Chapter 3

The city's heritage-craft incense showcase was set for the weekend. Our Henson Atelier's Soothing Incense was the finale exhibit, and the make-or-break piece in our push for a place on the state heritage-craft registry.

I'd started preparing the sample a full two weeks early, blending three versions with my own hands, adjusting the proportions again and again until I settled on the one I was proudest of. I sealed it in a glazed-glass incense box and locked it in the display case.

The morning the show opened, I'd barely reached the exhibition hall when I heard the commotion inside.

Director Chavez, who was overseeing the review, stood in front of our booth, his face dark. A crowd of exhibitors and reporters had gathered around him.

"Lucille Henson, this is what your Henson Atelier submits for judging?"

He pointed at the open glazed-glass box, his tone thick with disappointment and anger. "This is the Soothing Incense you've passed down for seven generations?"

"How is this any different from the cheap cedar incense you buy for ten dollars on the street?"

"Is this how you treat a heritage-craft review?"

My heart lurched, and I hurried over.

What sat in the box was nothing like the Soothing Incense I'd prepared. It was the most ordinary industrial cedar incense, sharp and biting, without even the most basic layering of scent. One look and you could tell it was cheap.

"What I placed in here yesterday with my own hands was the Soothing Incense sample," I said quickly. "I sealed the glazed-glass box myself!"

Penelope was crying with rage. "Lucille, someone's clearly doing this to us on purpose!"

"It has to be another atelier, jealous of how well-known the Henson Atelier is, afraid we'd make the registry, so they swapped the sample!"

"This is outrageous. How could anyone stoop to something so vile!"

The onlookers buzzed with talk, the judges murmuring to one another, their eyes full of doubt and disdain.

"Quiet, all of you. What is this noise!"

Barnaby pushed his way through, his face grim, and swept me behind him with one arm. "Director Chavez, esteemed judges, we will get to the bottom of this and give the organizing committee an answer."

"Whoever dared to maliciously swap our exhibit at a heritage-craft show is looking at commercial defamation, and I will not let it slide."

He pulled out his phone and, in front of everyone, called a lawyer, his voice hard. "Hello, Lawyer Dickerson. Someone here at the showcase has maliciously swapped the sample we submitted for judging and damaged our reputation. Bring your people over right now."

"Pull the hall's security footage, take the legal route. If it warrants a lawsuit, we sue. If it warrants damages, we collect."

By the time he hung up, the muttering around us had quieted considerably.

Barnaby turned, reached out to wipe the cold sweat from my temple, and murmured, "Don't be afraid. I'm here."

"This is a competitor's dirty work. I'll make them pay. I won't let you or the Henson Atelier suffer this kind of injustice."

Before, I'd have been reassured in an instant.

But this time my eyes had dropped to the cuff of his suit trousers.

There was a smudge of red clay along the hem.

That was the clay we used for processing herbs in the Henson Atelier's back courtyard, the clay I'd hauled back from Red Clay Ridge myself, breathable and perfect for slow-curing the ingredients.

In the whole city, that clay existed only in our back courtyard.

An outsider had no way of getting it on their clothes.

An ugly suspicion rose in me all at once.

The show broke up on bad terms. The organizing committee gave us three days to find out what had happened and to hold a special review over again.

Back at the atelier, Penelope wouldn't stop cursing that "shameless rival," more worked up than I was.

Barnaby took a call, said there was an urgent meeting at the company, and rushed off, telling me over and over before he left not to get angry, that it wasn't worth ruining my health over.

That evening I sat out in the courtyard to cool off, and Penelope came over with a bowl of iced lemonade and set it on the stone table in front of me.

"Lucille, stop being angry. It's not worth ruining your health over."

"Once we find out who did it, we'll make sure he pays until he's got nothing left."

I kept my voice casual. "Penny, the day before the show, where did you go?"

"I went looking for you to check the sample list, and I couldn't find you all afternoon."

She answered easily. "I went to the paper market to buy wrapping paper for the incense catalogs. I hit several markets, wore my feet raw. Why, Lucille, did you need me for something?"

I answered calmly. "It's nothing. Just asking."

I remembered perfectly well that the day before the show, the paper market had shut down completely for a citywide fire inspection. The doors hadn't even opened.

She was lying.

These two, the people I trusted most, the people closest to me, how much had they been hiding, how many things done behind my back that couldn't stand the light?