Abi expected that this litany in proof of her impoverished state would have brought another blush to Sussena’s cheeks, but all she did was nod in confirmation. “All that useless furniture made us many a meal,” she confirmed. “There should be nothing up there but thatch.”

Well, as Abi and Perry discovered when they climbed the creaking staircase into the attic, that was not quite true. There was plenty of evidence that a pair of barn owls had raised several broods up there, and the litter on the floor proved that there were mice and sparrows making free with the single long room as well. Abi found herself sneezing quite a lot, as the dirty, disintegrating thatch disgorged dust every time they trod a little too heavily on the floorboards. Fortunately it didn’t take her long to dismiss the attic floor and the chimney—the only places where anything could be hidden up here—and descend to the bedrooms below.

Here things were somehow sadder than the attic. There, the entire room had been stripped of everything useful. Here . . . there were still signs of what had been. Bedsteads too large to move had collapsed in on themselves before they could be taken apart and sold. Plastered walls showed stains where rain had come in—and more plaster was flaking and falling off the ceiling with every footstep they took.

Perry sat down in the middle of the room and began communing with whatever small creatures might be in the walls. Abi went to work. And when they were done with that room, they moved on to the next.

By the end of the day they had finished all the second floor rooms. That left only the first floor, and the storage rooms in the cellar beneath it, and Abi’s hopes had begun to dim.

“There’s still the first floor—and the cellars,” Perry pointed out. “If I were going to put my bets on anything, it’d be the cellars. Don’t worry,” he continued, before she could even voice her concern that if there was a hiding place in anything but the walls, she would never find it. “I’ve got two years of training in how to find hiding places under floors. It’s harder to keep those concealed than most people would like to think.”

“But what if it’s not in a hiding place, if it’s just buried?” she asked, feeling her heart sink.