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unhelpfully. “Remember? He had that little drooling problem. And separation anxiety—”
    â€œYes,” Clare interrupted. “And floppy ears. And I still don’t get the analogy.”
    Milo shook his head and pegged her with a pointed gaze. “Do you know why you almost never see a beagle in an obedience trial?” he asked, lifting his coffee cup to his mouth.
    â€œBecause they’re lousy at taking orders?”
    â€œYup.” He took a long swallow of coffee and stared at her over the rim of his cup. “They’re incredibly single-minded. Once they catch a scent of something, it’s almost impossible to call them off. You’re a beagle.”
    Piper snorted and Al nudged her sharply with an elbow. The nudge jostled Piper’s arm, knocking Morholt’s Moleskine journal off the table. It landed on the patio decking and flopped open to the back page. The girl-antiquarian gasped as if she’d just dropped a limited-edition Royal Doulton china figurine and launched out of her seat onto her knees, reached for the journal … and froze.
    â€œWhat on earth …?” she murmured.
    â€œWhat?” Clare asked.
    Piper held up a silencing hand as she carefully set the diary back on the table. Clare bent her head and looked closely. There was a … thing. A little bit of extra paper—like the corner of a square—was sticking out from the top edge of the seam where the Moleskine’s decorative backing paper was glued to its back cover. It looked as though someone had carefully lifted up the backing with a knife blade and concealed a folded bit of a page torn from somewhere else in the book. Goggles pulled a utility knife out of a pocket of her baggy cargo pants and flipped open a blade. She patiently, meticulously worked loose the carefully creased square of acid-free paper and peeled back the edges.
    Clare watched as Piper’s mouth drifted open, but shecouldn’t see what had so astonished her until Piper sat back. There, lying in the middle of the age-creased scrap of page, was a tiny flat square of black plastic.
    â€œIt’s … a memory chip,” Al said in a hushed voice.
    Piper bent over again, peering at it minutely through the lime-green lenses of her steampunk-styled goggles du jour. She held it up between her thumb and forefinger so the others could see.
    â€œSo it is,” she murmured in agreement. “From a digital camera.”
    Clare and Milo exchanged a glance.
    Clare knew that when he’d briefly absconded with Morholt’s little journal he’d doubtless examined the thing thoroughly. That was what Milo did. And there wasn’t much that was beyond his understanding.
    Except maybe this.
    â€œI don’t understand,” he said. “That … that wasn’t there before. I mean, I’m pretty sure I would have noticed it.” He turned to Piper. “Did you know it was there? I mean, you would have noticed it, right?”
    Goggles raised an eyebrow at him. Of course she would have noticed. Over the years it had been in her possession she’d read the diary back to front countless times, memorizing every scratch of ink, every crease and contour. The chip might have been carefully concealed, but surely she would have noticed the slight bulge behind the backing paper …
    Clare leaned across the table and plucked the card from Goggles’s grip. She brought it close to her face, examining it, and when she turned it over she noticed a tiny smear of crimson on the back.
    â€œGah!” She dropped the thing on the table.
    It looked like … blood .
    Then Al picked it up. “Huh. Nail polish.”
    Clare grabbed the bit of plastic back from Al’s fingertips.Before they’d even started on the journey to Glastonbury the girls had joked about manicures and how they’d ever manage to keep theirs in decent shape, what with all the digging in trenches. Clare, ever forward