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Pepper makes a broken sound between a laugh and a breath. “My family did this.”

Wes stops her before she reaches into the compartment. “Give me a minute.”

He pulls a folded evidence canopy from his gear and secures it over the opening. The plastic cuts off the direct rain, leaving the grave and a patch of ground beside it dry enough to examine what’s inside without soaking it.

She lowers herself into the mud beside the opening and lifts the first wrapped packet with both hands. I kneel beside her. Her gloves tremble, but when I cover them with mine, she steadies.

“Breathe,” I say.

“I’m breathing.”

“Too fast.”

“I’m angry,” she says.

“I can smell it.”

“Biology is invasive.”

“You’re perfuming across half the cemetery.”

Her mouth twists, almost a smile.

Pepper unwraps the bundle. Inside is a preservation inventory dated 1964 and signed by Josephine Vines. Beneath it lies a copied route diagram, several papers that appear to be witness accounts, and a typed document titled: Duties of the Vines Witness.

Pepper sucks in a breath. I squeeze the back of her neck. She leans into my hand for one second, then reads. “‘The Vines witness is protected while serving the release road. No pack, route keeper, official, or family may compel her to change the route, withhold the stone from a walker, or name a walker against the walker’s will.’”

Rain drums against the plastic above us. Pepper reads the passage again more quietly.

“Protected,” she says.

Ezra crouches at her other side. “What?”

“They protected them.” She looks at the page. “Vines women had a recognized role. They had authority. People weren’t allowed to interfere while she acted as a route keeper.” Her voice stays level, but the rosemary in her scent turns sharp enough to sting. “And then everyone forgot.”

She turns the page. “‘The witness preserves the route and places the release stone into the walker’s hand. She may offer truth, shelter, and a road home. She may not offer a tether.’”

Her fingers tighten against the paper.

Ezra places his hand beside hers and waits. Pepper looks at it before taking his hand. The moment their fingers close, Ezra’s outline flickers. My bite burns. I feel him slip through the bond like water through cracked glass.

“Ezra,” I say.

“I’m here.” His voice is steady, but his hand is transparent at the edges.

Pepper clamps both of hers around it. The page crumples beneath her wrist.

“Shoot.” She smooths the paper quickly, breath hitching. “Apparently I’m still worried about document handling while my life is collapsing.”

“Our life,” Ezra says.

The words hit Pepper hard. Her face tightens, and her eyes get misty. She looks back at the instructions instead, forcing herself forward.

“The old role names aren’t the people,” she whispers. “They’re the positions.”

I take the page because her hands have started shaking again. The language is simple.

The one held walks.