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run? And why had the guard killed him?
    He was killed, I tell you! As all the other keepers were killed. For this.
    What could be worth the price of a life?
    He listened one more moment for any sound of pursuit, then, satisfied that he was alone with the rats, he gripped the package and pushed himself up. Rom stepped toward a patch of gray light between the boards of one of the old windows.
    His fingers curled in the damp muslin and pulled it apart with a pop of threads along the seam where it had been sewn to the old man’s coat. He got it open. Pulled out a box.
    It was a small wooden box, no bigger than the little jewelry box he had once made for his mother. It was dark and damp, as though it perspired on its own. And it was ancient.
    The box wasn’t locked, but the iron latch refused to budge when he pried at it with a fingernail.
    Even as he tried again, he knew he should turn it over to the authorities, unopened, explain everything. But in running he had broken the law. There was no mercy for those who broke the laws of Order. If what the old man said was true, had the same thing happened to his father?
    He crouched, set the latch against the stone edge of the windowsill, and pried it open.
    A small bundle nestled inside. Something wrapped in a thin piece of—what? Parchment? No, leather. A section of vellum, folded and rolled, surprisingly supple. He lifted the bundle out and set the box aside. Unwrapping the vellum, he eased out the thing rolled inside it.
    A glass vial. It was the length of his palm, narrow at the top and swelling to the width of two fingers at the base, sealed with a stainless cap.
    He lifted it up to what little light came in through the window. Shook it. Inside, dark, thick, viscous liquid coated the glass.
    Now he could see four marker lines on the vial. Five measures.
    For this, a man had lost his life?
    Power and life…life as it was , the old man had called it.
    Grave danger…
    That, it had been. As good as a vial of death.
    He started to rewrap it but then noticed several faded markings on the vellum. Holding the vial between the fingers of one hand, he stretched the ancient leather open. On one side was a list of what looked to be names—names with dates, each of them struck through. The other was covered with line after line of letters that spelled out nothing he could decipher except for a single, plainly written paragraph wedged into the margin at the top, as though added at a later date. He tilted the vellum toward the dusky light and made out the words:
    The Order of Keepers has sworn to guard
    These contents for the Day of Rebirth
    Beware, any who drink—
    Blood destroys or grants the power to live
    He read it again. And then once more. But it made no more sense to him the third time than it had the first. The Order of Keepers? The only order he knew was the Order itself. And a Day of Rebirth happened every forty years at the new Sovereign’s inauguration, as it would in five days.
    He had never heard his father speak of anything like this. Had never seen anything like it in his father’s possession. Surely the man would have said something? But Rom had been a boy when his father died.
    Rom knew only one thing: If what the old man said was true, his father had died for this vial and this message. And if what the message said was true, his father had been a keeper, presumably of this very vial.
    Now it was in his possession, and he was as good as dead himself. Running from authority was a capital offense.
    His mother. His mother would know what to do and if there was truth to anything the old man had said.
    Rom wrapped the vial in the vellum, set the bundle back into the box, and pushed it back into the muslin casing. And then a horrible thought seized him.
    He’d left his bag behind and with it, his wallet and identification. The guard would know who he was soon enough. They would come for him at home. And his mother was home.
    His pulse lurched into a new, frenetic pace. He