The human body reaches terminal velocity ten to fifteen seconds after falling from a great height. I'd been briefed about the possibilities of what could go wrong during missions with the Fellowship, and had sworn off recreational skydiving shortly afterward. It seemed like a horrible way to go. Bones broken, internal organs pulped, and for what? A little adrenaline rush? I could get that without the plane ride.

I had grisly images of what Rosana would look like, cold and dead on the slab, so it surprised me that she seemed...mostly intact. Butters had an opaque plastic sheet over her chest to preserve her modesty. There was a little dried blood beneath her nose and twin streams that had leaked from her ears into her dark hair, but she looked outwardly peaceful.

It took me a few minutes to find the words, but I finally asked, "Why is she...why doesn't she look worse?"

I'd steeled myself for a mess of bloody tissue and jutting bones. I'd never expected to be able to recognize what was left as my friend. The question probably would have sounded heartless or morbid if anyone had been eavesdropping. But if I'd offended Butters, it didn't show. His eyes were soft and a little sad.

"I've only autopsied a handful of decedents who've fallen from buildings, cliffs, etcetera, so I can't say if it's true in every case, but most of the ones I've seen look like this. You'd think there'd be more gore, but it's essentially a massive blunt-force trauma. It's the sudden deceleration that kills you, so unless you keep hitting the side of a cliff or something, the trauma will be internal. Most of the major bones break. The internal organs are torn loose from their ligaments and hemorrhage. Human skin is elastic enough to contain most of the mess, but moving the limbs on a body like that is difficult. They're like tubes made of jelly. No structure at all."

Butters rattled off the facts almost dispassionately, but paused after the last, glancing up at me guiltily. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be saying this to you."

"I asked. I want to know what happened to her. Did she...?" I coughed, trying to clear the lump of unshed tears from my throat. "Did she suffer?"

"She hit head first, so no. It was instantaneous. I don't recommend looking at the back of her skull, though."

I nodded, swallowing back the desire to be sick. Butters watched me gather myself, an uncharacteristically gentle look on his face. Well, for all I knew, compassion was his default and I'd always been too distant, too unreadable for him to apply it to me. From his perspective, I was one of Marcone's people, a ruthless and efficient killer who he sometimes cleaned up after. I'd put at least over a dozen human beings in the morgue since I'd become the Black Knight, not all of them Servitors.

This was the first time he'd seen me in anything other than my armor or armored coats and tactical pants. I finally looked normal. A young woman with mussed hair and blotchy cheeks, staring down at the body of a friend. It made me a girl in mourning first, and the Black Knight second.

"Do you agree with Dr. Brioche's assessment? Was it a suicide?"

"Officially, yes."

I glanced up sharply. "And unofficially?"

Butters ran a hand through his dark hair, not quite meeting my eyes. The hair was always standing on end, regardless of any recent comb intervention. He looked worse than usual. He'd had a hard night, even before I turned up. Murphy's team had found one of our missing Paranetters in the drink in the afternoon, dead and missing most of her internal organs. She'd go down as a victim of human trafficking for the purposes of organ removal.

"Unofficially? It's odd. There's supposed to be security near the top to prevent this kind of thing from happening. It's possible that she could have done it anyway, but not without tussling with security or tripping some kind of alarm. No one remembers seeing her and the cameras and alarms were off."

"Murder?" I asked.

"Maybe. I wasn't sure if I should bring it to S.I.'s attention. Guards go on breaks. Sometimes even the best security systems fail. It could be a coincidence. Wrong place, wrong time. I'm not even sure how they'd go about investigating this."

"They won't have to," I said quietly, taking a step closer to the gurney. "Because I'll be investigating this. Assuming there's something there to find."

"I can't have you lighting candles or sprinkling anything on the body," he said. "Unless I find a reason to object, she's going home to her family tomorrow."

"I don't need to. Have you ever heard of optograms?"

Butters sucked air between his teeth as he thought. "Yeah. That's the theory that the eyes record the last image they see prior to death. It was pretty popular as a plot device in turn-of-the-century novels. It was also used as a forensic method and wasn't officially debunked until the '70s." He paused, eyes widening as he got it. "Are you saying it's true?"

"No, it's bunk in the physical sense. You couldn't see the moments leading up to her death unless you were using magic."

"Really? Then why didn't Harry do it all the time? It would have made things easier."

My answering smile felt a little brittle. "Because it's a delicate bit of magic. Would you have considered Harry a master in the art of finesse?"

He snorted. "Point. So you're going to look into her eyes and...what? See what she saw?"

"No, I'll actually live it alongside her. It's not going to be pretty. I'll need you to cover my mouth when I scream and catch me in case I collapse. God forbid I clip the edge of the table. You'd have a lot of explaining to do."

"Erm, right." He rounded the table and hovered near my elbow. "Just warn me before you start, okay?"

I cracked my knuckles, drawing in my will. Attempting this had been difficult years ago. It wasn't exactly simple now, but it was the difference between doing a complex mechanical maneuver as a novice, and operating on muscle memory years after the fact. I'd done enough heavy lifting in the interim that it took me only a few minutes to shape the spell in my mind.

"Now," I breathed, and leaned over Rosanna's body, prying one eye open so I could stare down at her.

The world slid away. I was Rosanna, and I was poised to fall.

The wind up poured over the edge, whipping the hair off my neck to stream like a curtain behind me. Fresh tears poured down my cheeks, and I darted a glance down. The sleek lines of the tower stretched far below. A little foot prodded me from the inside, and I closed my eyes as I wavered on the edge, hand on my stomach. It was almost enough to make me step down, reach for my phone and call someone, anyone. Little Ken...

Is better off, a jeering voice murmured inside my head. There was an undercurrent of amusement and malice in its words. Who wants an addict for a mother? How many babies did you lose because you were too weak to resist sticking a needle in your arm? Three? Four? Going to get high and ignore Ken while he screams in the other room because you can't hack it? He deserves better than what you'll give him.

I stepped up onto the ledge, though some part of me was screaming no. Coward. I was such a coward. One step. One little step, and then gravity would do the rest. Cold air raked its fingers over my face, under my clothes, through my hair. I wavered, half-blinded by tears, and it was enough. The wind snatched me off my precarious perch, sending me hurtling end over end toward the ground below. My heart flew up into my throat and I screamed. The wind roared in my ears, and a series of fluttering kicks punctuated my terror. The ground rushed up to meet me and-

I came to in Butters' arms, one of his hands pressed over my mouth to muffle my screams. We'd fallen into a tangled heap, and he'd managed to put my legs into some kind of lock to keep me from trashing. Little whimpering sounds eased out through Butters' fingers, muffling what should have been fresh screams of agonized fury. Tears rolled down my cheeks, scalding after Rosanna's frigid final memory.

Butters drew his hand away a few minutes later when the worst of the shaking stopped. He let it settle around my waist instead, pulling my back to his chest in an awkward sort of hug. I didn't push him away. His concern was a warm, human emotion after the desolation of Rosie's mindscape.

"What happened?" Butters asked.

"She didn't jump by herself," I whispered. "There was a voice there that wasn't hers, egging her on. Something got in her head, worked her into a lather, and sent her to die."

I knew enough about psychomancy to even understand how easily it had been done, and the experience to know the soft, silvery touch of a demon when I felt it.

"So it was murder," Butters said, drawing away from me. He looked pale.

"Yes."

I pushed to my feet and took a few experimental steps. Shaky, but I'd recover. Rage would carry me as far as I needed to go if all else failed.

"Where are you going?"

"To see Thomas," I muttered. "The thing that killed Rosanna was a vampire of the White Court. I need everything there is to know about House Skavis."