents don't pray, Lillian thought sourly: none of the candles had melted even a little, though they still provided steady light.
She'd wanted to figure out what was going on. The candles weren't hurting her. She might as well finish. With a sigh she stood and worked on the last sarcophagus (sarcophagus representation?), the one nearest Elena's. When she cleared it off, the resemblance was even closer to Elena. Her son, maybe? Lillian couldn't remember his name. But if this was Gavin Havilliard's and Elena Galathynius' son, where was Gavin? She braced herself on the edges of the slab and blew a stray curl out of her face, staring down. The seventh carved man sneered up at her as her fingers came to rest on the side of the sarcophagus and let her feel the tiny gap between top and bottom that was not on the others.
As if they had been waiting for her to feel it, all of the candles went out.
Lillian made the executive decision not to panic. So magic seemed to be back, or back in this room specifically. So there were empty sarcophagi. So what? She reached for the still-burning lamp - hah - and Glory's leash, which wasn't difficult to find since the dog had pressed immediately against Lillian's legs when the lights went out.
Something flickered at the edge of her vision. Lillian ignored it, moving quickly but steadily back towards the rest of the tunnels while her eyes got used to the change in light. That was all it was, Lillian told herself firmly. She wouldn't consider any other possibility until she was back in some sort of sunshine.
Glory growled, and Lillian abandoned any pretense of dignity. Both of them bolted through the entrance and back to the main tunnels. They didn't stop until the outside entrance closed behind them.