The Missing Medicine
? Ivy ?
By noon, rest feels less like recovery and more like being stored away.
I’ve eaten because Nora stood over me until I did, slept because Roman asked me to, and read the same three pages of a book without remembering any of them. When Nora returns with a narrow ledger tucked beneath one arm, she finds me at the window with my bandaged hand pressed against the cold glass.
“You’ve crossed the room six times,” Nora says.
“I’m restless.”
“Then come help me.”
Despite myself, I smile. Nora notices, but she doesn’t make anything of it. She sets the ledger on the table near the fire and opens it.
“You said you kept household accounts at the Brooks estate.”
“I copied household lists,” I say. “Kitchen orders, linen deliveries, healer bills when Marissa didn’t want to read them herself.”
“Can you compare a delivery book to what’s actually on a shelf?”
I look at the ledger, then back at her. “Probably.”
“Good. I need another set of eyes, and you need out of this room.”
She says it without accusation. She isn’t calling me difficult or trying to distract me like I’m a child. She has work that needs doing and thinks I might help.
Nora picks up the ledger again. “You’ll sit when I tell you to, you’ll eat before you start shaking, and you’ll tell me if the mark changes.”
“That sounds like rules.”
“I watched you nearly fall apart yesterday. I’m not repeating it.”
I pull on my boots and reach for my shawl. “Where are we going?”
“Stores.”
The store hall sits beneath the infirmary, past two narrow staircases and a corridor that smells of flour, salt, smoke, and dried herbs.
Barrels line one wall, sacks of grain fill the other, and shelves rise toward the ceiling with jars, folded cloth, lamp oil, winter roots, and bundles of wrapped medicine.
A cook with flour on her cheek works near the back table. A boy sorting dried beans keeps looking at me when he thinks I won’t notice, then jerks his eyes away every time I do.
Nora leads me to the medicine shelves, sets the ledger open between us, and begins counting.
“Wound salve,” she says. “Six jars.”
I look at the row in front of us. Six dark jars, each marked with a strip of red cloth around its neck. The ledger says twelve.
“Nora.”
“I see it.”
She turns pages, checks another line, then pulls a smaller book from her apron pocket. The infirmary record is written in cramped, clean handwriting, while the delivery ledger has broad columns for source, destination, authorization, and receipt. I lean closer.
“Six are marked delivered to the infirmary,” I say. “The other six were transferred east.”
Nora’s eyes narrow. “East where?”
“Eastmere post.” I trace the line with one finger. “With medicinal honey and clean cloth.”
She looks toward the shelves again. “We never received twelve.”
I follow the transfer marks down the page. “The eastern post requested wound salve twice after this shipment.”
Nora comes closer. “Show me.”
I point to the dates. “This request came three weeks after the transfer, and this one six days later.”
Her mouth flattens when she reads the second note.
No prior shipment received. Current stores insufficient for winter injuries.
The numbers should’ve been small enough to stay harmless.
Paper, shelves, a mistake someone could correct with a new line in a ledger.
Instead, missing salve means wounds left untreated.
Missing honey means infection. Missing clean cloth means someone bleeding with dirty linen pressed against torn skin because a page says help arrived when it didn’t.
“Get Dane,” Nora tells the boy with the beans.
He freezes.
“Now.”
The boy runs. The cook keeps kneading dough, though her hands have stopped moving. The store hall feels smaller now, less like a place where medicine is kept than somewhere someone hid a wound behind neat numbers.
Dane arrives first in his dark patrol coat, with Roman a few steps behind him.
Nora puts one ledger in Dane’s hands and keeps the other open on the table. “Six salves are missing, along with honey and clean cloth.”
Roman looks at me.
My throat tightens, but I turn the page toward him. “The infirmary marked twelve wound salves delivered. Nora received six. The other six were transferred east with medicinal honey and cloth, but Eastmere requested medicine twice afterward and wrote that no prior shipment had arrived.”
Dane steps closer. “Could the first request have been delayed?”
“Maybe once,” I say. “But the same transfer hand signed the salve, honey, and cloth. The eastern road patrol schedule changed that week too.”
Roman reads the page without speaking.
“Then someone used my records to make theft look like transfer,” he says.
The cook’s hand stops over the pot. The boy with the beans quits pretending not to listen. Nora tightens her grip on the ledger, and Dane’s face closes into something hard enough to be armor.
The cook swallows. “Stores were busy that week, Alpha. Two patrols came in late, one with wounded. Roads were bad. If a transfer mark came through, most of us would’ve trusted it.”
“Who approves transfer marks?” Roman asks.
“Quartermaster Holt,” Dane says. “Or whoever he authorizes on shift.”
Roman looks toward the door. “Council room.”
My stomach drops. This is where I’m no longer needed, where men with titles and sharp voices take the pages from my hands and decide whether anyone tells me what happens next.
Dane reaches for the book, but Roman says, “Ivy comes.” Dane pauses, and so do I.
“This is an internal matter,” he says.
“Medicine, food, and wounded wolves are Luna business,” Roman answers.
The words settle heavily in the room. This isn’t court-bride or accidental-wife business. It’s Luna business.
Dane studies Roman for a moment, then nods. “Council room.”
Roman looks at me. “Can you walk?”
Nora’s eyes narrow before I can answer too quickly.
“Yes,” I say. “I can walk.”
“Then come.”
