Saltport woke to the sound of boots and the clatter of shutters. The broker's quarter—narrow alleys, low warehouses, and a private dock that smelled of tar and ledger ink—had always been a place where commerce and secrecy braided together. That morning the braid was being pulled apart.
Marcus moved through the alleys with a Remnants escort at his back and a list of names folded into his palm. Thorne rode two steps behind, lenscase slung across his chest, eyes already cataloguing the way the dock timbers had been patched and the way certain crates bore the faint sigil of a shell trust. The Loom's map had pointed them here: Corin Vell's broker ledger, off‑manifest drops, and a pattern of shipments that matched the FACV codes Calder had described. Now they had warrants, witnesses, and the kind of legal teeth that made a broker's smile thin.
The first warehouse they entered was a low, brick building with a single iron door. Inside, crates were stacked like sleeping animals. A clerk—young, pale, and still in his night shirt—stared at the Remnants' seal and then at the men who had come to take his ledger. He handed over a small book with hands that trembled. The ledger's pages smelled of salt and oil and the faint metallic tang of money that had been moved too often.
Thorne set the ledger under a warded lamp and fed a slow pulse through the lens. The microetch replies were immediate: cadence keys, scent orders, and a facilitator shorthand that matched Merrin Halv's mark. The ledger did not lie. It showed shipments routed through shell trusts, manifests altered at private docks, and a string of off‑manifest drops that led to Greyhaven and to the Veiled Crossing workshop.
"We follow the paper trail," Thorne said quietly. "We follow the couriers, the dockmasters, and the broker's accounts. Each hand that touched this ledger is a witness."
Outside, a crowd had gathered—dockworkers, marketkeepers, and a few mothers who had heard the news and come to see whether the ledger's teeth would bite. Mara stood at the edge of the crowd, eyes bright with a tired hope. When Marcus met her gaze, he gave a small, curt nod. The work was not only legal; it was human.
They moved fast. Marcus's patrol secured the private dock while Remnants witnesses cataloged manifests and photographed microetch marks. Thorne took samples from crate bindings and from the dock's timbers—traces that would show whether a device had been stored or assembled there. Keeper Sera arranged for Calder to be brought under warded custody to identify signatures in the ledger. Aria, who had stayed in Highbridge to manage the Council's pressure, received updates by runner and tightened the legal framing: subpoenas to Saltport, warded custody for artifacts, and a public notice that witnesses would be protected.
The broker, Corin Vell, did not wait for them. He had been warned—either by a friend in a magistrate's office or by the ledger's own whisper—and he fled before the first warrant could be served. His absence was a small, ugly victory for the ledger's defenders: a man who could vanish when the law came knocking. But his ledger could not vanish. The Remnants' seals and Thorne's lens made sure of that.
At Greyhaven the scene was darker. The dockmaster's death had been a warning; the burned pages in his ledger had been an attempt to erase a trail. Marcus's team worked the waterline with lanterns and warded nets, pulling fragments of charred paper from the mud. Thorne fed the fragments through the lens and coaxed microetch traces from the ash. The signatures were faint but present—FACV codes, a broker's mark, and a notation that matched Merrin Halv's shorthand.
Someone had tried to make a ledger disappear and had failed. The failure left evidence that would be harder to bury.
Back in Highbridge the Council's public inquiry had shifted into a new phase. The Remnants presented the Saltport ledger under warded glass and the charred fragments from Greyhaven. The chamber listened as Thorne explained the microetch variants and as Calder, under Remnants testimony, identified procurement patterns. The noble whose name had surfaced in the patron packet sat with a face like carved stone; his representative argued for context and for the protection of trade. The vote that followed authorized targeted arrests where evidence supported them and ordered immediate protections for any children or towns implicated in the manifests.
The legal machinery moved with the deliberate slowness of people who knew how to make decisions look inevitable—but the Loom moved faster. Aria convened a small team in the strategy hall: Thorne to parse signatures, Keeper Sera to prepare witness packets, Marcus to coordinate field arrests, and a Remnants magistrate to ensure every step had legal cover. They had to break the chain without breaking the towns that depended on trade.
Their first arrest was procedural and precise. Merrin Halv, the procurement clerk Kellan had named, was taken from his office under warded custody. He did not resist. In the questioning chamber, with Remnants tiles humming a note that made evasion feel like walking on ice, Merrin's hands shook as he handed over routing logs and a list of couriers. He admitted to rubber‑stamping requests and to forwarding certain manifests with the phrase "as per favor." He did not name the patron; he named the broker and the courier routes.
"That's enough to follow," Aria said later, watching the logs be copied and sealed. "We don't need every name at once. We need the chain to be visible and the witnesses to be protected."
The chain broke in small, human ways. A courier who had been paid to move crates confessed under Remnants witness that he had been told the goods were for neutral towns and that he had never been asked what was inside. A dockhand at Greyhaven, who had hidden a ledger page in his boot, handed it over with a shaking apology. Each confession was a hinge that opened another door.
But breaking the chain also made enemies. That night a warehouse near Saltport burned—an arson meant to destroy evidence. The flames licked at the dock timbers and sent a plume of smoke over the harbor. Marcus's patrols fought the fire and recovered a scorched crate that still bore a faint microetch mark. Thorne worked by lamplight to coax the pattern from the ash. The attempt to silence them had failed; the ledger's teeth had left a new bite.
They did not celebrate. The work was too raw for triumph. Instead they cataloged, notarized, and moved witnesses to neutral towns under Remnants escort. Aria drafted a public statement that framed the arrests as targeted and lawful, designed to protect trade while pursuing accountability. The guild, which had agreed to testify, issued a cautious statement of cooperation. The Council authorized temporary protections for neutral towns and ordered the Remnants to hold artifacts in custody.
At dawn, as the harbor settled and the smoke thinned, Aria walked the Loom's courtyard with Luna at her side. The child's small hand fit into hers like a promise. "Did we break it?" Luna asked simply.
"We broke part of it," Aria said. "We made the ledger's chain visible. That's the hard part. Now we have to make sure the towns don't pay for what we found."
Luna nodded, as if the world's complexities could be held in a child's certainty. "Then we teach them to hold their seams," she said. "And we keep the witnesses safe."
Aria closed the Spiral Log and wrote the day's entry with hands that had learned to be both blunt and careful: Broker ledger seized at Saltport; Merrin Halv arrested and logs secured; Greyhaven fragments recovered; targeted subpoenas and Remnants custody enforced; warehouse arson investigated; witnesses moved under Remnants escort; Council authorizes targeted arrests and protections.
The chain had been broken in places, but the ledger's teeth still had reach. Breaking it would be a long, legal, and dangerous work. For now, they had made the map legible and had given the law the means to follow it. That was enough to keep moving.