The Loom's hall smelled of paper and boiled coffee, of ink and the faint metallic tang that clung to anything that had been pressed into a ledger. Lamps burned low along the long table where Rell had spread the tracer's outputs like a map: slivers of registry lines, donor marks teased from wax, and a growing list of names that had been stitched together from manifests, marginalia, and witness slates. The lead-lined case sat open at the table's center, the shard's spiral glinting like an accusation. Around it the Loom gathered—faces drawn, hands steady, the quiet readiness of people who had learned to make truth into something that could be held.
They had been following threads for weeks: a shard from the Silver Vault, a manifest from the Moving Archive, a registry imprint coaxed from a seam, a forger's demonstration in the festival. Each thread had been a small, stubborn truth; together they braided into a pattern that pointed to a donor list—an actual ledger of names and transfers that would show who had signed for what, and when. If they could compile it and make it public, the city would have to reckon with the fact that names had been traded as collateral.
Rell tapped a column of numbers with a gloved finger. "We've cross-referenced the manifest transfers with the treatise's marginalia and the remnant's keeper list," he said. "There's a donor line that runs through three patron houses. Virelle's the largest node, but there are smaller trusts—Corin Vell, a merchant syndicate, and a private trust that uses a broker cell called Black Keel."
Halv's jaw worked. "Names?" she asked. Her voice was a rope of habit; she had been the one to pry crates and hold exits while others did the counting.
Rell's eyes flicked to the tracer's readout. "We have partial names—keepers' descendants, a few patron agents. Marek shows up on three manifests. A donor intermediary named Soren appears in the registry as a signatory for several transfers. He's the one who moves plates between houses and vaults."
Aria felt the ledger's thread tighten in her chest. Soren had been a rumor in the market: a man who kept accounts and kept his hands clean. If he was the intermediary who had signed donor lists, then he was the hinge between patron houses and the vaults that hid names. They needed him to speak.
"We bring him in quietly," Aria said. "We don't make a spectacle. We need his ledger—his list—authenticated and recorded. Forensics will want a chain of custody."
Luna's fingers flexed at her sleeves. The jasmine at her throat was a private weather; tonight it felt like a warning. "If he talks, we'll need to anchor his testimony," she said. "The Echo Shield will hold him long enough for forensics to read his ledger. It will cost us."
Aria nodded. They had been paying costs in small increments—Echo Shields, nolistens, Tidebind aftershocks—but this would be a different ledger entry. The Mass Cadence had thinned teachers' memories; the Thornkin had taken a ribbon and a kitchen table. They had learned to count losses and to make sure no one paid alone. Still, the Loom needed Soren's list.
They found him in a broker's parlor tucked behind a tea house, a room that smelled of steeped leaves and old coin. Soren was not what Aria had expected: not a shadow but a man with neat hair and a ledgered hand, a broker's calm that had been practiced into a mask. He greeted them with a smile that did not reach his eyes and a cup of tea that steamed like a small, polite lie.
"You're bold," he said, voice smooth. "You come to my parlor and ask for my books."
"We don't want to make enemies," Aria said. "We want to know who signed for transfers to the Salted Bastion. We have a registry imprint and a manifest. We want your ledger."
Soren's smile sharpened. "You think I keep donor lists on my shelf? I broker transfers. I move plates. I don't keep names in the open."
Halv's hand closed on a crate and shoved it forward; apprentices spilled false manifests like a practiced distraction. The parlor's patrons looked up, curiosity a currency that could be bought and sold. Soren's men reached for blades.
Aria did not want a fight. She wanted a ledger. She stepped forward, voice low. "We have witnesses," she said. "We have a manifest that ties a launch to a patron transfer. We can make this public, Soren. Or you can tell us what you know and walk away."
For a heartbeat Soren's face flickered—calculation, fear, the ledger's arithmetic running through him. Then he laughed, a short, brittle sound. "You think threats work in the market? You think the Gray Market is afraid of a few teachers?"
"You think the market is a ledger," Aria said. "We think it's a map. We can follow the lines."
