The morning smelled of wet rope and frying oil. Derrigan woke to the smaller child's even breathing and the ledger's quiet weight at his elbow. The five sigils in the margin were a notch deeper than last night, as if someone had run a careful fingernail over them and left a permanent impression. He set the book aside and dressed, muscles learning the day's small necessities while his mind ticked through contingencies.
Seo‑yeon had already begun the paperwork. The manifest lay open like a map: entries for food donors, a log of the doctor's visit, the ward board's provisional seal stamped in haste. She looked up as he entered, expression composed but sharp. "Inspector is due this morning," she said. "It's a formal home visit, not the verifier—someone from the child welfare office. He'll want to see capacity, cleanliness, background checks."
Derrigan tucked the ledger deeper into his satchel. "We've got the forms," he said. "We'll show them the manifest and the children's records."
She hesitated, then handed him a folded note. "Also—this came slipped under the door at dawn." The paper was thin and smelled faintly of iron; a single line had been written in a hurried hand: Keep the ledger close. Not all eyes are polite.
He read it twice. The city kept giving him warnings in different inks. "We'll be ready," he said. He did not add that readiness felt like a rope tightened around his chest.
The inspector arrived tidy and officious, clipboard in hand, thin spectacles catching the warehouse light. He moved through the space like someone scanning for procedural faults, nodding at the blankets, at the stack of donated tins, at Seo‑yeon's neat lists. He crouched to check the children's breathing, asked about immunizations, and made a few sharp notes.
"These records look in order," he said finally, flipping the ledger open as if it were any other file. He lingered at the margin with the five sigils, letting his finger rest above them as if sensing an irregularity he could not name. "This—these annotations—who writes them?"
Derrigan felt the ledger thrum faintly through the cloth. "I do," he said. "Names, dates, notes. It helps me remember the obligations I've chosen."
The inspector's mouth tightened. "Personal notes are fine, but you must submit official affidavits for guardianship. We can grant temporary custody pending full checks, but only with formal oversight."
Seo‑yeon spoke up smooth and quick. "We understand. We'll comply. Any delays could harm the children's stability."
He nodded and made a judgment that was equal parts legal and human: temporary guardianship granted with a follow‑up and mandatory check three weeks out. He left with a formal smile that did not reach his eyes and with a cautionary line about reporting any unusual influences on the children.
After the inspector left, the warehouse felt both calmer and more exposed. Paperwork bought them time but also placed their names into the city's ledgers where other hands could read them. Derrigan closed the ledger and ran his thumb across the five sigils. For the first time since they'd appeared, the sigils answered with a sound he could almost hear—a soft sorting click, like pages being thumbed in careful rhythm.
"Someone is cataloging us in more ways than one," Seo‑yeon said. "Courier, guild rep, and now the board. Interest attracts interest."
They spent the afternoon with practical work: mending clothes, teaching the larger child how to tie a knot that wouldn't come undone, setting up a schedule for food deliveries. Small order felt like armor. When dusk edged toward the docks, a visitor arrived who did not come with papers or polite offers.
She waited in the doorway until he noticed—a slim woman in a coat patched at the elbows, a satchel slung low enough to suggest she did not want to draw attention. Her hair was cropped, and her eyes measured as if counting syllables. She introduced herself without ceremony. "My name is Hana," she said. "I work with runesmiths on the east quay. I heard you rescued the ash‑marked child."
Derrigan offered a tired smile. "We did what we could."
Hana's gaze flicked to the ledger peeking from his satchel. "People come to me when things in my trade begin to misalign. I don't make offers to buy things. I am curious. Ledgers like yours are…rare. They keep a certain charge. They're not merely record; sometimes they answer."
He tensed. The city had men who bought silence and women who catalogued anomalies for study. Both had currency. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because not all interest is neutral," Hana said. "There are hands that want to bind such things to contracts, to make them precise and owned. There are also hands that want to help them remain free." She put her palm lightly on the satchel, not touching the cloth but close enough for the ledger to feel like something acknowledged. "If this book is waking, you'll want someone who understands runework and the ethics of binding."
Derrigan looked at Seo‑yeon. Her expression was frank: cautious but considering. "What would that cost?" Derrigan asked.
"Knowledge is not given for free," Hana said. "But neither do I barter in coin for living things. I can look—quietly. I can tell you if there's a risk the book will draw attention from the wrong kind of ledger‑hunters. I ask only that you let me examine the runes around the margins and that, if I find something dangerous, we agree to keep it from markets and auctions."
Seo‑yeon's jaw tightened. "We don't trade people."
Hana inclined her head. "Neither do I. I know the difference between a tool and a companion."
They negotiated terms that read like sailor's bargains: a night's lodging for Hana, a promise by Derrigan to allow study but not sale, and a discreet agreement to meet again with charts and samples. When Hana unpacked a small bundle of instruments—a magnifier that bent light like a question, a slate of charcoal, a measuring cord—Derrigan felt a curious calm. She set a single device beside the ledger and did not touch it.
As Hana examined the margin, her face changed from professional curiosity to something else—recognition sharpened with a touch of worry. She traced the five sigils with a careful finger and hummed a sound that might have been a name. "These are fragments," she said softly. "Not fully formed runes, but echoes. Someone attempted a division of intent here long ago, and it left a pattern. It's older than the city's ledger craft. It's…" She hesitated. "It's like five voices in one mouth."
Derrigan felt the ledger press at his palm as if to say, finally, a reader who hears. "Will it wake?" he asked.
Hana's eyes met his, steady and honest. "If it has been fed what it needs—strong vows, repeated binding, magic of consequence—then yes. But the process is not simple. It will be drawn to high magic, to places where promises are tested. If you are careful, you can steward it. If not, others will attempt to own it."
Seo‑yeon's reply was practical and immediate. "Then we make a plan. We keep the ledger hidden, we control who sees it, and we refuse any offers to buy or bind it."
Hana nodded. "And I will teach you what to watch for. There are signs—threads of memory that do not belong, phrases in the margins that answer, small changes when vows are fulfilled. The ledger's answer will sound like kindness, at first. That is why it's dangerous."
When she packed her instruments, she left behind a small scrap of slate with a single rune drawn in charcoal. "For you," she said. "A ward. Not a lock. A marker to help you know when something is probing the book." She tapped the ledger's raincloth without touching it and then erased the slate quickly, as if to show that protection could be made and then unmade.
After she left, Derrigan felt the room full of a new kind of measurement—knowledge like a scale. Hana's presence had not solved anything, but it had provided a map of the risks: the guild's interest, the courier's coins, the ward board's label. And beneath them all, the ledger's five sigils pulsed, faint and patient.
Before sleep he opened the book and wrote a short entry: Visitor: Hana—runesmith; agreed to examine margins; ward left for slate marker. He added a line under it, smaller than the rest: Do not let them own us.
The ledger's margin warmed beneath his thumb and for a single instant the five sigils flickered in unison—no voice, no shape—only the sense of attention turned inward, like five people leaning to listen. Outside, along the pier, the city kept tally in its own blunt way: lights, footsteps, the small calculus of favors. Inside the warehouse a different accounting began: one of watchfulness, of tiny wards and harder promises. The balance had shifted, and Derrigan felt the sum of it settle toward something he could not yet name.