The market at Greyhaven woke like a thing that had been waiting for permission. Stalls folded back, ropes coiled, and the magistrate's bench sat beneath the elm where people once left offerings for safe crossings. Word had moved ahead of them—whispers of a Remnants packet, of plates and manifests and a shard that hummed like a thing with memory. People came because forgetting had become a public fear; they came because the Loom had asked them to witness.
Aria walked the square with the Spiral Log at her hip and a packet sealed in Remnants wax. Keeper Sera carried a second bundle of witness sheets; Thorne had a small warded box with a microetch replica; Marcus kept the perimeter with the patient readiness of someone who read danger in the way people shifted their weight. Luna had sent teacher cells to the edges of town and tuned detectors to the market's seams; her voice threaded through the line, steady and close enough to be a tether.
They had agreed on terms the night before: consent first, witnesses always, Remnants custody for artifacts, and a public demonstration that would show the Spiral's mechanics without letting it spread. The magistrate from the ferry—her hands still marked with ink from notarizing the first witness—stood at the bench and read the protocol aloud. The crowd listened like a thing that had learned to hold its breath.
Aria set the packet on the bench and broke the wax in a slow, deliberate motion. The packet's contents were laid out like evidence in a ritual: Calder's confession, Halv's manifest, the Saltport plates' rubbings, the Veiled Crossing apprentice's notarized narration, and a sealed microetch replica that could be demonstrated without letting the Pale Codex shard sing. Keeper Sera placed a copy of the Remnants' custody terms beside the packet and stamped it with the society's sigil. The seal was a small, legal benediction that made the artifacts harder to bury.
A murmur moved through the square. Some faces hardened—merchants who had learned to keep their ledgers open at night—while others softened, magistrates who had been waiting for a reason to act. A broker's representative in a careful coat watched from the edge of the crowd like a man who had been paid to be polite.
Aria spoke plainly. "We present evidence of unauthorized field trials—devices that graft pasts and log responses. We ask the Council to authorize subpoenas where magistrates allow and to place suspect artifacts under Remnants custody pending inquiry. We will demonstrate the Spiral's mechanics in a controlled way so you can see what we mean."
Thorne stepped forward with the sealed microetch replica and explained the demonstration: Anchor, Living Cadence, SigilDamp microvariation, Echo Shield fail‑safe, and a detector plate to show overlay attempts. He announced the expected costs aloud so the market could hear: SigilDamp microvariation tuning — cost: operator memory haze (temporary loss of a small personal memory, 24–72 hours); Echo Shield deployment — cost: facilitator memory haze when used at scale; Detector pilot — cost: operator fatigue and transient sensory dulling.
The magistrate read the consent forms aloud and the Remnants' scribe notarized signatures in triplicate. People signed because they wanted to keep their stories. They signed because the Loom had taught them to hold their memories like stones. The packet was public now; procedure had been turned into a tool for exposure.
Not everyone welcomed daylight. A merchant's guild representative rose and spoke with the careful cadence of someone who had learned to make calm sound like reason. "We urge caution," he said. "If the Council acts on unverified claims, trade will suffer. We ask for due process."
A broker's envoy, a man with a flourish stitched into his cuff, added a softer threat. "Public spectacle can be weaponized," he said. "If you make accusations in the square, you invite panic. We ask the Loom to consider the consequences."
Aria met their words with the ledger's patience. "We will follow procedure," she said. "We will not hand artifacts to any party without Remnants custody. We will make costs visible. We will ask magistrates to allow subpoenas where they can. If the Council refuses to act, we will publish the packet and the demonstration record."
The broker's envoy's smile thinned. He had expected a different answer. Procedure, he had relied on, could be a shield; Aria and the Remnants were turning it into a blade.
Keeper Sera moved then, with the quiet authority of someone who had spent a life making law feel like shelter. She read the Remnants' custody terms aloud and offered them to the magistrate: sealed artifacts would remain in Remnants stacks; any subpoena would be issued through municipal channels; witness packets would be notarized and recorded. "We will not hand artifacts to the Council without witnesses," she said. "We will not let procedure be a cover for erasure."
The magistrate accepted the terms and signed. The Remnants' seal made the packet a public thing that could not be easily buried. The market exhaled in a dozen small ways.
