The Halo's light came early that morning. Too early. It wasn't sunrise so much as someone turning on a lamp in a room that didn't want it.
Kade knew what it meant before the bellless chime reached the Lowlight. The Mercies moved at dawn because people were still slow, still honest.
Brook's clinic was already awake. Not bustling --- just awake in the way prey stays awake when it smells teeth. Mira sat on the cot with her knees under the blanket, hands flat on her thighs as if she were rehearsing stillness. Brook was by the counter, counting gauze like it was coin.
"They're in the east corridor," Brook said without looking up. "Five cloaks, two readers, one tally."
Kade set the case down. "They'll start with the ones who owe winters."
Brook gave him a look. "Everyone here owes winters."
The sound of boots on wet concrete pressed closer --- not hurried, not dragging. Mercy boots made a rhythm meant to be measured against your pulse.
The curtain at the door peeled back without ceremony. A Mercy stepped in --- white cloak to the ankles, hood low enough to cast the face in shadow. The light behind him made the edges of the hood glow like a halo's rim. His gloves were the gray of clean steel.
"Lumen audit," he said, voice flat enough to be a template.
Brook spread his hands. "Clinic's clean. All lumen bought and burned aboveboard."
The Mercy didn't acknowledge. He stepped aside for the two readers --- younger, hoodless, eyes glassy from calibration serum. Each carried a lumen wand --- copper shaft tipped with a glass bead that pulsed faintly, sniffing for unpaid light.
One reader passed the wand over the clinic shelves. Bandages, bottles, a chipped basin --- all glowed faintly, harmless. The other reader swept the wand toward the cots.
When the bead hovered near Mira's chest, it flared gold.
The tally officer --- a thin woman in the same cloak, carrying a slateboard --- marked a stroke. "Excess lumen retention," she said without inflection. "Quantity: two days."
Mira's eyes darted to Kade. He kept his face still.
"Source?" the officer asked.
Mira said nothing. Brook stepped between them. "She's recovering from seizures. Light retention's medical. Drain her now and you'll have a body on the ledger."
"That's not our column," the officer said. She nodded to the Mercy. "Proceed."
The Mercy reached inside his cloak and drew a lumen siphon --- a thin silver tube ending in a mouthpiece and a needle-fine spike. Kade's knuckles whitened around the case handle.
"You'll take it from me instead," he said.
The Mercy didn't move. "Name."
Kade's mouth was dry. "No-Name."
One of the readers actually looked up at that. Recognition flickered, then flattened.
The officer's chalk paused. "Alias unregistered," she said. "Higher tariff."
"Take it," Kade said again, stepping closer.
The Mercy held the siphon between them. "Forearm."
Kade rolled back his sleeve. The mnemonic seal lay quiet under his skin --- the knot inked deep, seven turns, last one backwards. The reader's wand pulsed brighter near it.
"Non-standard seal," the Mercy observed.
"Medical," Kade said.
No one believed him.
The siphon's spike touched the edge of the knot. Pain bloomed --- not searing, but deep, as if someone had opened a drawer inside his arm and rifled through. The siphon's mouthpiece glowed, lumen pooling in its chamber like liquid dawn. Two days' worth.
The Mercy capped the siphon, passed it to the reader. The glow dimmed in Kade's skin. He didn't flinch.
"Debt transferred," the officer said, marking the slate. "Light bill increased by half a winter for unregistered seal."
Brook swore under his breath. Mira's hands had curled into fists under the blanket.
The Mercy turned to leave, but paused at the doorway. "Remove the seal," he said, "or register it. Next audit, we burn it clean."
When they were gone, the air felt heavier, as if the Halo itself had leaned closer to listen.
Brook shut the door harder than he had to. "Half a winter," he said. "You bought her two days and sold yourself months."
Kade flexed his arm. The knot still held, but it felt tighter. "We'll get it back."
"From where?" Brook demanded.
Kade thought of Nyx's tin. The receipt. Lumi's cold-mirror. The knot opening like a door in the Archives.
"From the place that took it first," he said.
Mira looked at him, eyes bright despite the dim. "Steal it back," she said softly.
Kade smiled without showing teeth. "Something like that."
Outside, the white cloaks were already turning the corner. The Halo's light above was steady now, patient. It had all the time in the world. But so did Kade --- or at least, he was about to steal some.