“It’s a start.”

Kerrick gave me his care-to-explain look, but I ignored him as we waited for Belen.

“Why can’t we shelter in here?” I asked Kerrick.

“No back door.”

“There could be one,” I said.

“Without more torches, we won’t be able to find it. Belen’s probably stumbling around in the dark by now.” Kerrick called to him.

No reply. Loren offered to search, but Kerrick said no. Another fretful ten minutes passed, then Kerrick emitted a high-pitched and painfully sharp whistle.

“Over here,” Belen called back. “I’ve found something!”

We followed his voice. He stood at the far end of a row of shelves. The torchlight made a yellow puddle around his feet. When we drew closer, he moved the light, revealing a desiccated body on the ground.

Dried-out flesh clung to the bones. The man, I think, lay on his side. I bent closer to examine the corpse. Quain made a disgusted sound. As part of my healer training, I had assisted in autopsies and dissections in order to learn about the internal parts and organs of a body.

However, it didn’t take a healer to figure out what killed this man. A sword had been shoved between his ribs, piercing his heart. He had been murdered. I sat back on my heels, mulling it over. If the grieving public had gotten in here, they would have burned all the records. The door had been locked. Someone who had a key perhaps, or knew of this room’s existence. Too many unknowns at this point to determine why he had been murdered.

“There’s a broken crate underneath him,” Belen said. “Maybe he was protecting the contents.” He rolled the man onto his back.

I swept out the pieces and connected the ones marked with letters. There weren’t many. The crate had held Death Lily seeds.

Chapter 16

“Why would anyone want Death Lily seeds?” Quain asked.

“Or more important, why would the Healer’s Guild have these seeds in the first place?” Loren asked.

“To study them,” I said.

“Or to find a way to kill them,” Kerrick added.

Belen moved the dead body and the last bits of the broken crate to the side as if searching for something. “I don’t see the seeds anywhere. They’re gone.”

“How do you know what they look like?” Quain asked him.

“When that Death Lily had us in its grip, I had an up close and personal view of its seedpods.”

Loren cocked his head, staring at the body. “So, public sentiment turns on the healers, and it’s the last days of the Guild. Again, why are those seeds worth protecting? Do you think they might have something to do with the plague?”

Belen shrugged. “Possible.”

“Are there any records?” I asked, scanning the crates stacked on the shelves nearby. Nothing.

“This puzzle will have to wait,” Kerrick said. “The snow is piling up outside.”

“What about the body?” Quain asked, hefting the crate he had found. “Should we feed another Death Lily? Or don’t they like the crunchy ones?” No one was amused by his sarcasm.

We retraced our steps and climbed the stairs. Belen closed the door, and leaned a large piece of stone against it. “That should keep the snow and wind out.”

About four inches of snow had fallen since we entered the record room. Following Kerrick, I noticed the quiet stillness of the forest. I was glad for my fur-lined boots, but worried about our tracks. They would be visible until the winds swept them away.

Quain saw me glance back and said, “If Kerrick’s not fussing about our tracks, that means no one is close enough to us.” He gazed at his leader. “He always knows where the mercs are hiding in the woods. Do you know anything about that, Avry? Or is it his story to tell?” He shook the crate in his hands. “What other secrets are you hiding from us?”

I didn’t want to increase his agitation so I didn’t answer. Instead, I wondered if he would have the courage to question Kerrick directly or just make sarcastic comments until I or Kerrick told him.

No one was surprised when Kerrick led us to a cave. I watched Quain add another uncanny skill to Kerrick’s list. The snow made it difficult to find firewood. All our piles, except Kerrick’s, were meager.

Dinner was a quiet affair, more so because we were tired from uncovering the records room than because of an all-consuming grief for Flea. The grief would never go away completely, but it would fade into a background ache. Being survivors of the plague, these men had so many people to grieve for; it had to be numbing. Me, too, but I couldn’t claim to be a survivor of the plague since, in another odd quirk of the disease, healers were immune to it.

Why hadn’t the healers caught the plague, too? We sickened with other ailments like everyone else; we just recovered faster. But there had been no reports of a healer contracting the plague unless they’d assumed it from a victim. At least once we sickened, we were never contagious to others.

Quain started his questions soon after we had finished cleaning the stew pot. Loren gave him a warning look until he realized that Quain was determined. Then his focus shifted to Kerrick. Belen, too, kept his gaze on Kerrick. I couldn’t read Belen’s expression, which was unusual, or Kerrick’s, which wasn’t.

“You are going to explain what’s going on,” Quain said. It was a statement not a question.

Kerrick looked at me.

“Don’t blame Avry. She didn’t say a word,” Quain said. “I just started putting things together.”