The journey to the east side of the city took nearly the entire day, as it was large and crowded. The sun beat on Remi's brow and caused her forehead to drip with sweat, though disappeared behind the clouds a few times to provide her with momentary relief.

She couldn't imagine what her poor horse was feeling.

Remi usually loved the sun, but the humidity that often accompanied it was an entirely different story.

Earlier, one of Captain Rismak's cabin boys met them and handed them a detailed, colored sketch of the man they were looking for. His hair was brown and shaggy with a few wrinkles around the sides of his mouth and corners of his eyes, and his eyes were too far apart. Just to make sure they didn't take another corpse with the same name.

Though the captain hadn't explained why he wanted this crewman so badly, Remi already knew the answer.

Captains were notorious for believing in the most absurd of superstitions, and often sacrificed some of their own crew to the monsters of the sea, and to the sky if a treacherous storm threatened to devour them. They valued no one except themselves.

If Captain Rismak was willing to pay for them to go to all the trouble to bring his crewman back to life, then he must hold some important information that was worth the great sum the captain was paying for his rejuvenation.

While Remi found all lives precious, she didn't know of a single other person who shared her view on the value of life.

She supposed that was why her city had lost sight of all morals and plunged into a sea of evil and corruption. Did anyone even have a conscience anymore?

Sometimes Remi felt like she was truly and utterly alone, even when there were people around her. Ice clamped around her heart and made her anxious.

Upon seeing the huge, offensive building looming before her, casting down a deep, cold shadow, Remi entirely forgot her train of though. She narrowed her eyes, hoping she could burn a hole through the building, but it was to no avail.

The Meat Palace was gigantic, pristine, and white, and shimmered in the brilliant sunlight. Stairs, entirely free of dust and dirt, led to the entrance, which was wide and decorated by large, ancient pillars from the original building.

Everything was spotless, and yet, nothing was clean. Death contaminated everything with its dirty corruption, and Remi could feel it hovering above her skin.

"Why do you hate this place so much?" Blue asked blankly, with no real emotion in his voice. She wondered if he even wanted to know the answer. She couldn't always tell with her cousin.

"The things that happen in this building under the leadership of Papa Roche is reviling, morbid, and wrong," she stated passionately, fire in her eyes. Her heart skipped a beat as she realized just how outspoken she'd sounded.

Blue gave her a sidelong glance. "That's no reason to dislike this place, or the owner. He is the same as every other person in the city. They are all morbid beasts. Morbid beasts that we do business with."

Remi huffed in annoyance at his dismissal, crossing her arms. She almost fell off her horse in the process, flailing her arms and trying to regain her balance. Killure's snickering didn't help her feel any better.

She shot him a glare as she swung her leg off the white horse, which only seemed to amuse him further.

Blue jumped off his horse and landed gracefully on the ground. He helped his sister off her horse, and tied all the horses' ropes securely around a tree.

Remi followed behind him, her eyes still narrowed. This place gave her the creeps.

An older man, large in every way, stomped over to him. His expression was pinched in a grimace, and his features rigid and angry.

"Welcome, Designers!" he greeted happily, in complete contrast to his pinched facial features. However, because Remi had known Papa Roche for so long, she knew that that was just his face. He always looked angry, always sounded cheery, and was one of the more sadistic bastards she'd ever met. He never batted an eye, no matter what gruesome or inhumane thing he encountered.

Once, Remi walked in on him sampling his merchandise. The human leg was raw, and the skin still attached. It was disgusting and plagued Remi's nightmares for weeks. Whenever she fell asleep, she dreamt that he was eating her leg.

Even now, she shuddered at the thought.

Remi let out a deep sigh. Dealing with Papa Roche was always a pain. She took a deep, calming breath and pretended to be braver and more professional than she was.

And, of course, she delivered a breathtaking performance.

"I'm sure my father has already contacted you about our purpose in coming here," Remi began confidently, forcing her tone to become bold and strong. "But for your sake, I'll say it again now. We need the remains of Lars Alfonzo, and we have brought compensation."

