Morning put on a clean shirt and pretended it hadn't watched Sector Nine burn. We walked the river road toward the bakery where the boy we'd peeled from Helix now kneaded dough like it might forgive him.
Inside, flour dusted the air. The boy—Kiel—worked the bench with the careful anger of someone who wanted to shape the world and would settle for bread.
"You came," he said, not looking up.
"We like good crust," I said.
Mara — Swift Step: Ghost Step, Lunge — leaned on the display, eyeing the cinnamon knots like they owed her an apology. Jonas — Iron Body: Stone Guard, Breaker — filled a corner, hands tucked into his sleeves, pretending to be a coat rack that had learned to breathe.
"Helix walked by twice," Kiel said. "Didn't look in."
"That's our favorite kind of looking," I said, and slid a small pouch across the counter. Flour stuck to it. "For rent. And quiet things."
He glanced at the baker in the back. "She doesn't like trouble."
"Neither do we," Mara said. "We're excellent at it anyway."
He smiled with half his mouth, then sobered. "Thank you."
"Bake," I said. "It's the most rebellious thing in the district."
We left with a sack that smelled like mercy and sugar. The inspection office sat three blocks over, a rowhouse with a new sign and old windows. Helix shared the building with two other programs named things like Civic Thrive. They all smelled like damp paper.
Inside, a line sagged toward a counter caged in brass. A woman with a stamp ran the cage. She didn't look up much. A second clerk took payments and admired his own handwriting.
"Fee," I said to Mara. "Receipt," I said to myself. "Change," I said to the room.
We practiced patience badly until our turn. I slid the notice and five coins across. The clerk counted like he was being graded by the Emperor of Counting.
"This is late," he said.
"It's early somewhere," I said.
He wrote, tore a yellow slip, and pushed it through the grill. "Official receipt. Keep for inspection."
"Of course," I said, and gave him a different slip in return—a thin card I'd copied from the wall: Refund Request — Duplicate Assessment. The trick wasn't the ink; it was the confidence.
"We were charged twice," I said. "Original paid at the south desk. They told us to request reconciliation here."
He frowned exactly like a person who hated the word reconciliation. "South desk?"
"Closed on weekends," I said. "I was impressed they made an exception."
His frown deepened into policy. He stood, walked to a door marked Accounts, and disappeared.
"Ghost Step," Mara murmured without moving.
I nodded.
She drifted along the line like boredom, slid behind a pillar, and vanished through the side door toward the accounting shelves. Jonas shifted closer to the entrance. His presence made the room remember its manners.
The clerk returned with a man whose tie had ambitions. "You claim double assessment," Tie said.
"Yes," I said. "I even brought the first receipt." I didn't. Mara did.
A minute passed. Two. The side door creaked. Mara reappeared with a small, victorious nothing on her face. Tie went to the shelves, thumbed ledgers, pulled a book, and made the sound bureaucrats make when their records disagree with their dignity.
"South desk," he said, unhappy. "Stamped."
"My favorite kind of stamp," I said.
He weighed costs: fight me and fill a form, or repay and fill a different form. Men who live by forms choose the shortest one.
"Reconciliation issued," he said. He counted out three coins and slid them under the grill with a receipt that also told him he was right. "This clears both entries."
"Bless the paper," I said. "May it live forever."
We stepped aside. Mara flicked me a look: on a scrap of cardboard she'd pressed a thumb of wax from the office safe and pulled the impression clean. Not a theft; a study. We'd need the shape later.
On the street, rain warned but didn't commit. Jonas handed the refund coins to a woman quietly crying into a bag of potatoes. She blinked at his hands like they were a trick. He nodded once. She nodded back twice, smaller each time, like prayer learning to speak.
"Helix?" Mara asked.
"Vale," I said, because he was leaning against our shop when we turned the corner, holding a paper cup that steamed like a lie.
"Mr. Gray," he said. "You'd be surprised what one can learn from ledgers."
"I'm a simple man," I said. "I only learn from chairs."
He smiled without showing teeth. "Inspection fee clarified?"
"Reconciled," I said. "I admire how tidy your offices are."
"They are not mine," he said. "I just visit them when trouble prefers desks to alleys."
Mara drifted past him into the shop, coat dripping, as if he were a lamppost that spoke. Jonas followed, the doorway briefly becoming a smaller doorway.
Vale stayed outside. "There was a raid in Three," he said softly. "Found nothing."
"Tragic," I said.
He studied me. "The Dogs moved."
"Dogs do that," I said.
"Umbra moved faster," he said, still soft. "That part is a guess."
"I like guesses," I said. "They cost less than certainty."
He sipped steam. "The city needs quiet. If someone is bent on making noise, I prefer to choose which."
"I sell clocks," I said. "They only tick."
He stepped back. "If you hear anything that keeps people safe, bring it to the depot."
"I'll bring you a chair," I said. "It understands me."
When he'd gone, the bell coughed. The inspection seal on the back door hummed about duty. We ignored both.
"Coin?" Mara asked.
I set the refund on the table beside the bakery sack. "Half to the boy's rent. Half for the vendor who held our box. And we buy the chair a drink."
Jonas grunted, which meant he didn't mind paying for furniture.
I wrote one line:
Paper cut Helix. Bread for Kiel. Vale watched the knife and called it steam.
The room felt like a held breath let go. Outside, Sector Six tried to behave. Inside, we sharpened another lie and planned to feed it to the right mouth.