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It wasn’t nailed; the lid was heavy, but shifted at once

"Oh," Ja down

Gold will never tarnish, no s It will lie at the bottoe one day in soht as the day it was s that has called to ots lay in a shallow layer over the bottoh to fill two sh to require two ot staold

I blinked at the shiht It was dark on the floor, but I could stillwhere he should not" And what had he seen, Daniel Rawlings, that had in of his casebook, with that discreet notation, "Aurum"?

Hector Cameron was still alive, then The s rose to follow his wandering patient, Hector had led hiht to view his hoard? Perhaps Neither Hector Cas could say, no it had been, or what had happened

I felt a thickening in my throat, for the ue whose instruments I had inherited, whose shade had stood at e and coht to heal the down

Jah the coffin held an occupant whose rest had been disturbed

Outside, Jocasta stood still on the path She had an ar, but it was not clear which of the the other Jocasta must kno from the noise where ere, but she faced the river still, eyes fixed, unblinking in the torchlight

I cleared hter with my free hand

"What shall we do, then?" I asked Jamie

He turned and looked back into the toed a little

"We’ll leave the Lieutenant to Hector, as we planned As for the doctor" He drew breath slowly, troubled gaze fixed on the slender bones that lay in a graceful fan, pale and still in the light A surgeon’s hand--once

"I think," he said, "ill take hi friends"

He brushed past the toment or pardon, and went to fetch Lieutenant Wolff

105

A THRUSH’S DREAM

Fraser’s Ridge

May, 1772

THE NIGHT AIR WAS COOL and fresh So early in the year, the bloodthirsty flies and mosquitoes hadn’t started yet; only randoh the openand then, to flutter round the s past their outflung limbs in brief caress

She lay as she had fallen, half on top of hi loud and slow in her ears Froed black line of trees on the far side of the dooryard, and beyond theht that it should be possible to step out aher, to the hook of the crescent moon

"You’re notwith her ear on his chest, she could hear the faint catch in his voice, the point where he forced air hard through his scarred throat to for "I didn’t ever tell you not to read it"

His fingers touched her shoulder, lightly, and her toes curled with pleasure at the feeling Did she ht to feel exposed in sohts and dreams laid bare to him--but she trusted hiainst her

Besides, once set down on paper, the drea fros that she liht, once felt--but not the sa as the h" Her chin rested in the hollow of his shoulder He sood, bitter and musky with the scent of satisfied desire "Tell h his chest, nearly soundless, but she felt it

"Only one?"

"Yes, but it has to be an i ones, or the ones where you’re being chased by a o to school without your clothes on Not the ones that everybody has--one that only you have"

One of her hands was on his chest, scratching gently to make the dark curly hairs twitch and rise The other was under the pillow; if she htly, she could feel the smooth little shape of the ancient wifie, as he called it She could i, round and hard She could feel the clutch and soft spas Would it be this ti lashes lay against his cheek, black as the lines of the trees outside He turned back then, lifting them, and his eyes were the color of ht