Papa Roche's voice turned sickly sweet. "Compensation? Surely you don't merely mean an amount equal to what his body parts would have been sold for, do you?"

"We do," Blue nodded.

He laughed at them as though they were pathetic and naive, a haughty expression flirting over his features. "As if I would agree to such a thing! The price will definitely be higher. He may already be dismembered, which will cause me to have to search for him. Also, if he really is in pieces, I still have to pay the worker who cut him up. Also, there's the cost of maintaining the ice boxes—do you know how much effort that takes?"

"You refrigerated him? I thought you didn't know where he was," Remi pointed out, causing Papa Roche to backtrack.

Inwardly, she grimaced. Putting a frozen, dismembered body together will be difficult. Regenerating all that blood and unfreezing all those organs . . .

"W-Well," he began, but stopped short upon seeing Killure appear directly in front of him.

His eyes widened in shock at seeing the Icix.

Remi watched as Killure's smile became wide and demented, his pupils narrowing into dangerous slits. He leaned over and whispered something into Papa Roche's ear.

Whatever it was, it made all the colour drain from the older man's face.

When Killure stepped back, Papa Roche quickly bowed at Remi and the twins, nerves coating his words in the form of stuttering and blubbering. "M-My apologies for my earlier b-behaviour! You are all my faithful c-customers, and therefore deserve a fair price. A d-discount, even! Come in, let's get started."

Remi pursed her lips in confusion, eyeing Killure suspiciously. He lazily returned her gaze through half-lidded eyes, and seemed somewhat smug.

"Don't be an ass," she instructed him, warning in her tone.

He gave her a completely innocent expression, which looked foreign and out of place on his devilish face. "Why would I ever do that?"

After rolling her eyes in reply, Remi scurried on ahead to catch up to Papa Roche and her cousins.

———

Remi dragged a finger across the white wall, but it didn't even leave behind so much as a speck of dust on her finger.

Papa Roche had led them around the building to a side entrance in order to avoid the Meat Deli and its picky customers. They'd gone down a long flight of stairs, and were now walking down a white hallway so clean that it almost annoyed Remi. Her room never stayed this clean. It was never overly messy, either—just enough to add a bit of flare, and she liked it that way.

Impossibly clean places always grated on her nerves.

Her sandals clacked loudly against the floor, along with Papa Roche's, while Blue and Bliss's steps were faint and discreet. Killure, once again, was completely silent. Remi shuddered to think that he could sneak up on someone and kill them with minimal effort.

In front of a large, heavy looking door, Papa Roche stopped and stared straight into some sort of scanning device. After a green light examined his eye, the door's lock clicked loudly and then swung open.

While her cousins and the butcher went on ahead, Remi couldn't help but stop for a moment and stare at the odd device in awe. Aside from the slave binding chip, she had hardly seen any of these metallic things that make magical things happen. This one was especially interesting. How could a machine decide for itself if you could enter?

This device must have come straight from The Dome. All devices came from there.

Remi furrowed her brows and stared at it for a moment longer, before giving up trying to understand and walking through the door.

The almost instantaneous shift in air temperature made the hair on Remi's arms stand on end. Goosebumps erupted all over her arms, so she hugged herself as she walked, trying to conserve heat.

Large ice boxes lined the walls, and the huge basement smelled like it had been cleaned a hundred too many times.

Ice boxes were also stacked in rows across the rest of the basement, creating aisles to walk through.

Remi glanced up at the high ceiling as she walked, trying to stop her teeth from chattering. Why didn't she think of bringing a jacket today? She knew how cold it always was down here, and yet she'd still forgotten.

A warm hand grasped her wrist, pulling her off to the side and out of the others' line of sight.

For a brief second, panic shot up her spine in tendrils of terror. Was she about to die? The others had tried to abduct her with an intent to kill in a similar manner.

Remi opened her squinting eyes, only to find herself pressed up against Killure. Her panic washed away, and apprehension took its place.

