Five Mates Let Me Burn, So I Rejected Them All novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Practice

I woke the healer with a hand on his shoulder and dragged him downstairs to the chest.

He knelt in his shirt and looked at the lock with a candle held close.

"Pried at, not picked," he said. "Whoever it was had no key and no skill."

He turned the key and lifted the lid.

The cellar book lay on top, and the cloth with the cracked stone was underneath, just as I had left them.

"Nothing taken," he said.

"Then someone wanted to see what was in it."

"Or wanted to know if it was here."

The window latch in the front room was bent outward, and there was a small, clean bootprint in the flower bed.

It was a narrow print, a woman's size.

"Dahlia doesn't climb," Corin said from the stairs.

He was dressed, with his boots on and his curls wet, and his face was the sharp, set face he wore for bad news.

"She sends someone," I said. "Her maid, probably."

"Probably." He held up a folded paper. "Which is why I need you to read this."

"What is it?"

"A note. A boy gave it to me at the lane gate an hour ago for a copper." He put it in my hand. "I didn't open it until I was sure you'd see it first."

I unfolded it, and Dahlia's round, sweet hand ran across the page.

Corin, darling, I'm so lonely. Everyone has turned on me and I can't think why. Meet me in the orchard behind the Hall tonight and I'll explain everything. Burn this. D.

I read it twice and handed it to the healer.

"She wants to get you alone," I said.

"She wants her stone back," said Corin. "She's trying to find out who has it."

"Will you go?" I asked Corin.

"I'll go if you tell me to," he said. "I'll go and say whatever you want. I'll carry the stone in my coat and give her a cup of tea. I'll do anything that isn't what you're about to say, which is no."

"No," I said.

"No," he agreed, and gave me a crooked smile.

It was the first honest smile I had seen on him since the market square.

"Then burn it yourself," I said. "Bring me the ashes."

He lit a match, and the note went up in the candle flame.

"Corin."

"Yes?"

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