Chapter 8: The Plate

I put the tote bag on the Blackfern kitchen table at midnight, and nobody touched it for a full minute.

Torben stood at one end with his arms folded.

Maisy sat at the other with her medical kit open and a pair of tiny screwdrivers laid out on a dish towel.

"It's just a bracelet," Maisy said. "Say it with me."

"It's not just a bracelet," I said.

"No," she agreed. "But I'd like to say it."

I took out the crown first and set it down.

It was a plain silver band with a small moon cut into the front, and it was heavier than I remembered.

Then I took out the cuff.

It lay open in my hand with its hinge loose, the silver mirror-bright on the outside and dull on the inside.

The face plate was a flat disc stamped with the crescent and the pine.

It hummed.

I felt it in my palm, a faint steady buzz.

Torben took a step closer, and the hum got louder.

"Do it," I said.

Maisy worked the tip of the smaller screwdriver under the edge of the disc.

She was careful and slow, and her tongue was between her teeth.

The plate came up on a hidden hinge with a tiny snap.

Underneath it was a shallow hollow in the silver, about the size of a postage stamp.

In the hollow lay two scraps of paper, folded very small.

"Huh," Maisy said. "That's not in my gran's book."

I unfolded the older one first.

The paper was brittle and yellow, and the handwriting was Verity's, narrow and slanting.

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