The Resurrectionist of Caligo

by Wendy Trimboli

  He must have made some too-brash movement because she reached out to him.

  “We’re going to Khalishka, you and I. As my Straybound, you’ll finally leave Caligo. We may even see the whitefish before Lake Nagova freezes over. A few weeks from now, we depart.”

  The room spun as her words sunk in at last. He looked from her still-stained fingernails to his scrubbed hands, then let them flop to his sides. “Your highness. I can’t… I mean, it ain’t possible that I–”

  “It is indeed possible. As it were, his imperial majesty has made a most generous offer.” Her face clouded before continuing, and he wondered how much say she’d had in these arrangements. He detected a falter in her cool tone. “He’s allowed for the appointment of a Myrcnian personal guard to ensure my confidence in taking up residence in his somewhat hostile nation. A very formal way of saying I can bring along a few people of my choosing. And yes, my surgeon will be a key member of my retinue. Dr Kaishuk was sufficiently impressed with your swift actions in the ballroom yesterday that she even offered to take you on as an apprentice of sorts when we reach Khalishka.”

  The generous offer did nothing to ease Roger’s mind. Worry for Ada consumed him. Useless guardian that he’d been, at least she’d had someone. If he left the city – no, the country – what might become of her? Prostitution, thievery, poison, or worse.

  “That girl Adelaide, your highness.” What had Sibet called her? “My pixie ward. She comes with me or I stay here.”

  Sibet gave a wry grin. “I believe your staying would be equally futile.”

  “I won’t leave Caligo without her.” He dropped to one knee. He had to make her understand. “I’ve lost everything else.” It came out in a whisper. “My garret. Dr Eldridge’s. My brother. Sibet.”

  She pressed a hand to his cheek. His breath caught in his throat as her palm warmed his face, and light shone through her skin like a sun flare. As he reached for her hand, she flinched and tucked her hands out of sight, until her otherworldly glow had faded.

  “Here, take this.” She tossed him a brand-new book of Straybound devotionals to replace the one he’d lost. “Recite today’s passage, and your pixie ward shall be welcomed into our Khalishkan contingent. This month’s devotional subject is ‘tractability.’”

  Roger followed an endless strip of blue carpet down a vast gallery. The eyes of portraits seemed to follow his every step. He passed knots of liveried footmen gossiping in whispers about the rumored annulment of Lady Esther and Crown Prince Elfred’s marriage – and probably the new Straybound surgeon, for all he knew. The guards never glanced his way, but some of the senior footmen turned their heads to stare.

  The old tutor’s key clicked in the lock, and Roger stepped into the classroom. It remained as he remembered from the days when Mr Coverley had sent him to fetch various biological materials for the princes and Sibet to study. Dusty books lined the walls, and to one side lay the vast laboratory table for conducting experiments. A cabinet with a glass door contained flasks, tools, trays, and chemical jars.

  A map of Myrcnia and the greater continent was tacked to the wall above the table. Roger knew little of geography, and after much searching he found the eastern portion of Khalishka. The rest of the empire’s lands fell off the map. Myrcnia itself appeared far larger than Roger had imagined, the city of Caligo immense enough that he had never left it.

  His finger passed over the leather spines of several books before selecting Moore’s Manual of Phlebotomy and Hematology. Sibet had said he might pack a trunk with these books and equipment to bring on the journey. The sight of so much knowledge terrified him – to think he knew none of it. Even blood, the stuff that spattered him, soaked his clothes, flowed through his veins, and now bound him, remained a mystery.

  Still, he had a theory. Claudine, Margalotte, Celeste, they were not much different from Straybound. They’d been given some fungus or pathogen that rooted through them, sent them into a deathlike sleep, and finally killed them. He had to take that same sort of blood mixture or risk his heart bursting. So might some similar infection lurk within his own veins? Whatever the case, he was convinced his “Binding” was not entirely magic.

  And if not magic, it might be understood.

  And cured.

