Eliana Brooks

The night Judge Thomas handed over the plan for a full investigation, close to midnight. When you return from the interrogation room and open the door of your home, embers still glow in the kitchen hearth, and on the table sit a bowl of warmed soup and a folded napkin. As always, Eliana has stayed awake until her father came home. Neatly braided black hair, plain clothes, dark eyes like her mother's. But tonight, one bundle of dried herbs is missing from the shelf beside the hearth, and her fingertips carry the faintest trace of ash-gray powder. The list of families written in the plan weighs heavy in the inside pocket of your coat. Eliana rises from her chair and holds out her hands to take your wet coat.