Cassian's corpse reached the Nameless Court before he did.
There were six coffins. Only one was open.
The Innocence Bond ledger was embedded in the corpse's chest.
Cassian needed to retrieve it—but first determine whether this was truly his death.
Accepting another man's corpse as his own would return that death to his present body. If the Funeral Guild took the last words before verification, the original would be edited forever.
"How long?" Cassian asked.
Rosalyn lifted the corpse's eyelid. Its black eye watched Cassian.
"Until the Funeral Guild arrives?"
"Until I become that."
"The dead always think they have time."
"A number."
Rosalyn measured the corpse's neck.
"Forty-two."
One finger thicker than Cassian's current neck.
"Your measurement after attaching your neck once more."
"So it gets cut again."
"One possibility."
"You said it wasn't the future."
She pressed the black seam. One warm drop emerged.
"The body isn't from the future."
"Then?"
"Death arrived first and built a body."
The ledger had already completed Cassian's public execution. Death came to collect him, failed to find the living man, and prepared an empty return-body in the Nameless Court.
Until Cassian died, it learned by copying his current wounds.
Its left knee tendon was severed.
"Is it still learning?"
"Want to test it?"
Rosalyn handed him scissors.
Cassian cut his palm. One beat later, the corpse's palm opened and bled the same blood.
"It imitates you," Rosalyn said.
"The wounds are still synchronizing."
"It is not your corpse yet."
"Not until the judgment is complete."
"When does it become mine?"
"When you accept it—or when it finishes your last words."
The corpse's lips moved soundlessly. Seven white threads stitched its teeth together, sealing the words.
* * *
Four bells rang outside.
Rosalyn stopped smiling.
"The guildmaster is here."
"You dislike her?"
"She gave me a reason not to steal last words."
An old woman in mourning entered.
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Dona Har. Sixty-four. Master of the Funeral Tailors' Guild.
A black veil covered only her mouth. Voices of dead men, women, and children coughed beneath it, their last words stitched around her lips.
She examined the coffin before greeting the living Cassian.
"Residual corpse of Cassian Crow."
"Imperial public execution completed."
"Body unrecovered."
"Last words unregistered."
Only then did she look at him.
"The corpse is obstructing funeral procedure."
"Which one is the corpse?"
"The registered one is alive."
"I'm recorded as dead."
"Therefore that gentleman is alive."
Dona bowed to the coffin.
"Sir Cassian. I will register your last words."
She drew seven needles from her veil.
`I was innocent.`
`I remain loyal to the Empire.`
`I ask the Church's forgiveness.`
`I confess every sin.`
`Do not remember me.`
`Follow Cassian Crow.`
The seventh needle was blank.
"You choose for him?" Cassian asked.
"I arrange what the deceased cannot say."
"Forgery."
"A funeral."
Dona drove the blank needle into the corpse's tongue. Its lips stopped.
Ria entered with the victims' ledger.
"The original?"
"Disclosed only to family."
"Who is his family?"
"The imperial family was. Now the Immaculate Prison is."
"Both sold him."
"Then we have an inheritance dispute."
Dona looked pleased only by the additional procedure.
"How many last words have you changed?" Cassian asked.
"As many as the dead."
"All of them?"
"Most last words are too long."
She raised one needle.
"Before 'I love you' comes the person loved."
A second.
"After 'I was wronged' comes the person they killed."
A third.
"The people want short wills."
"And the dead?"
"They are no longer readers."
Ria drew her pen.
The voices beneath Dona's veil laughed.
"Archivists like long truths."
"And you like short lies."
"There is merely a length that sells."
Ria pressed Dona's wrist with her pen.
"You take nothing before the words emerge."
Rosalyn wrapped measuring tape around the corpse's jaw.
"Both of you, let go. If the mouth tears, we cannot judge who spoke."
Three women wanted different things from the same mouth.
Rosalyn wanted identity. Ria wanted the actual words. Dona wanted words people would believe.
Cassian needed to know only that. None was his ally; all would obstruct him for her work.
"The original cannot save anyone," Dona said.
"Your editing makes even the dead obey," Ria answered.
"That is why the nation still moves after the funeral."
Rosalyn cut the thread between them.
"Discuss nations outside. Here, who this child is comes first."
Dona looked at her.
"That is why I expelled you from the guild."
"I saw the dead as guests."
Rosalyn smiled.
"You saw merchandise."
Behind Dona's veil hung thousands of tongues, each missing its final syllable.
She changed only the final word: `I do not forgive` into `I forgive`; `save me` into `kill me`; `I curse the Emperor` into `I call the Emperor.`
Small edits changed history after burial.
"Remove the needles," Cassian said.
"A request from the deceased?"
"Mine."
"You cannot legally speak."
"My sword can."
Dona did not retreat.
"Kill me, and every last word in my veil is released."
Thousands of forged wills would return to their owners and overturn the capital's funerals.
"Good."
"It includes the wills of people you killed."
His blade stopped.
"Who?"
"Beginning with the one you cannot remember."
She produced an empty tongue: the trace of the first name locked by the tooth key.
"You truly lost it."
"Say the name."
"Trade first."
"What do you want?"
"The coffin's last words. I keep the original; the Empire receives my version."
"If I refuse?"
"The corpse speaks first."
One of seven threads snapped. When all broke, the corpse would complete its words and become Cassian's confirmed death.
* * *
Rosalyn sat among the six coffins, sewing Cassian's shroud.
"Whose side are you on?" Cassian asked.
"Whichever lies down first."
"Is that corpse me?"
"Half."
"The rest?"
"The death you choose from now on."
"Death read your execution record and made the body. Its wounds copied your present."
"And its last words?"
"They know something you don't yet know."
"That is why it arrived first."
Cassian took out the tooth key.
Dona's expression changed.
"Use it on the corpse and the words open."
"I know."
"One memory closes."
"I know that too."
"You cannot choose which."
"Better than losing the words first."
Dona raised the blank needle.
"Whoever hears them is registered with the guild."
"Register me."
"As family of the dead."
"I've already been prison family."
Cassian inserted the key between the corpse's teeth and turned it.
The seven threads broke one by one.
A scaffold appeared in his memory. He was seventeen. His foster father Lauren stood behind him on the day of Cassian's first official execution.
The prisoner tried to speak.
Lauren gripped Cassian's shoulder.
`Never deceive them about the method of execution.`
The voice locked.
So did the prisoner's face.
Only the scaffold remained.
"What did you lose?" Rosalyn asked.
"The first."
"First what?"
Cassian could not answer. What had been first was gone.
The key completed its turn.
The corpse inhaled. Cassian's neck seam opened with it.
Dona moved her needle. Ria raised her pen. Rosalyn stopped sewing.
The corpse spoke in Cassian's voice.
"Mira."
Cassian gripped the coffin. It was a name remembered before his own.
"Do not kill her twice."
Dona's blank needle moved toward the final syllable.
Cassian cut off her right wrist.
The needle-hand fell into the coffin.
Dona did not scream.
Hundreds of final words poured from the stump instead of blood.
"Mira is not dead," they said together.