The third noble had been buried at dawn, and Dr. Silas Corvain had not been called to see the body. He stood at the counter of the apothecary he kept above the lane, one gloved hand flat on the wood, the other sorting jars by the ridge of their wax seals. His mask hung from a hook by the door. The shop smelled of thyme and old smoke. Somewhere behind the beaked helm and the layered black armor, Silas was a blind man who had learned to read a corpse by its breath and its skin. He had ruled six plague deaths across the noble houses of Willowmaw this month. He now believed at least four were poisonings. He could not prove it without the bodies. And he could not find the bodies without a list. The city registrar would not give him one. Silas had asked twice. The clerk cited the Council's quarantine order: plague dead were sealed and interred within the day, and no physician outside the Council's own was permitted the roster. Every hour the list stayed shut, another grave closed over evidence. He pulled a bundle of trained herbs from the drawer beneath the counter — rosemary, mint, thyme grown against a wire so the stems bent the way his fingers needed. Crushed near a dead mouth, they sharpened any bitter-almond trace on the breath. Useless without a corpse to hold them to. The bell over the door rang. Silas heard armor, not cloth. Buckles, oiled leather, the click of a beak against the doorframe as the visitor ducked. "You're the plague doctor who signed the Vellin boy," the visitor said. The voice was a crow's — dry, clipped. "I am the house physician at Hearthvale Manor. My lady's cousin was buried this morning. She does not believe he died of plague." Silas turned his masked face toward the sound. "Then you have come with a name I need. Give me the others. Every noble the Council has burned or buried as plague this month." "I brought the register." Paper slid across the counter. "Copied last night. Six names. Three still above ground until sundown." Silas laid his palm flat on the sheet. He could not read ink. He did not need to. "Read them to me." The Asterwing read. Silas marked each name against his memory of who had called him, who had not, who had been rushed to the ground. By the fourth name his hand was already moving to the herbs, to the mask, to a small bundle of lavender he kept for the families. "Three still above ground," Silas said. "We go to the nearest now. Before the gravediggers finish their supper." He lifted the beaked mask from its hook and fitted it over his face.

The Asterwing waited by the door while Silas tied the herb pouch to his belt. Sundown was four hours off. Three bodies lay across three houses, and no house would open its cellar to a masked stranger asking after poison. Silas had already decided the answer before he spoke it. He would not chase the bodies. He would bring the bodies to him. "Your lady's cousin," Silas said. "Where is he now?" "Laid out in the family chapel until dusk," the Asterwing said. "Two guards at the door. A priest inside." "And the other two?" "One at a merchant's townhouse. One at the Council's own hall." The crow's beak clicked. "The hall is closed to us." "Then we take the two we can." Silas turned toward the back of the shop. "Bring them here. Tonight. Before the diggers come at sundown." The Asterwing did not move. "You want me to steal two noble corpses." "I want you to borrow them for one hour each." Silas pushed open the door to the back room. He knew the space by count of steps. Six to the treatment table. Two more to the sink. The shelf ran the length of the far wall, jars sorted by seal. "This room locks. The window is shuttered. No one comes here without my key." "And if I am caught carrying a dead lord through the lane?" "You are a house physician moving a body for a second rite. Say the family requested it. Say it with the voice you used on the clerk this morning." Silas found the table's edge and pressed his palm flat. "I need one hour with each. That is all." The Asterwing was quiet. Then the buckles shifted. "The cousin first. He is closest." He went. Silas set out what he needed by touch. Lavender at the head of the table. Trained herbs at the right hand. A clean basin of water at the sink. The clock on the shelf ticked against his ear. He counted its beats until the back door opened again. The Asterwing carried the body in wrapped in altar cloth. He laid it on the padded table without a word. Silas locked the door behind him and set his gloved fingers to the dead man's lips. He crushed a stem of the trained thyme and held it under the cold nose. He bent close. Beneath the incense of the chapel, beneath the sweet rot of a day above ground, he found it. Bitter almond. Faint. Certain. "Not plague," Silas said. "Cyanide. In something he drank the night before." The Asterwing exhaled. "Then I go for the second." "Go quickly." Silas straightened. The clock ticked past the hour. "And when you return, tell me who poured his last cup. Someone in that house knows. Someone in that house is next."

The back door opened again before the clock struck the next hour. Silas heard the Asterwing's boots on the boards, then the wet thump of a second body on the padded table. He locked the door behind them and set his hand to the altar cloth. The smell hit him before his fingers found the merchant's collar. Sharp. Oily. Wrong. "They embalmed him," Silas said. "The house sent for a preparer before I arrived," the Asterwing said. "I could not refuse the wrapping without a fight." Silas peeled the cloth from the merchant lord's face. The oils climbed into his mask. Clove. Camphor. Something resinous under both. He crushed a stem of the trained thyme and held it beneath the cold nose. He waited. He bent closer until the beak of his mask nearly touched the dead man's lip. He drew a slow breath through the herb. Nothing. No bitter almond. No sweetness of rot. Only the wall of oil the preparer had built between him and the truth. He tried the mouth next. He tipped the jaw open and passed the thyme along the tongue. The oils had gone in with a brush. He tasted them at the back of his own throat through the linen. He set the herb down and gripped the edge of the sink. Cold porcelain under his gloves. He turned the tap and rinsed the thyme away. "Well?" the Asterwing said. "I cannot smell the poison. The preparer knew what he was doing. Or he was told what to do." "Then we have one death confirmed. Not two." "One death and a warning." Silas turned from the sink. "Someone in that house knew a physician might come sniffing. Someone paid for oils before the body cooled." A soft knock came at the front of the shop. Three taps. A pause. Two more. Silas knew the pattern. He crossed the back room and unlatched the inner door. The scarecrow stood in the front room with straw at his cuffs and mud on his boots. Silas had treated the boy's cough two winters back and refused payment. Since then the scarecrow appeared when Silas needed eyes on a street. "You said to watch the merchant's gate," the scarecrow said. His stitched mouth did not move much when he spoke. "A man came out an hour before your friend went in. Small case. Brown coat. He walked to the Council hall and did not come back." Silas's grip tightened on the doorframe. "Describe the case." "Flat. Leather. Brass corners." "A preparer's kit." Silas turned back toward the table where the merchant lay useless to him. "The Council sent him. They are cleaning the bodies before we can read them." The Asterwing's beak clicked once. "Then the third body is already lost." "Not if we reach the hall before the oils do."