The bodies were stacked with a carefulness that made them feel like inventory rather than the dead. Some were wrapped. Some were bare. Some looked like soldiers, others like peasants, others like things that had never been human at all.
The shelves of books hummed with a silent malice that made Ludwig's spine tighten; even without opening them, he could feel the weight of forbidden knowledge clinging to their bindings. Tools gleamed, bone saws, needles, hooks, strange instruments whose purpose made the mind recoil. Everything was clean in the way of a butcher's block, scrubbed too often.
Then the centerpiece, a coffin of Ice with a body that seemed to not have aged a day after its death. A young man's body, close to Ludwig's age, with dark hair and dark eyes. It had all of its body parts preserved besides one piece that was missing. An index finger on the right arm.
