She found the answer three days after the key arrived.
Or rather...
She found the first piece of one.
Ever since noticing the strange symbol on the key, something had continued bothering her.
A memory.
Incomplete.
She knew she'd seen that mark somewhere before.
Not on the river stone.
Earlier than that.
Much earlier.
The feeling refused to leave her alone.
So, on the third morning, she stopped trying to remember.
Instead...
She started searching.
The Reliquary's records filled nearly an entire wall.
Every acquisition had been organized by year, then by supplier.
It wasn't her system.
She had inherited it from the previous archivist.
After three years of working with it, she'd decided it was too practical to improve.
If she wanted to understand Casimir Thrane's history with House Voss...
She would have to start at the beginning.
Not halfway through.
That was another habit she'd inherited.
