Chapter 23: Wolfsbane

The herbalist's cousin drove into the yard at seven in the morning.

It was the same black hearse that had carried me out of Seattle.

Marla ran out to meet him in her socks.

I stayed on the porch with my coffee.

On the inside of my wrist I could still feel Eamon's mouth, where he had kissed me awake an hour before.

He stood at my shoulder now, very close, not touching me.

He had learned how to do that.

"She wouldn't trust the post," the cousin said, climbing the steps with a sealed folder.

"She wouldn't trust a phone, either. She said to give you this and say nothing until you've read it."

"Does she want to be thanked?"

"She wants you to read it."

We took the folder into the kitchen.

The old woman put a pot of tea on the stove.

Then she took it off again and switched to coffee, in case anybody needed to stay awake.

I spread the pages on the table.

There were three lab reports, in the herbalist's cramped hand, each stamped and dated.

Marla leaned over my shoulder.

"Sample one," I read. "Dregs from the glass, collected by Marla Quinn from the vault tray the night of the ceremony."

"I took it off the tray before they bagged it," Marla said. "It was in my bra for a week."

"Sample two. Loose tea and a pink ring from a white paper bag, supplied by Alpha Mackay."

Eamon lifted his head.

"I carried it in my coat," he said. "I didn't let it out of my sight."

"Sample three. Blood drawn from Dr. Hazel Brennan after a collapse in the Mackay Tower hallway, last spring."

I stopped.

"You kept that?" I said to Marla.

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