Page 74

“Evelyn Harlow,” he read.

His voice was low and private. The syllables sat in the room and didn’t echo. He refolded the parchment along its crease. The paper made a soft sound. He reached into his breast pocket. The wax stick was short and red. He held it over the candle flame until the wax softened and dripped. A single drop landed on the fold. He pressed his thumb into it, and the wax took his print and hardened.

He set the sealed parchment aside.

“Delphine Marchetti,” he read.

He refolded it, sealed it, and set it aside.

“Margaret Finch.”

He folded, sealed, and set it aside.

“Clara Reed.”

The names came in order, without hesitation or mispronunciation. Arrow read each one like something memorized years ago and returned to out of habit. His voice didn’t vary. The candle flame didn’t waver.

“Thomas Vale.”

He folded, sealed, and set it aside.

“Rosalind Marchetti.”

The wax pooled. His thumb pressed. The name sat under his thumb for one second longer than the others. Then he set it with the rest.

“Edith Blackwood.”

“Simon Keller.”

“James Morrow.”

The ninth parchment joined the stack, nine seals over nine names. The red wax caught the candlelight and held it. Arrow looked at the stack. His expression didn’t change.

He reached into the satchel. His hand found the herb bundle. He lifted it out. The bundle was small and twine-bound, with a paper tag hanging from the stem ends. The handwriting was Rosalind’s: oak gall, one hundred and twenty grams. The tag was dated three weeks earlier.

Arrow held the bundle under the candle. He turned it. The dried leaves caught the light, brown and brittle. He knew each component by sight: oak gall, iron filings, birch bark, valerian root. The proportions were written on the tag in Rosalind’s tight script. He had read them a dozen times. He read them again.

He set the bundle beside the sealed parchments. The two stacks sat parallel on the table. Names and components together made the architecture of something he had been building longer than most of the people in this town had been alive.

Arrow reached into his inner coat pocket. The leather notebook was small, bound in calfskin that had gone soft at the edges. He opened it. The pages were filled with his handwriting, tight and slanted: dates, names, locations, a history written in increments too small for anyone but him to map.

He turned to a blank page. The pen was already in his hand. He hadn’t reached for it. It had been there.

He wrote two lines.

Gabriel’s limit reached. Alliance confirmed real.

The ink dried fast. He closed the notebook. The cover made no sound. He tucked it into the satchel. The buckles fastened, one, then two. The leather settled against his hip.

Arrow looked at the candle. The flame burned steadily. The wax had pooled halfway down the stick. He had been in this room for forty-seven minutes. He hadn’t moved from the chair.

He leaned forward. His breath reached the flame. The candle went out.

The room went dark. The only sound was the soft click of the satchel buckle as Arrow stood and adjusted the strap across his shoulder.

Outside, Maple Street was quiet. The hardware store’s sign creaked in a wind that had picked up from the north. Arrow didn’t hear it. He was already moving toward the stairs, his boots silent on the treads, his hand on the rail, his mind already three steps ahead of the body that carried it.

The door at the bottom of the stairs opened and closed. The street was empty and the night was dark. Somewhere to the east, beyond the tree line, a piano played a single phrase and stopped.