We didn't sleep.
There wasn't time.
After we found the vault of erased names, after I stared at those tight red slashes through lives that had once meant something, I felt like the Wharf was pressing against my skull from every angle. Hecate rolled the scrolls back up with a strange kind of care, like she was handling bones.
"We can't just sit on this," I said. "These people—"
"Are already dead," she interrupted. "Their names were killed years ago. But if we bring these to the right person, we might stop it from happening again."
"Who's the right person?" I asked.
"That's the hard part," she muttered, tucking the scrolls into her coat like smuggled contraband. "Most of the real Auditors are Syndic-controlled or bought out. But there's one… she used to be part of the Guild before the clean sweeps. She might still be clean."
We left Hollowbend before the tide pulled too high. The air tasted like copper, and the boards moaned under our feet with every step.
Hecate moved like she was carrying dynamite under her ribs—careful, fast, but with just enough twitch in her fingers to let me know she wasn't calm, not really.
"Where are we going?" I asked, trying to keep up as we climbed a narrow stair carved into the side of a pillarhouse.
"District Nine," she said. "Up by the ink line."
"The ink line?"
"You'll see."
District Nine wasn't like the rest of the Wharf. It was tall. Uncomfortably tall. The boardwalks were newer here—straight beams, uniform cuts, evenly spaced lanterns. You could almost pretend you weren't in the same city. But you could smell it if you breathed too deep. That underlying rot never really left.
The ink line was a wall. Not metaphorically. Literally. It stretched up from the Wharf's bones and curved like a broken rib into the sky, painted with years of names—thousands—written in waterproof ink and sealed with heat. Every Auditor who ever filed a claim had left a signature here. Every clause, every deal, every settlement had left a mark.
It was the city's memory, in a way. One not even the Syndic could fully erase.
"She'll be at the top," Hecate said. "If she's still alive."
"Comforting," I muttered.
We climbed.
Not stairs. Ladders bolted into the structure. Fifteen minutes of sore arms and wet palms and climbing until my shoulders burned. At the top, there was a room built into the wall itself, tucked behind the weave of pipes and beams. A sort of sky-nest.
Hecate knocked twice, then three times, then paused.
A slit opened.
A woman's voice said, "Clause?"
Hecate answered, "K-Nine. Root delay. Ledger override."
The door clicked open.
She was old. Or she looked old, the way wood looks after being weathered but still doesn't break. Gray hair in a tight coil. Face like she'd swallowed the sun and spat it back out cold.
She said nothing as we entered, just pointed at a table. Hecate laid the scrolls down.
I hovered behind her like a shadow.
The woman unfurled the top scroll, read a few names, then clicked her tongue against her teeth. "So. You found the dead files."
"We need them verified," Hecate said. "Publicly."
The woman barked a laugh. "You think dragging ghosts into daylight's gonna win you friends?"
"No," Hecate said. "But it might win us time. Or leverage."
The woman looked at me for the first time. Her eyes were sharp. Too sharp. Like knives behind glass.
"You the clause-runner?"
I nodded. "Arlen."
She leaned back. "You've made a mess."
"Not the first time," I said.
That got half a smile out of her.
"My name's Verga," she said. "I used to file clean. Back before the Syndic ran their claws through the ink. Haven't touched a clause in six years."
"Why now?" I asked.
"Because," she said, tapping a name on the scroll, "this was my brother. They sold him while I was auditing in the south. Never even told me. Just scrubbed him off the books."
My mouth went dry.
Hecate looked at her. "So you'll help?"
Verga didn't answer right away. She walked over to a dusty cabinet, opened it, and pulled out a rusted seal-binder and a strip of copper-stamped paper.
"I'll give you three names," she said. "Public names. People who won't disappear if you whisper them in the Wharf."
"Three?"
"That's what I've got left," she said. "Use them smart. Burn one for awareness. One for protection. And one for pressure."
"Pressure?" I asked.
"You'll see," she said.
We descended slower. My arms ached. The names on the ink line swam in my vision. Thousands of them. A lifetime of bargaining and sacrifice.
The Wharf never forgot—but it didn't remember kindly.
By the time our boots hit the boards again, the bells were chiming. Fourth cycle. The hour when whispers turned sharp and the Syndic's dogs started patrolling with real teeth.
We didn't make it ten steps before the first voice hissed from the alley beside us.
"Clause rats," someone sneered.
We kept walking.
Another voice: "Hope the Ledger eats your name next."
A vendor threw a fish gut at my chest. It splattered and slid down my shirt.
I clenched my jaw.
"They're scared," Hecate muttered. "That means it's working."
"I'm not sure fear is the reaction I was hoping for."
"It's the only reaction that moves the Wharf," she said.
We rounded the corner near Hookman's Lane and stopped.
A pair of Syndic enforcers stood at the far end, masks over their faces, long staves crackling faintly with charge. One held a tether chain, meant for necks and wrists.
"Don't stop," Hecate said quietly. "Just walk."
"What if they grab us?"
"Then we run."
We walked.
The enforcers didn't move at first. Just stared. Watching. Calculating.
One of them tilted his head. "Clause-runner," he said, voice filtered through the mask. "The Wharf's watching."
I didn't answer.
As we passed, the other whispered, "You can't protect them all."
We turned down the next alley and didn't speak again until we reached the small shack where Hecate had stored her gear.
Inside, she tossed me a cloth to wipe off the fish stink.
"You okay?"
"No," I said. "But I'm still here."
She smiled faintly. "That's enough."
She spread the copper slips Verga gave us on the table. Each one bore a name etched so deep it shimmered like old blood.
"Which one first?" I asked.
She pointed to the first.
"Bairn Mott. Wharf scribe. If we convince him Clause K-Nine holds legal merit, he'll echo it across the lines."
"What does that do?"
"It makes belief louder."
"And the second?"
"Gavri Thorn. She runs supply chains for two districts. Protection, if she believes your clause protects minors."
"And the third?"
Hecate's lips pressed thin. "A priest. Haven Reil. Syndic sympathizer. But if we flip him, the Ledger trembles."
I stared at the names. They glowed faintly in the lantern light, like they knew we were gambling everything on them.
"Alright," I said. "Let's burn the first name."