Chapter 17: Green Ledger

Cade's POV

Freja went to the chapel to watch the oath, and I went to Anson's office to rob it.

It was the only plan we had in ninety minutes, and she had made me say it back twice.

"You're sure it's in the safe," she said at the door of Pine Hall.

"Every year on the same date he writes in a green book. I've watched him do it since I was fifteen."

"And you can open it?"

"I can hear it now."

For six years I had stood next to that safe, deaf.

Tonight I put my ear to the steel in the dark office, and the tumblers spoke to me one at a time.

Left, right, left.

The door swung open on a shelf of papers and one thick green ledger with a cracked spine.

I took it out and sat on the floor behind the desk.

My hands were steady.

That surprised me.

The early pages were boring, tuition and tithes and pack dues.

The page marked with a ribbon was not.

The date at the top was ten years and two months ago.

Karrick Den. Fourteen men. Accelerant. Paid in full.

I read it three times.

Then I read the line below it.

Thirty-one stones, cut and set, $18,400. Paid.

That was the cost of the graves.

I had stood at those graves at twelve years old with a Greaves hand on my shoulder.

It was Anson's father's hand, and he had told me how sorry he was.

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