Dawn came pewter over the harbor. Derrigan woke with the ledger warm at his side and Minji curled into a fist of blanket on the spare cot. Haeun sat by the window, threading a frayed ribbon through the wooden horse's mane with the slow attention of someone making a thing belong again. The room smelled of broth and wax; for a moment the ledger felt less like a problem and more like a companion.
Seo‑yeon had already begun the day's lists. "Home‑visit paperwork for next week," she said without looking up. "School options, guardianship extension forms, references. I arranged two daily market deliveries. We'll show capacity and stability." She tapped a pen against the manifest. "I also logged the guild rep's visit and the courier offers."
He folded back the rain‑colored cloth and let his fingers rest on the five sigils in the margin. Each felt like a different kind of pressure—rule, pause, memory, notch, drop—small impressions that had begun to settle into the paper like old coins.
Midmorning the guild man returned with the same blunt politeness. His emblem gleamed at his sleeve and his smile had the practiced warmth of someone who priced futures for a living. "A ledger that answers is useful," he said, stepping into the warehouse as if it were a counting room. "Allies can be bought, promises made durable. Consider what security you might gain."
Seo‑yeon straightened. "We're not bargaining lives," she said. Her voice was precise enough to fold the air.
The guild man's smile didn't falter. "Durability requires partners. Your ledger could secure long‑term provisioning for the wards." He let the suggestion hang like a coin someone hoped they would flip.
Derrigan kept his reply short. "No. We do not sell names."
After the man left, the warehouse felt paper‑thin with tension. Seo‑yeon slammed a palm flat to the table once, then set about recording the conversation. "We log everything," she said. "Pressure makes a map."
Late afternoon a folded note slid beneath the door—same handwriting as the man who'd offered coins—inviting Derrigan to meet at the small quay at midnight. The offer smelled of testing; the ledger's margin tightened under his palm as if it, too, were considering the scale.
"You go with Hana," Seo‑yeon said. "I'll guard the ledger and the wards. If trouble comes, I'll raise the alarm and hide the book."
Hana arrived at dusk without ceremony, a shadow moving in with tools folded into a small satchel. "If someone wants to talk trade, better to meet where witnesses matter," she said. "Let them show themselves to other eyes."
They left Haeun and Minji sleeping and crossed the wet quay under lamplight. The man at the meeting wasn't the same courier nor the guild man but a younger intermediary—clean hands, clean coat, diplomacy preened into a smile. "Keeper of accounts," he said. "Our clients are interested in ledgers that answer. Respectful transaction: coin, protection, promises of care for your wards."
Hana watched him without blinking. "You mean buyers," she said. "Who are your clients?"
"Merchants, private collectors, a couple of guild houses," he answered smoothly. "Some seek stewardship, others…records of debt and influence."
Derrigan felt his blood go cold. "We said no."
The man's smile flattened into a polite shrug. "Two weeks. We'll offer again. No need for force—just persuasion."
Hana's voice dropped low. "You test consent with cash. Leave now."
For a breath the pier balanced on his retreat. He laughed—too light—and left into the dark.
Back at the warehouse, Seo‑yeon waited like a watchful hinge. The ledger lay open where she'd left it; the sigils at the margin seemed to hold their breath. "They're probing," she said. "We need something more than watchfulness."
Hana produced a narrow strip of treated leather threaded with a silver loop. "A paper‑knife ward," she said. "It irritates market‑readings—those who approach ledgers as property. It won't stop a determined binder, but it makes the book resist certain kinds of extraction." She set the leather near the binding and murmured an old counting rhyme without touching the paper. The leather glowed a faint, close light; the ledger's edge answered with a warmth that felt like recognition.
Derrigan wrote the new entry: Paper‑knife ward placed; resists market‑reading; monitor for bleed. The comma‑shaped sigil in the margin tightened as if pleased.
Seo‑yeon hid a small tin of emergency provisions under a false floorboard and set the watch schedule. "We make anonymity our shield," she said. "And we record every approach."
Haeun padded over and set the wooden horse beside the ledger, tracing the faint maker's sigil in its flank. "It used to belong to someone," she said softly. "Maybe it remembers."
Derrigan let her hand remain on the toy. He had begun to understand what the ledger sought: not coin or fame, but a truthful ledger of how promises were kept. Men with clean hands and empty ethics saw opportunity in that truth.
They had been called "the ash‑marked child" and "the smaller one" for so long that the names had become a kind of shelter—useful, blunt, protective. The conversation around the ledger and the threats outside made the need for something softer more urgent.
Seo‑yeon, who had a way of fixing practical things with a single, decisive sentence, broke the quiet. "We should give them names," she said without looking up, the words like a deliberate placement of tools. "Officials will use numbers, and couriers will make lists. Names hold people."
Derrigan moved to the table and sat across from them. He folded the rain‑colored cloth back from the ledger but did not open it; he let the weight of the book be a quiet reminder of promises already kept. "Do you want to choose, or shall I?" he asked the children.
Haeun looked up first. For a heartbeat her face was all guarded tenderness. She traced the wooden horse's maker's mark with a thumb that still held a smear of ash. She swallowed and said, in a voice small but certain, "The horse… was made by the sea."
"Haeun," Derrigan said softly, tasting the name as if it might anchor whatever it named. He wrote it in the ledger—not as a bureaucrat but as a witness—and let the ink dry in its slow way. The margin where the sigils sat warmed under his thumb and, for a blink, the five marks brightened as if noting a new account.
Seo‑yeon smiled then, something like tenderness cracking her practical face. "Haeun," she echoed, and nudged the wooden horse toward her.
Minji chewed the edge of his cap as if thinking through consonants. Derrigan crouched to be level with him and offered the patched cap back as a kind of suggestion. "What sounds good to you?" he asked.
Minji's reply came on a breath: "Minji," he said, clumsy and proud in the same moment, as if he'd been practicing the name in the dark. Derrigan laughed—relief thin as a ribbon—and wrote the name beneath Haeun's entry. The ledger took both names like ordinary entries, and the margin answered the new weight with a faint, approving warmth.
He added a small note beside each: Haeun — ash marks; guarded; likes wooden horse. Minji — fever recovered; fierce with blanket. Seo‑yeon read the names aloud once more, a litany that moved them from objects into a shared life: "Haeun. Minji."
Haeun let out a small, surprised laugh and handed the wooden horse to Minji. "He can ride," she said, a first generosity. Minji hugged the toy to his chest like it had been his all along.
Before bed he closed the ledger and wrapped the rain‑colored cloth tight. Hana left the paper‑knife ward and the silver loop in a hidden pouch. Seo‑yeon posted the night watches and arranged for a trusted courier to route false trails when necessary.
Outside, a lantern bobbed on the black water. The harbor kept its own tallies—lights, footsteps, favors traded in small increments. Inside the warehouse, the ledger rested, guarded by cloth and careful promises, its margin sigils faintly warm as if listening to the city's counting and preparing its own quiet replies.