"What the Goat Knew"

Tom caught the girl's thin shoulder before she could bolt past him. Not hard. But enough.

"No. You don't run yet. You talk first, and you talk fast, because the next thing I do depends on it." He kept his eyes on the passage, on the wavering blue. "The second door. Where."

"Behind the cot. Behind the striped cloth — it looks like wall but it isn't." Sary's words came in a rush. "There's a stair up to the old cistern. That's how the hunter knew. He didn't find it. Somebody told him, same as somebody told them about the Wren."

"How many."

"Two now. The hunter with the long gun, and the brother. The cord-man you shot — they left him on the beach for the crabs. The brother said a debt's a debt." Her one good eye came up to his. "They sent me first because the old woman won't cut a child. They know her. They knew her before you. Before the captain, even."

That landed in Tom's chest like cold shot. They knew her before. The bargain Mama Yves spoke of so smoothly. The two doors. The candle lit an hour before he ever touched the ladder.

"Why tell me any of it?" he said. "You could have led them down on me clean."

The girl looked at the cord knotted raw at her wrist. "Because you asked my name," she said. "Nobody's done that since the boat."

Far down the passage the blue light steadied — then dimmed, the way a flame dims when a body passes in front of it. Someone was already in the chamber with Marrow and Mama Yves. Quietly. While Tom stood here, getting the truth he'd demanded.