July 30, 1722. Bennington Warehouses. A block from the Kingston docks. For some reason, I’m always there at night…

Keys rattled like a broken alarm bell while we unlocked the warehouse door. One lock click later, and I gladly left the alley and its wandering shadows behind. Prowling around dark murder alleys at night had become an alarming habit.

“The broadsheets reported the murders have been happening all along the street outside,” Miss Primrose Stewart said nervously. “I told Mr. Argall this warehouse wasn’t a good idea, but he insisted he got a good deal.”

Her eyes cut toward the yellow, smudge-stained windows just past the forest of crates. Pale, sickly moonlight slithered in around the stains.

“I’m not certain how good a deal it really was,” she admitted to us with a rueful look.

Miss Stewart had mostly recovered from the Death Whisper attack the other day. But while she hid it well, she was still a bit jumpy. I didn’t blame her one bit, given the shrieking things lived almost rent free in my nightmares.

She wore a modest powder-blue dress, sleeves and hem smudged with a little dust. We’d interrupted her cleaning the bookshop for reopening to drag her into our dubious warehouse adventure.

Primrose cast a weary, nervous glance at the looming stacks of crates around us. Walkways wound between those stacks like narrow paths through a madman’s maze. She shoved a loose strand of her light chestnut hair behind an ear with a trembling hand. A sigh slipped out of her a moment later.

Elara gave me a slightly concerned look, then put a comforting arm around the younger woman. Quietly, she whispered a reassuring word or two that I didn’t quite make out. Primrose nodded, then straightened her spine.

“Those pots and blankets and all are this way,” Primrose told us in a thin voice. “It’s unthinkable that Mr. Argall allowed this, or never told me he had a brother! But now I understand why he didn’t want me helping him with the inventory here.”

On the way to get Primrose’s help with the warehouse, Elara and I debated how much the young woman knew. Did she know about her employer’s true interest in the Codex or about Lucas Argall, Joshua’s brother? Did the bookseller keep his assistant in the dark about it all?

We never quite settled that debate. At least, not until now.

Primrose suddenly paused and fretted over a small box out of place among the forest of head-high stacked crates. How she knew that on sight, was beyond me. Most likely it was the cryptic number system on the crates. Probably one of the many reasons I never opened a bookshop. Alchemy was complicated enough.

With great, concerned care, she moved the small box to a stack on her left, then hurried on ahead of us. I squinted at the numbers on a crate until Elara tugged at my arm to haul me along.

“I don’t think this is an act,” I whispered to Elara. “She was shocked and terrified in the shop when Señor Argall was attacked. I really think he kept her in the dark about all this.”

The captain’s eyebrows knitted together in a mildly skeptical look. We watched Primrose fret over yet another box.

“I think I’m finally convinced,” Elara said at last, lips pulled into a tight line. “I suppose all of this has me jumping at shadows. Though I do think the neatness in the bookshop was her doing.”

Primrose once more moved another small box of books. Then, after some consideration, turned the box until its label aligned with the others.

“Easily,” I replied. “She’d either have a heart attack or a field day in my workshop.”

“Heart attack,” Elara replied with a smirk.

We hurried down a winding path through the warehouse. Just before I felt hopelessly lost, we reached a small clearing between the crates.

It was just as Elara described. A small campsite with worn gray wool blankets, an iron stove, battered copper pot, tin cup, and more. The fact anyone cooked in here without getting caught screamed that Joshua knew exactly who lived here.

There was also the mysterious locked door on the far side of the squatter’s camp. It was a simple wooden door with a modest brass lock. The door was as old and weathered as the warehouse, but its lock was clearly newer. Both were sturdy, which was a must for any warehouse in Kingston.

“More storage?” I suggested in a low voice as I gestured to the door.

“To another alley outside?” Elara countered with a shrug.

Primrose didn’t pay us any attention, instead she focused on the campsite. The fact it existed didn’t sit well with her. She wrung her hands, then started forward to obviously clean.

“Señorita?” I said quickly. “Before you get started, could we take a closer look? We can always help you straighten up after.”

Primrose nodded hastily, then backed away only to be scooped up by Elara, who asked about the locked door. A quick use of a key later, the ladies were past the door and into a hallway beyond. I was far too occupied with the tin cup, broken tubes, and the iron stove.

I squatted down next to the stove. It wasn’t something I expected to see, much less in the back of a warehouse.

Iron stoves were rare, but this one matched others I’d seen before. It was little more than a battered iron box near a window. Filthy, with sinister scorch marks inside, and a pile of charred paper and wood on the bottom.

Near the top, someone had rigged a space for a wide-bottomed pot and tubing. The pot was missing, but there was still a pair of savagely broken copper tubes held in place. Even the baffles inside the stove were altered, to allow more careful control over the heat.

I recognized the adjustment. It was the same kind I had made in the fireplace for my workshop.

The idea was to draw more heat off the flames, directing it as evenly as possible while distilling. That is, if the potion even needed to be distilled, and not simply boiled like soup. I preferred the latter. There was less chance of steam-related explosions.

“An alchemy still,” I murmured.

I tapped the metal tube. It rocked a little in the singed metal bracket on top of the stove.

“Whoever you are, you’ve been trying to brew something delicate.”

Just then, a drop of dark blue fluid with gold specks trickled to the floor. The instant it hit, the wooden planks turned a healthy green, then quickly sprouted a tiny tree limb with three leaves. I stared at it, wide-eyed.

“Just what were you brewing?” I murmured. “The planks are dead wood…”

A thought hit me like a hammer to the head.

“No. No, it can’t be.”

I quickly knelt down next to the tiny plant and pulled out my folding knife. Cold anticipation slithered like winter slush down my spine while I worried over what that potion really was. I touched the blade to the stem, then a leaf.

Both were firm and healthy, as if it had spouted from a living tree. Then I turned over a leaf and winced.

“Mierda,” I swore under my breath.

Where the top of the leaf was healthy, the underside was not. Black spore balls and gray blotched of decay riddled the plant.

Suddenly, one of the black spores lashed out with a tiny sticky vine for my knife blade. I jerked my hand away as a second, then a third, tendril followed the first. They were grasping, reaching, with a raw, quivering need. As soon as I was out of reach, they retreated to underneath the leaf.

I jumped back and nearly tripped over the stove. The urge to stomp a boot heel onto the twisted plant was overwhelming.

Once I put my knife away, I pinched the bridge of my nose. My heartbeat slowly returned to normal, and I shoved a hand into my bag. Renwick materialized in a blast of briny fog a second after I opened the Codex page.

The ghost blinked, glanced around, then crossed his arms, giving me a skeptical look.

“You look like something just took a year off your life,” he said. “What happened?”

I raked a hand through my hair while I tried to calm my nerves.

“Necrotic potion,” I explained, then waved a hand at the tiny tree limb, then the stove. The tiny leaves chose that moment to turn black and curl in on themselves. Renwick grimaced, and I rubbed my right hand when it grew warm for a moment.

“Check the door and windows,” I told him. “Whoever left this will be back to destroy it. Keep watch while I find a way to collect what’s left.”

Renwick nodded, but stopped just as he started to turn away.

“If it’s dangerous, why keep it?”

“To know what kind,” I replied. “If it’s what I think it is, then I’ve a guess that Lucas Argall was the one staying here.”

“What about that young lady? Miss Stewart? I’m liable to scare a fright into her if I shout,” he added.

I shook my head, quickly searching my bag, then belt loops, for an empty vial.

“Can’t be helped,” I replied. “We’ll just have to explain, and apologize, later. Go!”

“Going!” The ghost dashed off into the forest of crates.