Usually there was crying. Lots of hugging, lots of tears. Lots of people huddled together; lots of suits and skirts, dark black. A service in the Chapel where everyone in October would (usually) come to say goodbye. Outside, Mr. Wutsitz: to hold the doors open or hold them shut. Usually Nyx would watch Clara help Mrs. Down wade the crowd. Together, they’d orchestrate the service, consoling the grievers with their kindness killer. But sometimes the grievers would notice Nyx, too.


Usually Nyx would try, “I’m sorry for your loss.”


For some reason, though, the words never sounded quite the way she wanted them to. Though her elder sisters’ jobs were done AD, After Death, her job was to put the body in the ground. No one but Nyx knew how hard that was to do.


It meant that she saw what happened after the After. She saw the service. She saw the tears. And she was the last to see the body.


Nyx was the one who put the body in the ground.


So when Mrs. Down comforted the grievers grievous, they leaned on her. They knew she cared. But when Nyx comforted the grievers, they just nodded. She knew they were scared. They were scared of the After— of what happened After Them. They were scared not of Nyx, but of the place she’d put them after that. They were scared of Nyx, too, but they didn’t know it. Nyx, however, understood. And for that, Nyx was always sorry. For some reason, she could never sound quite as sorry as she always was.


And for some reason, she found Clara. Nyx had almost thought her asleep. If it weren’t for the bend of her legs, of the circle most crimson beneath her hair, dark black, Nyx might have kicked at her for lying unladylike at the base of the stairs. Even then, Nyx did not quite believe it. Clara pulled pranks often and it seemed a joke juvenile. Like Clara and Evie’s work.


So finding Clara in the morning wasn’t funny, but Nyx had almost laughed. She had reasons.


There were two.


She thought it was a joke, but seeing it wasn’t, she thought of something more amusing. Death, you see, had paid another Mortimer a visit.


And he put the body on the ground.