  Roger found a brass microscope and a box of glass slides in one of the cabinets. Taking a thumb-lancet from his pocket – the one he’d failed to convince the princess to use – he jabbed his finger and smeared one of the slides with blood that looked thicker and darker than he remembered. Then, turning up the flame of the nearby lamp, he bent over the eyepiece and brought the slide into focus.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  First and foremost, we want to thank our agent Caitlin McDonald for falling in love with our characters and championing Resurrectionist through murky submission waters, and the Donald Maass Literary Agency team who helped make this publication possible.

  To our entire Angry Robot team, especially Marc Gascoigne for believing in us and this book, Lottie Llewelyn-Wells for her eagle editorial eye, Penny Reeve for her tireless enthusiasm and organization, Gemma Creffield for helping us navigate the intimidating publicity waters, Nick Tyler for his behind-the-scenes wizardry, Paul Simpson for wrangling resistant typos, and countless others at Watkins Media who helped ensure this book went out into the world as well-dressed and polished as we could make it. We’d also like to extend a hearty thank you to John Coulthart for the gorgeous cover.

  And where would we be without our Pitch Wars mentor Michelle Hauck? This manuscript would have a hundred more rhetorical questions for starters. Among her many magical talents, she gravitated straight to the emotional heart of the book and helped us balance those big feelings with a tighter plot. Thank you!

  We also want to give a special shout-out to Jaida Temperly, who ushered us through a rigorous structural edit that made the story pop, and to Joanna Volpe, who gave us a helping hand in uncertain times.

  Last but not least, thank you Brenda Drake and the greater Pitch Wars community for your support, enthusiasm, and commiseration over the many hills and valleys on the road to publication. We wish you the best.

  Wendy:

  Resurrectionist has come a long way since its initial germination – to be precise, the moment when Alicia talked (coerced!) me into trading some fictional letters as a joint writing exercise “just for fun”, and plied me with froufrou coffee. Thanks for being an epic friend, collaborator, writer, and productivity whipping-mistress. I’m glad we embarked on this crazy experiment together.

  I also owe a huge debt of thanks to my spouse and partner-in-crime M, who has never wavered in support for me, and helped me carve out precious writing time. Also to my son and the rest of my family for their general enthusiasm, and their tolerance for my weird, obscure writerly obsessions.

  Numerous other people have helped shape my writing over the years. Thank you to my classmates and faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts, especially my mentors Ellen, Joshilyn, Clint and Domenic. To Sally, Johnnye and the Nebraska Writers Workshop. To Megan, for gamely reading everything I’ve thrown at you.

  And thank you Mom for always inspiring me to take risks, creatively and throughout life. I miss you, and I wish you could have read this book.

  Alicia:

  To my mom: you always tell me what a creative, bright, intelligent person I am, and even if you’re contractually obligated, I believe you at least half the time. To my dad, though you’re no longer with me, I know how proud you would have been to see this book in print. And to my big brother, you’ve always looked out for me, no matter how bratty I’m being or how much I hate the sun. I’d be remiss not to thank Kyle, who kept telling me about this other writer I just had to go hang out with. This other writer turned into a coauthor.

  So lastly, I want to thank my literary other half, Wendy, whose endless obsession with feelz haunts me every time I sit down to write. May your characters always suffer; I know you wouldn’t stand for it otherwise.

/>   ANGRY ROBOT

  An imprint of Watkins Media Ltd

  Unit 11, Shepperton House

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  Blood & Mushrooms

  An Angry Robot paperback original, 2019

  Copyright © Wendy Trimboli & Alicia Zaloga 2019

  Cover by John Coulthart

  Edited by Lottie Llewelyn-Wells and Paul Simpson

  Set in Adobe Garamond

  All rights reserved. Wendy Trimboli & Alicia Zaloga assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Sales of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed” and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.

  Angry Robot and the Angry Robot icon are registered trademarks of Watkins Media Ltd.

  ISBN 978 0 85766 826 4

  Ebook ISBN 978 0 85766 827 1

  Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by TJ International.

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