Rowan nearly tore the frame from the wall.
“My mother was part of it.”
They searched the room.
Beneath a loose floorboard, Rowan found letters.
Most were from Eleanor to Silas.
She read with shaking hands.
Father, Voss discovered the bloodline carries something beyond cholera resistance. James wants to tell the government. Voss wants to sell it privately. You were right to hide the flock.
Another:
I do not trust James anymore.
Another:
If anything happens to me, Rowan must never know until Voss is dead.
Rowan dropped the paper.
Caleb looked sick.
“My father…”
Rowan grabbed the final letter.
It was unfinished.
The secret is not in the feathers. It is in the marsh plants they eat. Silas was wrong about inheritance. The birds are not naturally resistant. They become resistant because—
The page ended.
Torn.
Rowan stared.
Because what?
Outside, a gunshot exploded.
Caleb fell.
Rowan screamed.
Blood spread across his shoulder.
Voss stood in the doorway holding a revolver.
“You should have sold the farm,” he said.
Rowan crouched beside Caleb.
“You killed my mother.”
Voss smiled faintly.
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“Your mother isn’t dead.”
The words struck harder than the gunshot.
Rowan stopped breathing.
Voss continued.
“She became inconvenient.”
“Where is she?”
“Close.”
Caleb groaned.
Voss aimed the revolver.
“Move away from him.”
Rowan obeyed slowly.
“You burned the first barn.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Silas, Eleanor, and Hawthorne were about to ruin everything.”
“Medicine sales?”
Voss laughed.
“Vale told you that?”
“What else?”
Voss glanced toward the marsh outside.
“Your uncle discovered a plant.”
Rowan remembered The Sink.
The reeds.
The flooded channels.
“The geese ate it.”
“Yes.”
“And became resistant.”
“To more than cholera.”
Voss’s voice dropped.
“Tuberculosis. Certain intestinal diseases. Wound infections. Not immunity, exactly. But remarkable resistance.”
Rowan stared.
“In a plant?”
“In a fungus living on its roots.”
The implications were enormous.
“You knew.”
“For years.”
“Then why destroy it?”
“Because you don’t give away a miracle.”
Voss’s eyes gleamed.
“You own it.”
Rowan finally understood.
He had not feared losing a medicine market.
He had wanted monopoly control over something far more valuable than goose down.
“Silas refused.”
“Silas was sentimental.”
“And my mother?”
Voss’s expression changed.
“Eleanor was brilliant.”
Rowan lunged.
Voss raised the gun.
Before he could fire, a voice came from outside.
“Put it down, Elias.”
Everyone froze.
An older woman stood behind him holding a shotgun.
Her hair was silver.
Her face narrow.
But Rowan knew her eyes.
They were her own.
The shotgun never wavered.
Voss whispered, “Eleanor.”
Rowan forgot how to breathe.
The woman looked at her.
Twenty years of absence lived in that gaze.
“Hello, Rowan.”
Voss turned his revolver.
Eleanor fired.
The blast struck the doorframe beside his head.
He dropped his weapon.
Caleb kicked it away with his good arm.
Minutes later, Peter Lyle and two county deputies—summoned earlier by Caleb after he suspected Voss would follow—arrived.
Voss was arrested.
But Rowan barely noticed.
She stared at Eleanor.
“You’re alive.”
“Yes.”
“You let me think you were dead.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To keep you alive.”
Rowan laughed bitterly.
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s true.”
“You abandoned me.”
“I hid you with my father.”
“You were my mother.”
“And Voss had already killed two men.”
Rowan stopped.
Eleanor’s voice cracked.
“He told me if I went public, he would kill you first.”
“So you disappeared?”