But the brokers were not idle. That night, as lanterns swung like slow heartbeats, a broadsheet appeared with a careful editorial calling the Loom's packet "alarmist" and urging calm. A crate with a broker flourish was left at the Loom's gate—no message, only a flourish carved into the lid. The message was clear: attention had consequences.
Aria and Keeper Sera did not flinch. They had expected pushback. They had prepared for it. They moved like people who had learned to make evidence move.
They convened a small council in the Loom's lower hall: Thorne to lead technical framing, Marcus to coordinate field custody, Keeper Sera to manage Remnants protocol, and Aria to handle public messaging and magistrate outreach. They drafted the packet the way a smith drafts a blade—sharp, precise, and with an edge that could be shown in daylight.
Thorne prepared the demonstration kit: a warded box with the microetch replica, sigildamp tiles tuned to a microvariation that would make mapping expensive, a small Echo Shield set aside as a fail‑safe, and three detector plates to be deployed at pilot nodes. He wrote the technical addendum in shorthand and read it aloud: detector thresholds, sigildamp geometry, cadence lines, and the fail‑safe protocol. He noted the costs again and insisted they be recorded in every witness packet.
Keeper Sera drafted the Remnants packet for Greyhaven and for the Council: ledger fragments, notarized witness sheets, Calder's confession, courier manifests, and the sealed microetch replica. She wrote the custody terms in plain language and appended a clause that any subpoena must be issued through municipal channels and that artifacts would remain in Remnants custody pending inquiry. She prepared a public cover letter that framed the packet as a request for inquiry, not a demand for vengeance.
Marcus organized field logistics. He arranged for Remnants escorts to accompany any manifest retrievals and for neutral witnesses to be present when docks and warehouses were opened. He set rules for evidence handling: no artifact moved without Remnants seal, no private experiments, and immediate witness notarization for any stabilization training. He scheduled patrols at the Glass Lighthouse and three pilot nodes where detectors would be deployed at dawn.
Aria drafted the public statement that would accompany the packet release: plain language, notarized, and focused on consent and protection. She wrote it so magistrates could read it aloud and marketkeepers could post it on their stalls. It said, simply: We seek to protect memory. We ask the Council to authorize inquiry where magistrates allow. We will demonstrate a protocol that limits harm and makes costs visible. Witnesses will be protected; artifacts will remain in Remnants custody.
They rehearsed the demonstration in the Loom's annex until the cadence felt like a living thing. Luna led a teacher cell through the variable cadence and Thorne tuned the sigildamp tiles until the detector plates hummed in reply. They practiced the Echo Shield fail‑safe and recorded the expected effects: temporary memory haze for the operator, ringing ears for teachers after mass cadence, and cumulative erosion risk if mass cadences were used repeatedly. Every cost was written down and appended to the witness packet.
When the packet was ready, Keeper Sera sealed a copy in the Remnants' stacks and another in the Loom's vault. "If the Council refuses to act," she said, "we go public with witnesses and the demonstration record. Procedure will not be a shield for suppression."
Aria felt the ledger's rope tighten and then steady. The packet had been released; the terms had been set; the Remnants' custody had made the artifacts harder to bury. The brokers would push back, the guilds would argue for calm, and the Hall would be forced to choose. The work ahead would be public and costly and slow.
That night, as the Loom's lamps burned low, Thorne wrote the technical addendum into the Spiral Log and Keeper Sera appended the witness packet list. Aria added a final line with hands that did not tremble but felt the ledger's weight: Packet Release — Remnants packet public at Greyhaven market; artifacts under Remnants custody; controlled demonstration protocol finalized (Anchor + Living Cadence + SigilDamp microvariation + Echo Shield fail‑safe + detector plates); costs recorded and appended to witness packets; magistrate consent secured; prepare Council hearing; increase detector deployment at Glass Lighthouse and three pilot nodes.
They closed the log and stepped into the night. Lanterns swung over the quay and the tide moved like a slow, patient beast. The packet had been shown in daylight; procedure had been turned into a tool for exposure. Now the Hall would have to answer. The ledger's teeth had been bared, and the Loom would follow the rope until the patron committee's face could be seen in the light.