Outside, the keep continued under its guarded routines. The laundry courts stayed watched. The water barrels remained under double guard. But the direction of the hunt had narrowed to a single intended victim, a tea that would never be poured, a black thread in a garden path, and the contact who still believed the system of signals was unbroken.
The prepared example had a name now.
And the keep was finally aimed at the hand that had written it.
***********
Thorne reached the east herb garden before the moon cleared the highest wall.
The path was narrow, bordered by low stone and the dry winter beds where the keep's medicinal plants slept under straw. The third stone sat exactly where Sila had described: a flat, dark piece of river rock set flush with the earth, easy to miss unless someone was looking for it.
