The cold underground cellar was silent save for the steady, mournful drip of water into the drainage ditch. Korr Var turned the thick calfskin pages of Docket Forty-Four B. His steel tweezers lifted the brittle edges of Inquest Appendix C. Record of Verified Fatalities and Interments. The ink was dry and brown, recording forty-two names in neat office columns: age, occupation, location of recovery, and town burial chit number.
Pella sat on an overturned pine crate, wrapped in her woolen shawl. She held the mica lantern steady. The air smelled of damp cellar earth, pipe lime, rotting bindings. The bitter silt stench that seemed permanently embedded in the stonework of Lathmere’s lower foundations. Korr reached into his pocket. Then he pulled out a tin flask of hot boiled tea and two dry sourdough crusts. He handed one to Pella. The simple heat of the bread was a brief, grounding anchor in the freezing darkness.
Korr’s finger stopped halfway down the third page. His glasses slipped slightly down his nose. His breath caught in his throat with a sharp, reflex gasp.
“Look here, Pella,” Korr whispered, pointing to entry fourteen. A faint trace of green copper green rust showed on the bronze binder rivet holding the thick parchment pages together.
