Five Candles at Marrowgate

About this book

In the hill-city of Marrowgate, every word spoken in court is weighed over sooth-tallow, a candle that burns steady for what a speaker believes and gutters black for what they know is false. On the Longest Night, Master Agathe Vell, the Reckoner who taught a generation to read those flames, is found stabbed in her study at the top of the Tallow House. Her five apprentices were the only people in the house. Each one swears over the candle that they did not kill her, and every flame stands still. Justiciar Halloran Crane gives them a single night, one twelve-hour candle from dusk to dawn, to name the killer among them. If they fail, all five go to the slate pits. As the testimony opens into the nine days before the murder, the five learn that a flame can be honest and still be wrong.