Soren's eyes narrowed. He reached under the counter and produced a small, leather-bound book—thin, worn, the kind of thing a man keeps close because it is the only honest thing he owns. He set it on the table like a dare.
"This is my list," he said. "It's not public. It's not for you. But I can show you a page if you're willing to pay the price."
Aria's hand tightened on the lead-lined case at her hip. The ledger's arithmetic had a cost for everything. "What's the price?" she asked.
Soren's smile was small and precise. "A name," he said. "A small thing. A memory. I don't ask for coin. I ask for proof that you're not going to make me disappear."
The room's air shifted. The Thornkin's bargains had been blunt and honest; Soren's price was a different kind of ledger—an exchange of memory for safety. Aria thought of the names they had already lost to wards and echoes, of the ribbon and the kitchen table and the taste of citrus. She thought of the keepers' list and the way the Spiral's history would change if the donor ledger were made public.
"I'll give it," she said.
The words left her like a small, fierce thing. She had not expected to volunteer; she had expected to bargain. But the Loom's work had taught her that some debts were not meant to be passed on. She reached into her coat and took out a small, folded scrap of paper—an old note with a name she had kept like a talisman. It was private and domestic and meant nothing to the ledger, but Soren had asked for a name and names were currency.
Soren took the scrap and read it with a practiced eye. He nodded once, satisfied. "You understand the terms," he said. "I will show you the list. You will not make me disappear."
Luna's hand found Aria's and squeezed, a small, steadying anchor. "We'll anchor his testimony," she said. "We'll use the Echo Shield and forensics will record the ledger. We'll protect him."
They set the parlor like a ritual: tracer's lattice across the table, a small ring of teachers to hold the Echo Shield, apprentices to stand watch. Soren opened his ledger and the pages were a neat, cruel thing: names, dates, transfers, broker stamps. Rell fed the tracer's filament along the page and the lattice translated pressure into a pattern that could be read in court. Forensics recorded each line.
Soren spoke in a low voice, reading aloud the donor list: patron houses, trust numbers, dates of transfer, and the names of agents who had signed. Virelle's spiral appeared again and again; Marek's name recurred; Black Keel's stamp was a constant. The ledger's pattern was a map and a charge: names had been moved, kept, and hidden.
The Echo Shield held the edges of Soren's memory steady while Rell's tracer recorded the ledger. For a minute his testimony was clear and precise. Then the shield collapsed and the cost landed like a bell.
Aria felt it first as a slow, searing fatigue that began in her shoulders and spread like cold through her limbs. The Tidebind echoes they had used in the Bastion and on the rocks had left marks in her body; Soren's ledger had demanded a different toll. Her hands trembled and her fingers fumbled the tracer's edge. The motor impairment was a ledger entry written into muscle: small, precise motions that refused to obey.
Soren blinked and for a moment his face went blank as if a small thing had been taken from him. The Echo Shield's haze would blur a private memory in his mind for a day or three—a taste, a laugh, a domestic detail—but the ledger's lines had been recorded. Forensics would hold them.
When the reading finished, the parlor felt like a room that had been emptied of something. The apprentices copied the tracer's readout into the Loom's ledger; Halv sealed Soren's book in a lead-lined case. Outside, the Gray Market's noise resumed like a tide, but the Loom had a donor list that could not be smoothed away.
Aria sat back and let the fatigue take her. Her hands would be clumsy for days; the Tidebind's echo had written itself into her muscles. She had paid a price and the ledger's thread had been pulled taut. The donor list was a map now: names, dates, patron houses, and the agents who had signed. The Spiral's keepers had been named in the margins; the donor trusts had been exposed.
Luna's hand found hers and squeezed, fingers warm and steady. "We'll count the cost," she said. "We'll move witnesses to safehouses. We'll make sure no one pays alone."
Aria let the words land like a small, fierce thing. They had the donor list. They had a map that led to keepers and vaults and patron houses. The city would have to reckon with the ledger's margins. The Loom would follow the line—together—and they would pay for every step, one costly entry at a time.