The plague killed faster than Veska Tallow could bury anyone. The marigold beds outside her workshop were full, so the new dead waited in the yard. By candlelight she pressed her thumb to a femur and the bone told her its truth, the way bones always did: fever first, then drowning in your own lungs. She had read ten thousand deaths this way. But the rib in her other hand stayed silent. No fever. No drowning. Nothing at all.

A sharp knock hit the workshop door. Veska slid the silent rib into her apron pocket just as the town magistrate stepped in, rain dripping off his coat. "You read the bones," he said. "I need you to read one for me. Quietly." He set a small wrapped bundle on her table and would not meet her eyes.