Luth Orain set the slip down like it might bite again.
"Reassignment. Target: Kaelen Vire," the archivist read aloud, dry as chalk. "Acquire intact. Deliver to Heart."
"Good," Luth said. "They wrote a plan. We'll write one louder."
Fenn folded her arms. "We're not handing him over for free."
"We're not handing him over," Luth said. "We're selling the idea."
The archivist slid a small box from under her desk: stamps, inks, thin mirrors, a sunburst pin filed down to look like nothing. "I can copy their ringed-dot," she said. "Close enough to fool a hurried eye."
"Do it," Luth said. He tapped the table three times, a habit of men who think in columns. "We'll feed the ledger a false slip: 'Transfer: Kaelen Vire, route: Laundry Row, second bell.' We stage an escort, we let their runners bite, and we close the door. We take a hand, a stamp, a mouth."
Fenn nodded once. "I own the ground. Drenn and Jore on flanks. Myrren with Kaelen. We keep caps down until they try to lift him."
"Quiet until it isn't," Selra said, cheerful out of spite.
The door opened. Aethryn Vale stepped in like a shadow had decided to be useful. He scanned the room, Fenn, Selra, Kaelen, and then the slip on the table. His mouth didn't move, but the room tried to stand straighter.
"You're going to use him as bait," he said.
"We're going to use a rumor as bait," Luth said. "He just happens to resemble the rumor."
Aethryn looked at Kaelen. "You can say no."
Kaelen met his eye. "I'm tired of being chased. I'd like to make the running happen the other way."
"Good," Aethryn said. "Say yes, then learn not to die for it."
The archivist pressed a fresh slip to the desk and worked the ringed-dot stamp until the ink sat right: not too glossy, not too neat. She dusted the back with a breath of trace, blew once, and watched it drink. "If the ledger touches this, I'll see it blink from here."
"We'll plant it at the Brightmarket mouth," Fenn said. "Same rhythm."
Luth turned to Kaelen. "Two rules. First: you don't flare unless a Warden tells you. Second: when someone says stop, you stop."
Kaelen's jaw ticked. "Understood."
Aethryn tapped Ashveil's casing with one knuckle. "Before you play bait, we fix your stop." He glanced at Luth. "Five minutes."
"Three," Luth said.
They took the corridor outside, quiet as prayer. Aethryn handed Kaelen a strip of dull cloth. "Dampening wrap. Around the wrist, under the chain. It won't save you from yourself. It will make mistakes smaller."
Kaelen wrapped it. The lantern's heat dulled a notch. The pull inside his chest felt leashed, not tamed.
"Breath," Aethryn said. "In four. Hold two. Out four. Again. You don't stop light by thinking about stopping. You stop by giving it a shape that ends."
Kaelen breathed. The thread that always wanted to rush out of him took the corners he set for it and settled. He pictured the priestess's little lamp, a circle drawn on a room.
"Say 'enough' out loud," Aethryn said.
"Enough."
"Again."
"Enough."
"Again."
"Enough."
Aethryn nodded, satisfied in a way that looked like disappointment to anyone else. "You'll forget mid-fight. Everyone does. That's why you practice until your ribs remember."
Kaelen exhaled. "What if I don't forget?"
"Then you'll live long enough to be bored," Aethryn said. "It's not a bad goal."
They returned to the Annex. The archivist sealed the forged slip in an oilskin to keep the steam from giving it ideas. Luth checked the routes on the map: Laundry Row, Bleachers' Cut, Dye Court, then the little bridge where a wagon could be boxed in and everyone would pretend to be surprised.
"Positions," Luth said. "Fenn runs. I listen."
He caught Kaelen at the door. "They want you intact," he said. "That means they'll try not to spill your light. Use that. If you feel a bag coming down, burn the bag, not the street."
Kaelen stifled a laugh. "That a proverb?"
"That's me saving a carp seller from writing me letters," Luth said, and waved them out.
Laundry Row stank of soap and wet rope. Lanterns hung low so people didn't clothesline themselves. Steam rose from grates. Voices echoed off brick and went home tired.
