The Council's motion still smelled of ink and compromise when Aria crossed the Loom's threshold. It hung in the air like a damp cloak—useful, necessary, and heavy. The inquiry had teeth now, but they were bureaucratic teeth: subpoenas, sealed manifests, and a moratorium that felt less like protection than a pause. Prudence, the city called it. Aria called it a new kind of danger; time in which a committee could regroup was time enough for a device to be retuned, a courier to change routes, a patron to bury a ledger deeper.
Thorne worked at the bench with the slow, exacting patience of someone who read metal the way others read weather. His hands moved over microetch sketches as if the lines might explain themselves if drawn long enough. Keeper Sera moved through the stacks like a living index, cross‑referencing newly arrived manifests against the Remnants' sealed copies. Marcus kept the ridge under watch, a patrol list folded into his palm and a face that had learned to hold danger like a blade.
"Highbridge wants a report," Thorne said without looking up. His voice measured urgency in syllables. "They want a technical appendix that explains how grafts work without handing anyone a manual."
Aria let the breath out of her chest—iron and resolve. "We give them the appendix and we keep the keys. We show the Council the harm and the chain of custody, not the recipe. No microetch diagrams leave the Loom. No disk goes to an office that can bury it."
The Loom hummed with small, stubborn work: sigil tiles tuned and counted, witness packets sealed in triplicate, lighthouse kits repacked for magistrates who would need them the moment the moratorium lifted. In the courtyard Luna's chorus practiced a cadence that sounded like a promise—voices braided into a rhythm meant to scatter attention and make the Unnamed's baiting harder to find. The cadence was both tool and prayer: a way to teach towns how to hold their stories noisy and distributed.
A courier arrived with a polite slate from Highbridge. The Council's clerk had scheduled a preliminary oversight panel: a closed session to review Remnants custody procedures and decide whether the moratorium would be extended. The slate's politeness carried a subtext: procedure could be used to slow the inquiry. The facilitator's aides would argue for closed subpoenas; the ledger's hinge would be tested in rooms where ink and influence met.
"We go," Aria said. "We present the Remnants' chain of custody. We demand neutral seals on artifacts. We ask for a Haven observer. And Calder's testimony must be recorded under warded tiles."
Keeper Sera nodded. "And we insist on a clause: any artifact transferred to the Council must be accompanied by a Remnants witness and a notarized chain of custody. No exceptions."
Marcus folded the slate and tucked it into his coat. "I'll take a small escort. Not a parade—presence."
Highbridge smelled of old law and new caution. The Council Hall was the same polished place it had always been, but the air inside felt different: delegates moved like people who had learned to count consequences. Aria stood at the lectern with the Remnants' packets at her elbow and spoke plainly. The Vault disk was quarantined; microetch samples were in Remnants custody; witness packets were notarized and sealed; Calder's testimony had been recorded under warded tiles. She framed the sanctuary's cooperation as civic duty and the Remnants' custody as a legal safeguard. Her words were careful because the room was full of people who could turn careful into a cudgel.
The oversight panel listened with the slow attention of those who weigh risk. Some delegates nodded; others looked away. A midrank Alpha from the Central Territories—stern, silver‑haired, the kind of man who measured governance in precedent—asked for technical detail. Could a device be tuned to call the Unnamed? Could stabilization rites be misused? Thorne answered with the clarity of a man who translated metal into meaning: cadence keys, sigildamp geometry, and the legal value of witness protocols. He refused to hand over microetch diagrams. The room shifted; some bristled at the refusal, others breathed easier.
Then the facilitator's aide appeared in the gallery.
Kellan Rourke's name had been a small, dangerous thing in the ledger. He was not a public face but a clerk who moved paper and opened doors. Today he sat with the look of someone who had been asked to hold a secret and was tired of the weight. His presence was a hinge—and a test.
A delegate from a border pack rose and asked the question everyone had been circling: who authorized the FACV invoices that funded field trials? The clerk's shorthand, the delegate said, was not a clerical error; it was a channel. Procedure, the room realized, could be a blade that cut both ways.
Kellan stood. For a moment the hall held its breath. He spoke with the careful neutrality of someone trained to make decisions invisible. "I processed requests," he said. "I signed where I was told to sign. I did not know the full purpose of every crate. I trusted the channels."
The words landed like a stone—true and not. Trusting channels is how a committee hides. The ledger's hinge was not always a villain; sometimes it was a man who thought he was doing his duty. That ambiguity was the committee's armor. Naming a facilitator was progress; it was also a distraction. The committee could offer a scapegoat and keep patrons hidden. The Council could feel it had acted while the devices were retuned in rooms where procedure still held sway.
After the session, in a narrow corridor where the light was thin and the air tasted of ink, a delegate from a neutral town pulled Aria aside. "We will testify," he said quietly. "But we need guarantees. Trade routes must be protected. If the inquiry becomes spectacle, markets will close and people will starve."
Aria had been negotiating that balance for weeks: accountability without ruin. "We will draft a petition," she said. "Remnants custody, expedited review, and a temporary protection clause for trade routes. We will not let procedure bury the ledger."
Back at the Loom the work was quieter but no less urgent. Thorne sketched a new sigildamp variation meant to make mapping expensive. Keeper Sera prepared witness packets for the guild's manifests. Marcus organized discreet patrols along private docks where couriers had been seen. Aria wrote the petition in a hand that had learned to be both blunt and careful: request expedited Remnants custody; petition for temporary trade protections; demand public oversight with neutral delegates present.
They sent the petition with a courier who knew how to move through Highbridge without being noticed. The petition was a small legal thing that smelled faintly of hope and ink—and it was a provocation. The committee would respond. The Council would vote. The ledger would be read in rooms where power and procedure met.
That night Aria walked the Loom's courtyard and listened to the children practice the cadence. Their voices braided into the air like a net. She thought of the Vault's disk and the way it taught a device to listen. She thought of Kellan Rourke and the way a man could be both hinge and victim. She thought of the petition and the way law could be both shield and snare.
She did not pretend the path ahead was simple. The Order's threads were woven through governance and trade and fear; pull one and the rest trembled. But she also knew what they had learned: name the seam, teach the cadence, witness the undoing. Those were not spells; they were civic tools—work for people who refused to let memory be bought or sold.
A runner arrived with a short slate: the guild had agreed to testify under Remnants custody if the petition secured temporary protections. It was a fragile bargain—political, practical, necessary. Aria tucked the slate into her coat and felt the ledger's map shift again. The committee would not be unmade by a single hearing. It would be unmade by patient, stubborn work: following manifests, protecting towns, and teaching people to hold their stories like stones.
She added a line to the Spiral Log, not as flourish but as promise: Prepare petition for expedited Remnants custody and temporary trade protections; coordinate guild testimony; maintain artifact quarantine; do not hand microetch diagrams to Council.
Outside, the cadence continued—small voices, a living rhythm that refused to be silenced. Inside, the Loom hummed with the work of turning evidence into law. The Order's threads were long and tangled, but they were not unpickable. They would be followed, one careful stitch at a time.