Thirty dead boars washed up on the riverbank outside the town hall, which everyone agreed was a bad sign. Where had they come from? How had they died? Were they okay to eat?

No one got to find out because they were quickly bundled onto carts by the Alchemist’s Guild and taken behind the high walls, never to be seen again. Except by Hanne, who was a janitor there. To be a janitor at the alchemists guild, you had to be a bit of an alchemist yourself, since you had to know which chemicals would remove which kinds of spills, and which would create clouds of toxic gas and suffocate everyone in the North Wing.

So far Hanne had not suffocated anybody, although it was a near thing.

The alchemists were supposed to study the boars and tell people why they died. But they didn’t really like to give out information and the city council pretty much had to force them to do it. They would say it was a guild secret, even if it was just the most simple piece of information that everybody knew.

Her walk home from work was now a gauntlet of people slipping out of alleys to offer money for information about the boars. The only person who didn’t hassle her about the boars was her mum, who thought alchemy was ridiculous and that Hanne was the only person in the whole guild doing an honest day’s work.