Chapter 10: The Bottle

I went alone, the way the note said.

The cold store was a stone room under the kitchen, and the lamp inside it was already burning.

Fenn was not there.

His dish towel lay on the floor beside an overturned crate, and one of his boots stood by the door.

My stomach dropped.

"Fenn?" I said, and the freezer hummed back at me.

Against the far wall, behind the sacks of flour, stood a wooden case with the lid pried up.

It was full of small brown bottles, thirty or more, standing in rows.

Each had a white label.

Each label said E. Vane, in a round hand I knew well.

I had seen it on birthday cards, and on the note that said you've got this on my first day of work.

Lavinia.

My legs went out from under me, and I sat down hard on the flour.

I had not swallowed a drop in days, and now I could feel what that meant.

My left arm tingled.

The scar was warm.

I took one bottle in my shaking hand and pulled the cork, and the smell rose, thin and metallic.

I knew what it was before anyone said it.

The door opened behind me.

I did not turn, because I knew his step, and the steady weight of it.

"Fenn's gone," I said. "She did this."

"Aldous told me at five." Dashiell crossed the room and knelt, and took the bottle gently out of my hand. "I brought someone."

In the doorway stood a small gray woman in a shawl, and I recognized her from the valley market, where she sold herbs.

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