Chapter 3

Maevyth and Lolla reach the Bronwick cottage near the Eating Woods, a once-prosperous morumberry vineyard now decayed into a mortuary and cemetery under Agatha’s ownership. Maevyth cleans a deep arm cut in the foul-smelling washroom, relieved it is not an animal bite that might prompt amputation. With time pressing toward noon, she binds the wound and climbs to the attic room she shares with her sister, Aleysia.

From the window, the sisters watch Sacred Men and two Vonkovyan soldiers escort a hidden prisoner toward the forest for the Banishing, trailed by obligated parishioners and ominous Red Veils. Maevyth voices dread that, after their father’s death, Agatha will consign her to the Red Veil. Aleysia—irreverent and protective—pledges to marry quickly and claim Maevyth as her ward, though Maevyth doubts any husband will permit it.

Their banter veers crude until Agatha interrupts, rebuking them and reminding them of their dependence on Grandfather’s legacy. She demands confirmation of morumberry leaf oil supplies—sold as spirit-warding—and the more profitable poison, the Snake’s Tooth. Maevyth admits there is plenty, though she secretly cuts its potency with nasturtiums to dull its lethality, revealing her moral conflict with Agatha’s trade.

As they ready to leave, Uncle Riftyn flirts with Aleysia, who notes he is step-kin and therefore no blood relation, while the morbid Uncle Felix is mentioned as the cellar-dwelling mortician. Family dynamics underscore Aleysia’s desirability and Agatha’s control, contrasting with Maevyth’s stigmatized status as the lorn.

With tensions unresolved and the Banishing imminent, Aleysia departs first, and Maevyth prepares to follow to the woods, anxious about the prisoner’s fate and her own narrowing future.