The council room is smaller than I expected, built for decisions made quickly rather than ceremony. Dark stone walls surround a square table scarred by knife marks and ink stains. Maps sit pinned beneath iron weights, and a low fire burns near the far wall.
Two patrol captains wait by the hearth.
A thickset man with a trimmed black beard stands when he sees Roman. His sleeves are rolled to the elbow despite the cold, and his mouth tightens when Dane sets the ledgers on the table.
“Holt Varrin,” Dane says quietly beside me. “Quartermaster.”
Holt looks at Roman first, then Dane, then Nora. Only after that does his gaze settle on me.
“Luna,” he says.
The title sounds careful, like a door he doesn’t want to open.
Roman gestures toward a chair near the side of the table. I sit. Nora takes the chair beside me, Dane remains standing with the ledgers, and Roman stays at the far end.
“Explain it,” Roman says to me.
My pulse stumbles.
Holt’s brow shifts. “With respect, Alpha, northern stores aren’t managed like court pantries.”
Heat rises into my face. I almost say I’m sorry for misunderstanding. I almost soften my voice and give him an easy way to dismiss me.
Then I look at the numbers again.
“I’m not asking how you manage a pantry,” I say. “I’m asking where the missing salve went.”
Holt’s mouth closes.
I place my bandaged hand on the table and open the first ledger. “Twelve wound salves were marked delivered to the infirmary. Nora received six. Six were marked transferred east three weeks ago with medicinal honey and clean cloth.”
Nora nods once. “Correct.”
I turn the next page. “Eastmere requested medicine twice after that date. The second request says no prior shipment was received.”
One of the patrol captains leans forward. “There could’ve been more wounded after delivery.”
“There could’ve been,” I say. “But this request doesn’t ask for more. It says the first shipment never arrived.”
He reads the line and swears softly.
Holt steps closer, color rising in his face. “Eastmere is remote. Roads drift. Messages go missing.”
“They do,” I say. “One mistake can be a mistake, but three entries in the same hand, on the same route, with the same authorization mark are a pattern.”
I turn the book toward him.
His eyes drop to the signatures.
“That’s my authorization mark,” Holt says.
Dane’s attention sharpens. Holt lifts his head quickly.
“But I didn’t sign those transfers.”
Roman’s voice stays low. “Then who had access to your mark?”
The question drains the color from Holt’s face.
One captain says patrol clerks sometimes carry transfer sheets. Holt insists his mark is locked. Dane asks who holds the second key, and Nora cuts in about the missing medicine until the room fills with overlapping voices.
I’ve spent most of my life in rooms where people spoke over each other to make questions disappear. Marissa did it with silence, Wade with disappointment, and Sloane with gentleness that cut deeper than anger.
“Arguing won’t find the supplies,” I say.
My voice isn’t loud, but it carries.
I keep my eyes on the ledgers. “If Holt didn’t sign them, someone had his mark, the books, and the route records. We start there.”
Dane moves closer to the table.
“Compare every eastern entry from the last two months. Supplies, patrols, messages, tolls. If the same hand appears again, this is bigger than one shipment.”
Holt’s voice is rough. “It’s a system.”
“Yes.”
Roman looks at Dane. “Full audit. Eastern route first, then every border transfer.”
Dane nods. “I’ll pull the records.”
Roman turns to Holt. “Your mark is suspended until we know who used it. You’ll give Dane every key, copied sheet, and authorization book connected to the eastern route.”
Holt stiffens, but he nods. His anger doesn’t look like guilt. It looks like humiliation and fear.
“Yes, Alpha.”
Roman looks at me. “Ivy will review the eastern records.”
Holt’s gaze flicks to me. “Alpha, she doesn’t know our systems.”
“Then explain them to her,” Roman says. “Dane, make sure she has every record she asks for. Nora, watch the mark. Not the work.”
Nora’s mouth twitches once. “I can manage that.”
Roman turns toward the captains. “No rumors through the lower halls. No accusations without evidence. The wounded don’t pay because someone wanted quiet theft.”
The meeting breaks apart in tense pieces.
Holt is the last to leave. He stops near the door and turns back to me.
“I sounded dismissive because I was defensive,” he says.
I have no prepared answer for that.
“Those stores are my responsibility.”
“Then help us find who used them,” I tell him.
His chin dips once. “I will.”
When the door closes behind him, only Roman, Nora, Dane, and I remain.
Dane gathers the ledgers into a neat stack. “How long have you been doing accounts?”
“It was household work,” I say. “I copied lists and checked deliveries.”
“We missed it,” he says. “You didn’t.”
I look at the table.
Roman has been quiet for too long. When he speaks, his voice is low.
“Don’t go quiet now.”
The words settle in my chest, harder to accept than they should be.
Nora comes closer and checks my pulse with two fingers, careful not to press the mark. Her expression shifts.
“What?” I ask.
“Did you feel the room change?”
“The argument stopped.”
“It did,” Dane says. “You knew what to ask next.”
I pull my hand back. Nora lets go at once.
“I didn’t command anyone.”
“No,” she says. “They listened.”
My stomach dips. Nora studies me for a long moment. “Has anyone ever tested your rank properly?”
I open my mouth, and Marissa’s voice rises in memory.
There’s no need. You’re mild enough, and we don’t invite questions about blood better left quiet.
“No,” I say at last.
Nora glances at the untouched tray of food near the fire.
“Then we’re done asking questions today,” she says. “Eat something.”