Rowan Nighthollow's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The keeper's promise sat heavy in Rowan's chest. A witness could speak of poison and a burned page. But the court would ask one question Rowan could not answer: who lit the fire? Without a name, the keeper's voice was only breath. Rowan turned the wilted orchid in his claws and searched it for an answer. He held a hollow stem to the last light. Inside the clear tube, something dark clung to the wall. He squeezed. A bead of sap ran out, and with it a smear of gray. Ash. The plant had been near flame after it was cut. Someone had burned it, or burned the page beside it, and the stem had drunk the smoke. Rowan brought the ash to his nose. It carried a sweet, oily scent he knew. Not woodsmoke. Tallow, and under it, myrrh. The house burned that costly incense in only one place: the lord's private chapel. The keeper had said the ledger died by an insider's order. Now the ash named the room. He carried the orchid back to the shrine. The keeper knelt at the bronze falcon, cleaning its pitted feet. Rowan held the stem close to the old man's face. "Smell this," Rowan growled. "Tell me what burned my page." The keeper breathed in. His hands went still. "Myrrh and tallow." His voice dropped. "Chapel incense. No servant enters there. Only the lord's household priest keeps the key." Rowan's claws tightened on the stem. "The priest." "He logged the poisons with me, once," the keeper said. "He knew ghost-stem. He knew the page. And he had the fire." The old man looked up, afraid now. "If I name him to the court, he will call me a liar. His word outranks mine." "Then we bring more than words." Rowan set the orchid at the falcon's feet. "The ash is in the stem. Any keeper of poisons can draw it out and match it to the chapel censer. Your ledgers list what burns in that room. Yours against his, with the plant between you." The keeper stared at the pale blossoms. Slowly he nodded. "It could be shown. It could be matched." He pressed a hand to the bronze. "I will swear to the smell. I will bring my old logs." Rowan had his answer. The ash led to one room, one key, one man. He knew now whose hand had burned his name to nothing. But knowing was not proving. The priest still held his post inside the great house, behind its walls and its guards. To match the censer, Rowan had to reach it. He wrapped the orchid in cloth and slid it into his glove. The next fire he faced would be the one he walked into himself.