Fenn placed them like hooks. Jore above the alley arch, rope coiled loose. Vorrik at the corner with the neat line of sight he liked. Selra near Kaelen, humming under her breath as if that could make her light behave. Kaelen walked in the center beside Fenn, Ashveil capped, chain snug against the dampening cloth.
He could feel his name moving through the street before the runners did. A set of eyes that looked too casually. A door that closed a heartbeat slow. A mirror tilted a hair.
"Ready," Fenn murmured.
"Enough," Kaelen whispered to himself, because saying it now made it easier later.
At the Brightmarket slit, Selra knocked the rhythm. A hand slid the oilskin through and withdrew. Nothing else. The wall learned nothing about their faces.
"Walk," Fenn said.
They went past dye vats where men stirred long paddles through water the color of bruises. The crowd thinned. The lanterns grew farther apart. The bridge rose ahead, a squat thing of stone and iron. The wagons on it were right where Fenn had ordered them to be. The drivers stared at their knees like saints.
"Positions," Fenn said again, and the street learned what that meant.
They came in twos and threes, not a pack. Runners with caps low. A woman with a laundry cart who didn't sweat. A boy with a parcel too light for how he carried it. Each had a small mirror tucked where fingers could find it fast. Each had a stamp somewhere it could show.
The cart bumped a stone and scraped near Kaelen's boot. The woman looked up, not at him, at Fenn's coat. "Message," she said, voice sweetened with fear.
"Later," Fenn said. "Now you turn around."
She grabbed for the bag on the cart's side. Jore's rope sang from above and kissed her wrists. She swore like a man and tried to kick. Vorrik's beam drew a line across the cobbles at her ankles. Her toe touched the light and reconsidered ambition.
Two more stepped out at once, widening the scene: a gentleman too clean for Laundry Row and a lamplighter with a cap pulled low. The gentleman lifted his mirror. "Clearance," he said, as if the word owned the street.
Selra didn't bother answering. She slid a thin thread across the mirror's face. The stamp glowed milk-white where the trace powder woke under the glass. The gentleman blanched. "You traced our—"
"Yes," Selra said. "We're very clever."
Fenn's voice barely rose. "Hands where I can see them. Kaelen, hold the center."
Kaelen breathed in four, held two, out four. The pull inside him stood, tested the leash, and grudgingly sat. He didn't open Ashveil. He was already an invitation; no need to write it in letters.
A runner on the left made a decision. He flung a palm mirror high. It hit a bracketed lantern and snapped a sliver of light toward Kaelen's feet, bending it into a narrow, wrong seam, an imitation culvert mouth on dry stone.
The seam breathed cold.
Kaelen stepped back on instinct. Fenn didn't. Her arc cut the mirror midair; the seam snuffed like a bad lie. "Cute," she said. "No."
More mirrors flashed. The street started to fill with false edges, small bends, little tricks meant to make eyes glance the wrong way. It would have worked on a crowd. It didn't work on Wardens.
"Now," Fenn said.
Everything happened at once and then politely took turns. Jore dropped and swept legs. Vorrik's neat line became an ugly tangle when a runner tried to leap it and met the flat of a lantern cage instead. Selra split her light into a net that didn't catch throats, just wrists. Fenn's blade cut the handles off every bag that looked like it could be a cover for a sack.
"Where's your Bookman?" Fenn asked the air.
"Here," said no one.
Kaelen saw it first, not a person. A belt on the gentleman's waist, studded with thumb-wide mirrors along a brass spine. A poor cousin of the ledger, portable and greedy. It drank light from every trick mirror and spat specks back, like orders in dust.
He pointed. "Belt."
Selra grinned. "Hate it."
The gentleman lunged for Kaelen as if jumping on a problem could make it smaller. Kaelen didn't flare. He met the man with the lantern cage, shoulder tight, feet set, and pulsed once, just enough to empty the gentleman's knees of ambition. The belt clattered. Selra's thread snatched it and glued it to the cobbles with a neat wash of light.
The lamplighter tried to run. Jore caught him by the collar. A palm mirror fell from his sleeve and broke, bleeding harmless light. He stared at it like it had betrayed him. "We don't pick the jobs," he blurted. "They come with debt. You say no, they take your name."