She could help but notice how close they were, and the way his muscled chest felt against her body. His hot, peppermint breath fanned her face, and his gaze was heated and intense as he looked into her eyes.

"Allow me to warm you," he murmured down to her, covering his wrist with her hand.

Heat rushed into her body from where she was touching him, filling her with shocking warmth.

She glanced up at him in surprise.

Killure shrugged, bringing a hand up to play with a strand of her strawberry hair. "It's one of our species' more useless abilities."

His addicting, masculine scent engulfed her, setting her nerves more on edge than before, if such a thing was possible.

Her met her gaze with half-lidded eyes, and the shadow cast over his face make his skin look even darker. "Your hair is beautiful, doll."

Suddenly Remi began very aware of her other arm, resting limply at her side, and the way it itched to reach up and touch him. To clench her fists around his hair, trace his jawline with her fingers, and feel the hardness of his chest.

His chest rumbled as a low, animalistic growl ripped its way from his throat—deep and guttural and raw, making Remi's insides clench and her body become hotter than it already was. "If you keep looking at me like that, doll . . ."

She felt like pushing him. "You'll do what, Killure?"

His dark eyes flashed dangerously, and his hand froze in her hair. "I'll push you up against an icebox right here and now, rip off your clothes, and ravish your body. I'll finally get to know what you taste like, and what you sound like when you scream."

Remi clenched her fist at her side until her knuckles began to turn white. What would he taste like?

Suddenly becoming aware of their surroundings, Remi closed her eyes and shook her head to clear her thoughts. They were in the middle of a business deal, and abusing her powers as Killure's master would be wrong of her.

Remi averted her gaze and pulled Killure out of the corner and towards the main aisle that Papa Roche and her cousins were at the end of. She could hear his grunt of disapproval. Her fingers tingled where the heat was flowing from him into her, and although that was embarrassing, it was much better than being freezing cold.

Remi stood by Blue's side. He didn't even glance her way, but Bliss sent her a smile, which she happily returned.

Papa Roche tossed Killure a sidelong glance of disgust, but when the Icix looked up at him, his eyes widened and his haughtiness disappeared. Quickly, he took a step away from the dangerous creature.

"As I was saying," Blue continued formally. "He would have been brought in three to four days ago. Where are your coolers for merchandise from that time?"

Papa Roche pretended to think about it for a few seconds, before turning to them and shrugging indignantly. "Can't say for sure. I mean, there's quite a demand for human meat. He's probably been chopped up and sold in pieces to many different customers."

"But my family called you about holding his body soon after the time we assume he was brought in at," Remi cut in. "Surely you didn't go ahead and cut him up anyway when a bigger business opportunity presented itself."

Papa Roche scowled deeply. "Fine. I'll take you to him so you can magically bring him back to life."

"It's not magic," Blue stated plainly, his eyes wide and blank. Emotions rarely showed on his face, but Remi could tell that he got annoyed when people called their ability magic. She got that way too. "We don't simply touch a corpse and heal everything in an instant. That would be unrealistic. Our work is extraordinarily precise and requires us to study textbooks upon textbooks about anatomy until we know the body inside and out. Every precise dimension of every organ, bone, system, and structure."

Papa Roche only seemed more perturbed by Blue's attempt to explain as the older man brought them through a few more aisles of refrigerators.

Remi suspected that Papa Roche was purposefully doing a few circles instead of taking them directly to where they needed to go, but she allowed him his meager revenge.

Besides, she wasn't cold anymore.

Finally, Papa Roche stopped at the end of a row of fridges. He tossed them a smug smile. "The corpse you're looking for will be somewhere around here." And with that, he stalked off—without even bothering to help them.

Remi pursed her lips at his retreating form. Papa Roche was famed for knowing everything and anything that went on in his Palace. He could have easily pointed out where the corpse was, but chose to make them search for it instead.

Remi held back a smile. Apparently Papa Roche despised them as much as she despised him.