In the bottom of the boat was a sturdy cloth sack, drenched. When Carson picked it up, the chink of glass sounded inside it. “What on earth?” Carson muttered, and he untied the drawstring. Sedric’s heart sank. Greft’s last words had been clear to him. I stole it from your room. It’s gone now. Didn’t make anyone rich. He’d known immediately what the keeper was talking about. He hadn’t looked at his dragon parts in days, hadn’t wanted to gaze on the vials of blood or the scales he’d taken. He had hoped that Greft’s last words had meant he’d thrown them over the side or otherwise lost them. But as Carson pulled the glass ink bottles and the specimen pots out of the sack and set them in a row on the seat, Sedric saw what Greft had meant. They were empty. The bottle that had held the blood had a swirl of scarlet left in the bottom. When Carson tipped it, it was still liquid. The color in it still swirled, scarlet on red. “What was this about?” Carson asked no one.

Sedric sat very still. If Carson was aware of how he crouched like a rabbit hoping a hawk would not see him, he gave no sign of it. Sedric looked at the emptied bottles. He was the last one to know what they meant. If he never spoke, then Carson need never know what kind of man he had been and the sort of deceptions he’d practiced. No one need know the full account of how he had deceived those who had trusted him. Deceived those who loved him.

But if he never spoke, then he’d continue being that man. He’d continue deceiving those who trusted and loved him. Including Carson.

His voice sounded rusty when he spoke. “Those were mine, Carson. Greft took them from my room.” He cleared his throat, tried to speak, couldn’t, and croaked the words out anyway. “They had dragon parts in them. Bits of flesh cut from a dirty wound that Thymara was bandaging. A few scales. And that one held blood.” He was choking again, his throat closing with shame. He didn’t look at Carson’s face. “That was my plan when I came on this trip with Alise. I was going to stay just long enough to get dragon parts to sell, and then I was going back to Bingtown. I was going to sell it all to the Duke of Chalced. And then I was going to be rich and I was going to run off with Hest, so we could live as we pleased.”