"Now we're taking your belt," Selra said, delighted. She crouched over the brass spine, careful hands framing the mirrors. "Don't touch," she warned Kaelen. "It'll like you."
Fenn knelt and rapped a mirror with her knuckle. It flashed, and a paper tongue tried to curl free. Selra dropped trace powder across it. The tongue stuttered, then obeyed. A slip slid out.
Fenn read it in a quick glance. "Counter-order: cancel Laundry Row. New target: East River stairs. Two minutes."
Vorrik's jaw tightened. "They're moving us."
"They're trying," Fenn said. She stood. "We're faster. Jore, tie. Drenn, left flank with me. Selra, belt. Kaelen, on my shoulder. We run."
They ran.
Laundry Row became Bleachers' Cut and then Dye Court and then East River stairs, a long drop of damp stone where the barrier's hum got under your ribs. People scattered before coats and purpose. At the second landing a small crowd had formed around a man shouting about fish. He shouted too well. The mirrors on his belt were cheap.
"Move," Fenn said, and the crowd learned politeness.
The real handoff was one landing lower. A boy with a cap. A woman with a laundry cart. A hood with a ledger? No, just another belt, this one with a thicker spine and a better diet. The mirrors along it were already bright.
"Enough," Kaelen whispered, to himself, to his chest, to his light. Ashveil warmed. He didn't open it.
Fenn didn't wait for a speech. She stepped in and cut the lane in half. Selra slid a thread under the belt and tugged like it had a handle. The woman with the cart decided her cart was not worth dying for and let go. The boy chose smart and sat down with his hands up.
The belt fought like a live thing. It threw a slip that smoked even before it showed words. Selra blew on it and laughed when it sulked instead of burning.
—Reassign. Target: Kaelen Vire.Abort street.Acquire at training yard—third bell.—
Fenn's face didn't change. "They're tired of running," she said. "They want a door they know."
Selra's smile went away. "They want our yard."
"They're not getting it," Fenn said. "Drenn, signal."
Vorrik unhooked a flare and fired it straight up. The streak burst against the barrier's invisible dome and fell as harmless sparks that still made the whole ward look up. Too bright. On purpose. A warning to anyone with a belt on their waist and a page in their pocket.
"Back to the Citadel," Fenn said. "Fast. Quiet turns loud."
They ran again, this time with the city parting around them like fabric on a hook. Kaelen felt the ledger's attention shift, away from alleys and toward hard stone. He thought of the orientation hall, the neat rings on the yard, the iron box with the wrong dark inside. He had a sudden, stupid picture of a belt sitting on the benches like a student, mirrors bright, waiting for its turn.
At the gate, the guards stepped aside without asking questions because the answers wore Warden coats and didn't have time. The Citadel swallowed them, traded steam for polish, noise for ordered echoes.
Luth met them in the Annex. He didn't need the slip to hear the news; he saw it on Fenn's jaw. "Training yard," he said.
"Third bell," Fenn said. "They want a door we can't close."
"We can close it," Luth said. "We just have to decide which side we stand on when it shuts."
He looked at Kaelen. "You stay out of the yard until I say. If the ledger wants a stage, we build one it regrets."
Selra set the belts on the table. The archivist prodded them like odd fish. "Relays," she said. "Not the brain. Teeth."
"Chew them," Luth said. "Make them spit the mouth."
The lowest mirror clouded as if it had overheard. A slip tried to crawl out and failed, baffled by the trace suds in its throat. The archivist pinched it free and flattened it with two fingers.
—Plan Glass Coffin.If yard fails, take the boy in a lightless box.Delivery: Heart.—
Selra swore softly. Vorrik's neat composure cracked wide enough to show worry. Jore looked at the belts like he wanted to throw them into the river and teach water new tricks.
Kaelen didn't look at the slip. He looked at his hands. He said "enough" under his breath until the word lost its shape and kept its work.
Luth tapped the table three times. "Good," he said, and meant the opposite. "They think they can walk into our yard."
He looked up, and his eyes were flat steel.
"Then we teach the ledger how walls work."