The Seventh Casing
Back in the private lounge at the airport, an assistant handed me a sealed dark wooden box, plainly wrapped, no name on it, nothing else at all.
"Miss Ava, someone left this at the front desk just now. They asked that it go to you by hand."
I gave a small nod and opened the box.
The moment the lid came up, a cold metal sheen filled my eyes.
A whole box of casings, polished clean and bright and neat, layered over each other, filling it to the edges.
At the very center sat a folded slip of plain white paper, the handwriting forceful and ragged, worn through with exhaustion and longing, just one short line: