Vesper House had no sign.
This was how I knew it was expensive.
Cheap businesses shout.
Moderately successful businesses advertise.
The truly expensive ones behave as though finding the door is already part of the admission fee.
Balthazar and I stood on Vesper Row beneath a light rain, looking at three respectable buildings that appeared determined to deny the existence of commerce.
"No sign," I said.
"There used to be one."
"When?"
"My grandfather's time."
"Useful."
Balthazar ignored me and checked the address written in the old Quell auction register.
Seventeen Vesper Row.
There was no seventeen.
Fifteen stood to our left.
Nineteen to our right.
Between them was a narrow stone passage scarcely wide enough for two people.
I looked at Balthazar.
He looked at the passage.
"Of course," I said.
We entered.
At the far end waited a black door.
No handle.
No bell.
Only a brass plate inset into the wood.
Balthazar pressed his family ring against it.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
Still nothing.
I smiled.
"Prestige is failing you."
"Be quiet."
"You've built an entire personality around calm competence. I think it's healthy for us to see the foundation crack."
He removed the ring.
A small slot opened in the door.
An eye appeared.
"Name."
"Balthazar Quell."
The slot closed.
Nothing.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Rainwater ran down my collar.
"This is excellent service."
"Raymond."
"Perhaps knock."
"Do you want to get inside?"
"I'm developing doubts."
The door opened.
A man in a black coat stood beyond it.
He looked at Balthazar.
Then at me.
His gaze stayed on me longer.
"Guest?"
"Yes," Balthazar said.
"Name?"
"Raymond."
The man waited.
I smiled.
"Still Raymond."
His expression suggested he considered single names a form of moral decline.
"Purpose?"
Balthazar produced the certified copy of the Quell auction record.
"Historical provenance inquiry. Lot 3041."
The doorman's posture changed.
Very slightly.
"Date?"
Balthazar gave it.
"Forty years?"
"Approximately."
"Archival research is charged separately."
"I know."
"Claimant?"
"House Quell."
The man looked at the family ring.
Then stepped aside.
"Do not bid on anything unless registered."
I entered.
"I'm very susceptible to instructions."
Balthazar muttered:
"He's lying."
The doorman probably heard.
Good.
Vesper House was larger on the inside than the alley suggested.
Not magically.
Architecturally.
It extended behind the neighboring buildings, a series of long rooms connected by narrow galleries.
No shouting merchants.
No painted signs.
No piles of goods.
Objects stood alone beneath glass.
A silver mask.
A sealed sword case.
Three black pearls floating inside a transparent sphere.
An old map drawn on something I decided not to identify.
Every item had space around it.
Space, in expensive establishments, is another form of price tag.
People spoke quietly.
Clothing improved dramatically compared to the quarantine market.
Nobles.
Merchants.
Guild officials.
Two people in Nexus faculty colors.
One priest.
No children except us.
That was revealing.
A woman approached.
"House Quell."
Not a question.
She wore dark green and carried no visible ledger.
Her hair had gone almost completely silver.
Her posture hadn't surrendered anything.
Balthazar inclined his head.
"My family has dealt here before."
"Many families have."
Not impressed.
I liked her.
He presented the record.
She read Lot 3041.
Then the old date.
Her eyes moved up.
"This predates my tenure."
"I'm hoping it doesn't predate your archives."
"It does not."
Excellent answer.
"Your relationship to the original claimant?"
"Grandson."
"Direct line?"
"Yes."
"Proof?"
Balthazar showed the ring.
She did not care.
He showed a Nexus family registry card.
That she examined.
Interesting.
Vesper House trusted paper more than gold.
A civilized criminal enterprise.
"And him?" she asked.
"Research associate."
I looked at Balthazar.
He looked straight ahead.
Research associate.
I would remember that insult.
The woman turned toward me.
"Affiliation?"
"Nexus."
"Department?"
I considered several possibilities.
"Administrative inconvenience."
Balthazar closed his eyes.
The woman stared at me.
Then—
A tiny smile.
Gone immediately.
"Student."
"Yes."
"First year."
"Your intelligence is frightening."
"My eyes work."
She returned the documents.
"Historical provenance room. No originals leave the table. No copying of sealed names. No magical recording. Notes permitted where indicated."
"Sealed names?" I asked.
"If indicated."
"So there are sealed names."
Balthazar looked at me.
The woman did too.
I smiled.
"Wonderful institution."
"Archival fee is payable whether you find what you want or not."
"There is the Catington I know."
She led us deeper inside.
The historical room contained cabinets.
Not shelves.
Climate-controlled drawers lined three walls. The fourth held a long table under white lamps.
A clerk delivered three volumes.
Auction registry.
Consignment ledger.
Financial settlement book.
Balthazar stared at the last.
"They kept payment records this long?"
The silver-haired woman answered:
"Money has a better memory than people."
I liked her immensely.
She left.
I opened the auction registry.
Balthazar stopped me.
"Gloves."
I looked at the cotton gloves beside the books.
"I survived an island full of monsters."
"And yet oil from your fingers can still damage paper."
"An undignified weakness."
I put them on.
Lot 3041 appeared exactly where the Quell copy said it would.
MERIDIAN RESTORATION PREPARATIONS — VOLUME III
Condition: good.
Binding: restored.
Provenance: private.
Four pages of appraisal notes followed.
The book contained old meridian diagrams.
Mana-channel treatment.
Restoration procedures.
Two formula families deemed medically controversial even at the time.
No mention of Marduk.
No mention of Quell.
Then:
RESERVE PRICE ALTERED BY CONSIGNOR.
Three days later:
LOT WITHDRAWN PRIOR TO PUBLIC SALE.
Reason:
PRIVATE DISPOSITION.
Balthazar leaned closer.
"Private buyer."
"Possibly."
He turned the page.
"Buyer identity?"
None.
I checked the financial settlement.
Lot 3041.
Quell deposit.
Returned.
Full amount.
No penalty.
Then another entry.
A private-disposition fee paid by—
Sealed.
Black wax covered the name.
Not ink.
Actual archival seal.
I touched nothing.
Balthazar frowned.
"Can we request access?"
"Probably."
"Should we?"
"No."
That surprised him.
"Why?"
"Because asking which sealed names interest us creates a record before we know whether the name matters."
He considered.
Then nodded.
Good.
No argument.
We continued.
I found the seller correspondence.
Or rather, fragments of it.
Vesper House had retained copies of contractual notes.
The consignor had imposed unusual conditions.
No magical duplication.
No disassembly of binding.
No private inspection without a Vesper witness.
No export before payment.
Then one final condition:
Supplementary material not included in primary lot.
There.
I stopped.
"Balthazar."
He leaned over.
Below the line:
Supplementary transcript packet available under separate handling agreement.
Transcript.
Not folios.
Not original manuscript.
Transcript.
I felt the investigation shift beneath my feet.
"Different object," Balthazar said.
"Yes."
"So my grandfather's note about four supplementary leaves—"
"Could have referred to these."
"Copies."
"Possibly."
He exhaled.
"Then Founder Reserve may still hold the originals."
"If Abraham told the truth."
"You think he did?"
"About the four folios not being pages from Devil's Deceptions? Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it was specific."
Balthazar frowned.
"That makes you trust him?"
"No. It makes the lie more expensive."
He waited.
I explained.
"If Abraham wanted only to stop me, he could say the records were irrelevant. Instead he distinguished the folios from the pages I want. That suggests he knows both categories."
"Or wants you to think he does."
I looked at him.
"Excellent."
"You hate that I said that."
"I'm considering changing roommates."
He smiled.
Then pointed at the transcript packet.
"Find its lot number."
There wasn't one.
Only:
S-4 / PRIVATE CIRCULATION
S-4.
Four sheets.
Maybe.
I wrote it down.
The consignment ledger contained a separate section for private circulation.
That phrase sounded genteel.
It meant information sold without the embarrassment of public bidding.
S-4 appeared twice.
First:
Four handwritten reproductions. Source authenticated against deposited original.
That sentence mattered.
Not merely copies of rumors.
Someone at Vesper House had compared them against an original source.
Which original?
Unstated.
"Authenticated by whom?" Balthazar asked.
I followed the notation.
Appraiser initials.
E.V.
No name.
I resisted the temptation to immediately transform initials into a person.
Elias Veyr?
Possible.
But Professor Veyr had said he was only a junior examination clerk eighteen years ago.
This record was more than forty years old.
Unless he had discovered immortality very young, it wasn't him.
Good.
One false pattern killed cheaply.
I wrote:
E.V. — historical appraiser initials. Identity unknown. NOT Professor Veyr by age chronology unless records wrong.
Balthazar read.
"You really write that much?"
"I enjoy embarrassing future versions of myself."
The second entry described circulation.
Three authorized viewings.
Two reproductions licensed.
One reproduction refused.
Recipients were coded.
The first:
M-12 — Collegiate medical scholar.
Second:
SP-MED / CHARITABLE INSTITUTION.
Balthazar pointed.
"Saint-Patrick?"
"Probably."
"Eulalie."
"Yes."
I did not smile.
He noticed.
"Why aren't you pleased?"
"Because probably is not confirmed."
"You're becoming unbearable."
"A sign of progress."
I checked the legend.
SP-MED was not expanded.
No institution name.
Only:
Medical charitable archive — ecclesiastical exemption.
Could be Saint-Patrick.
Could be Saint Paul.
Saint Peter.
Saint Particularly-Unhelpful.
We would verify.
The third recipient was stranger.
C-17 / REVIEW ONLY.
I stared.
Balthazar read it.
Then again.
"That's Nexus notation."
"Yes."
The same branch as:
XVII–C / 42 / M
Travel Record / Arcane Geography.
Removed from public index by founder authority.
I opened my notebook.
Placed the two references side by side.
Marduk's code.
Vesper House circulation.
Same C-17 family.
Coincidence?
Maybe.
But now there was a bridge.
"Someone associated the medical transcripts with the geography collection," Balthazar said.
"Or C-17 refers to something else here."
"Can we check?"
We found the historical notation legend.
C-17.
Not a buyer.
Not a department.
CROSS-REFERENCE REQUEST — COLLECTION 17.
I sat back.
Better.
Someone who viewed the medical transcripts had requested a cross-reference to another collection.
Which one?
A note:
Associated material reviewed under Arcane Geography / Expedition Records.
There it was.
Not coincidence.
Documented association.
Medicine.
Expedition records.
Marduk had referenced both.
The room seemed quieter.
Balthazar spoke first.
"Why would a meridian-restoration volume be cross-referenced with expedition records?"
"I don't know."
"Monster exposure?"
"Possible."
"Mana contamination?"
"Possible."
"Field medicine?"
"Possible."
He waited.
"You have no theory?"
"I have twelve."
"And?"
"I like none enough to marry."
He looked at me.
"Your metaphors are concerning."
"The happiest theories are the ones you haven't committed to."
I wrote:
CONFIRMED: Vesper House authenticated a four-sheet transcript packet against an original source.
CONFIRMED: transcript packet circulated privately.
CONFIRMED: one recipient category was medical-charitable/ecclesiastical.
CONFIRMED: a cross-reference was requested to Arcane Geography / Expedition Records, Collection 17.
Then:
PROBABLE: SP-MED may correspond to Saint-Patrick. VERIFY.
Nothing about Pandemonium.
Nothing about Magus.
Nothing about missing journal pages.
Not yet.
Balthazar found the accusation against Marduk by accident.
He had returned to the financial book.
I was studying the cross-reference.
He went silent.
Not ordinary silence.
Personal silence.
I looked up.
"What?"
He rotated the book.
A dispute record.
House Quell.
Filed two weeks after Lot 3041 was withdrawn.
Complaint:
Claimant alleges improper private interference in transaction.
Named alleged interfering party:
Marduk Vey.
There.
Finally.
Balthazar's grandfather hadn't invented the name.
But the next line mattered more.
Vesper House finding: allegation unsupported by transaction record. No evidence that named party purchased, redirected or financed withdrawal. Claim dismissed. Deposit returned.
Balthazar read it twice.
Then a third time.
His face gave me very little.
More than usual.
"My grandfather never mentioned this."
"People rarely preserve the page where they lose."
"He told my father Marduk stole it."
"Maybe he believed it."
"Vesper didn't."
"Vesper only says their records couldn't prove it."
Balthazar looked at me.
I could have mocked the family story.
Would have been easy.
Useful, even.
A small humiliation makes people defensive. Defensive people reveal things.
I didn't.
He closed the financial book.
"My grandfather hated being wrong."
"I never met him."
"He wasn't wrong often."
"Dangerous condition."
"He'd rather call something betrayal than admit someone outbid him."
"No recorded purchase by Marduk."
Balthazar's jaw tightened.
"So he may have blamed a man because the man was already infamous."
"Possible."
"You're defending Marduk."
"No."
That came quickly.
Balthazar looked surprised.
I continued.
"Marduk was entirely capable of stealing a book."
"Comforting."
"He stole several things in my childhood."
"What?"
"Mostly my sleep."
Not enough.
I looked at the dispute.
"If he interfered, we don't have proof yet. Your grandfather's accusation is evidence that he suspected Marduk. The Vesper finding is evidence that the transaction did not prove it."
Balthazar stared at the page.
"That's all?"
"For now."
He laughed once.
Not happily.
"You really have changed."
I frowned.
"We've known each other for three days."
"Yes."
"Then how could you possibly—"
"Yesterday you would have told me my grandfather was wrong because it gave you leverage."
I stopped.
The irritating thing about acquiring intelligent companions is that they begin cataloguing you.
"I might have."
"You definitely would."
"Fine."
Balthazar looked back at the book.
Then spoke more quietly.
"If Marduk didn't buy Volume III…"
"Someone else did."
"And Marduk still ended up connected to it."
"Yes."
"How?"
"At last."
"What?"
"A question worth paying for."
We requested one additional file.
The silver-haired archivist returned.
"You've exceeded standard claimant review."
Balthazar showed her the dispute record.
"My family filed this."
"Yes."
"I want the resolution correspondence."
"Closed."
"It concerns a Quell claim."
"It also concerns a third party."
"Marduk is dead."
She looked at him.
"You assume the seal protects only him."
Good answer.
I stepped in.
"What can you show us without violating it?"
She looked at me.
Balthazar almost objected.
Then stopped.
The archivist considered.
"Procedural summary."
"Names removed?"
"Yes."
"Dates intact?"
"Yes."
"Transaction sequence?"
"If not identifying."
"Excellent."
She left.
Balthazar stared.
"That easy?"
"No."
"What did you do?"
"Asked for less."
He frowned.
"That's it?"
"People often refuse a demand because you bundled your real need with ten unnecessary privileges."
"Where did you learn that?"
"A Lebanese jeweler with three ex-wives and a tax investigation."
"Was he real?"
"Very."
"Sometimes I can't tell."
"Neither could the tax authority."
The archivist returned with one sheet.
Redacted.
Half the page looked as though darkness had developed legal counsel.
But enough survived.
Sequence:
Volume III deposited for appraisal.
Four original folios deposited separately.
Folios not offered for sale.
Transcript packet produced under depositor authorization.
Transcript circulated privately.
Volume prepared for public auction months later.
Quell bid registered.
Private party requested withdrawal from auction.
Consignor approved.
Volume removed from public sale.
Transfer occurred outside Vesper House settlement.
Marduk accused by Quell claimant.
No proof connecting him to payment or withdrawal.
Then—
One final line.
Following dispute, remaining transcript access suspended by request of original depositor. Existing licensed copies unaffected.
Existing copies.
Still outside.
The originals?
Not specified.
Balthazar tapped the first lines.
"Four original folios were deposited separately."
"Yes."
"From Volume III?"
"No."
He looked at me.
"Why?"
"The record does not say they came out of the book."
"They were supplementary."
"That was our assumption."
I turned the sheet.
Nothing else.
"They were deposited at the same time. Authenticated alongside the volume. Called supplementary in later records. That does not prove they were physically bound into Volume III."
Balthazar leaned back.
"Then what were they?"
"Something the depositor wanted authenticated against the same body of knowledge."
"Which Abraham says is not from Devil's Deceptions."
"Yes."
"But Marduk points to them."
"Yes."
"And to an expedition collection."
"Yes."
He rubbed his forehead.
"I hate your mentor."
"Get in line."
On our way out, an auction was beginning.
We should have left.
We did not.
This was mostly my fault.
A bell sounded once.
Guests entered a narrow chamber.
The silver-haired archivist was occupied elsewhere.
Balthazar stopped before the door.
"We're not registered."
"Correct."
"We can't bid."
"Even better."
He stared at me.
"You just want to watch."
"I enjoy seeing what wealthy people admit they want when strangers can hear the price."
He sighed.
We took seats at the rear.
Five lots passed.
An enchanted navigation compass.
A sealed herbarium.
A sword from a minor dynasty whose last prince had apparently possessed more money than military talent.
Then:
"Lot Twenty-Seven."
A small glass case appeared.
Inside rested a thumb-sized vial containing pale golden powder.
I recognized the description before the auctioneer finished.
One of Elisabeth's missing reagents for the Elixir of the Second Pulse.
Not enough for a full batch.
Perhaps enough for testing.
My attention sharpened.
Balthazar noticed.
"You know it."
"Yes."
"Need it?"
"Eventually."
Bidding began.
The first offer eliminated three people.
The second doubled it.
By the fourth, the price had become offensive.
Balthazar whispered:
"Still need it?"
"Yes."
"Can you afford it?"
Technically?
Possibly.
If I wanted to convert part of the Sierra's remaining cargo reserve.
If I wanted to spend money needed for docking, medicine, repairs, food, Academy costs and the future.
All for one reagent belonging to an elixir we could not yet make.
"No."
That word hurt more than expected.
The final bid came from a woman in a dark veil.
Hammer.
Sold.
The vial disappeared.
Balthazar looked at me.
"You could have tried."
"Yes."
"You didn't."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because wanting something is not the same as being able to pay its real price."
He nodded.
No lesson.
No praise.
Good.
Marduk had spent years teaching me to collect power.
Catington seemed determined to teach me that collecting everything at once was another form of stupidity.
We left.
Eulalie was at the Sierra when we arrived.
That was unexpected.
More unexpected was Rex allowing her inside without behaving as though theology were contagious.
Elisabeth sat at the table.
Between them lay three old copied pages.
I stopped.
Balthazar nearly walked into me.
"What happened?"
Eulalie looked up.
"Saint-Patrick answered."
"That fast?"
"I sent the request before you went to Vesper House."
Of course she had.
Autonomous people.
Inconvenient invention.
She looked at Balthazar.
He looked at her.
Neither knew how much the other knew.
I put the Vesper notes on the table.
"Balthazar knows about Marduk and the catalog references."
Eulalie nodded.
No objection.
Good.
Balthazar sat.
Elisabeth looked at me.
"Well?"
"Vesper confirmed private transcripts."
Her hand stopped.
"Not originals?"
"Copies authenticated against originals."
"Of the four folios?"
"Yes."
"Are the folios from the journal?"
"Abraham says no. Nothing today disproved him."
She absorbed that.
"Then why did Marduk cite them?"
"Unknown."
Eulalie slid one of her copies forward.
"Saint-Patrick's old index uses SP-MED."
There.
Confirmed.
I crossed out probable in my notebook.
Wrote:
CONFIRMED: SP-MED = Saint-Patrick medical archive.
"What do they have?" I asked.
"Not the folios."
Naturally.
"A commentary."
She indicated three pages.
"Written thirty-nine years ago by a Saint-Patrick physician who was allowed to examine a licensed transcript."
Balthazar leaned in.
"Same timeline."
"Yes."
Elisabeth read the title.
On Meridian Collapse Following Extreme Environmental Mana Exposure.
Silence.
Environmental exposure.
Expedition records.
The bridge tightened.
I looked at Eulalie.
"Summary?"
"The physician describes patients returning from environments with mana conditions far outside normal terrestrial ranges."
"Where?"
"Not stated."
"Symptoms?"
She listed them.
Channel instability.
Exhaustion.
Affinity disruption.
Body rejecting normal restorative spells.
Some patients temporarily unable to recover mana normally.
Nothing impossible.
Nothing unique.
But the medical paper repeatedly cited an unnamed expedition document.
Reference:
C-17 / 42.
Balthazar swore softly.
Elisabeth looked between us.
"What?"
I placed the Vesper record beside the Saint-Patrick paper.
Same reference.
Marduk's first code.
Travel Record / Arcane Geography.
Founder restriction.
And now a medical paper.
Three independent routes converging.
Not proof of Pandemonium.
Not even proof of the same expedition.
But finally enough to say:
The codes were not random categories.
Marduk had built a chain.
Elisabeth traced another sentence.
"This paper mentions a copied diagram that isn't attached."
"Removed?"
"Maybe never included."
"Reference?"
She pointed.
Not a catalog number.
A symbol.
Seven short strokes around an empty center.
I had seen something similar before.
Not identical.
Marduk's materials.
Old annotations.
I did not classify it.
Not yet.
Balthazar asked:
"Can Saint-Patrick access the original commentary?"
Eulalie's fingers tightened slightly on the page.
"Yes."
"How?"
She hesitated.
"My old orphanage is part of the Saint-Patrick institution."
There.
The first personal bridge.
Not the whole history.
Enough.
Elisabeth looked at her.
"You grew up there?"
"Yes."
No elaboration.
I did not ask.
Eulalie noticed.
Then continued.
"The older medical archive isn't open to ordinary Nexus students. But I can request access through someone I know."
"Who?" Balthazar asked.
Eulalie paused.
"Sister Bismelda."
The name meant nothing to me.
The way she said it did.
Not authority.
Something closer.
Family, perhaps.
Teacher.
Debt.
Don't decide.
I nodded.
"Would requesting the archive cause trouble for you?"
Eulalie looked surprised.
"Why?"
"Your order is already disputing your curriculum."
"Yes."
"So?"
She considered.
"Possibly."
"Then don't do it for us."
Elisabeth looked at me.
Balthazar looked at me.
Eulalie stared longest.
"What?"
I asked.
"Nothing."
"That expression never means nothing."
She almost smiled.
"I'll decide."
Good answer.
Her answer.
Not mine.
That evening, I returned to Nexus alone.
Not to the archives.
Professor Layton Ambre had assigned forty pages on evidentiary chains.
I hated irony.
Halfway through the reading, I stopped.
One sentence bothered me.
Not because of what it said.
Because of what it reminded me to ask.
A chain of evidence is not merely a sequence of facts.
It is also a sequence of hands.
Who possessed the object.
Who copied it.
Who authenticated it.
Who moved it.
Who benefited from changing its form.
I opened my notebook.
Volume III.
Four original folios.
Vesper authentication.
Transcript packet.
Saint-Patrick copy.
Arcane Geography cross-reference.
Founder restriction.
Quell auction.
Private withdrawal.
Marduk accusation.
Too many objects.
I had been thinking of them as information.
Maybe that was wrong.
Maybe the movement itself mattered.
Why create copies?
Why circulate them medically?
Why cross-reference expedition records?
Why then stop further transcript access after the Quell dispute?
I drew no grand conclusion.
Instead, I wrote the obvious question I had somehow avoided:
WHO ORDERED THE FIRST TRANSCRIPTION?
The Vesper procedural summary said:
under depositor authorization.
So the depositor.
Identity sealed.
Not Marduk necessarily.
Not Abraham necessarily.
Someone.
I returned to the copied record.
One detail.
The original depositor had also approved the withdrawal of Volume III from public auction.
Same authority.
Same person or legal entity.
That meant the person who wanted the folios copied was also connected to removing the book from sale.
Balthazar's grandfather blamed Marduk.
Vesper couldn't prove it.
Abraham told me to stop looking only inside Nexus.
And Marduk later encoded both references into Devil's Deceptions.
A triangle.
Not a solution.
A shape.
I wrote:
CONFIRMED: same depositor authority controlled transcript permission and later approval of Volume III withdrawal, according to Vesper procedural summary.
Then:
OPEN: depositor identity.
Below:
QUESTION: Did Marduk encode references because he created this chain, discovered it, stole from it, or survived whatever produced it?
Four possibilities.
Chessmaster stirred.
I let it arrange them.
No ranking.
Not enough evidence.
Good.
Then I noticed something else.
The C-17 reference.
The Saint-Patrick commentary cited page numbers.
Not from the commentary.
From the lost expedition record.
Page 63.
Page 71.
Page 88.
A document Nexus claimed was withdrawn from public index still had enough circulation forty years ago for a doctor outside Nexus to cite exact pages.
Meaning—
A copy existed.
Or had existed.
Somewhere outside Founder Reserve.
I stared at the numbers.
Then laughed quietly.
Marduk.
You miserable old bastard.
The missing pages of Devil's Deceptions might not be the only missing pages in this story.
I copied the three numbers into my notebook.
C-17/42 — cited pages 63, 71, 88.
Tomorrow, we would stop asking only where the documents went.
We would start asking who had copied them before the doors closed.
And somewhere between a dead alchemist, an angry Quell, a charitable orphanage, a sealed Nexus collection and a private auction house with no sign—
someone had left enough copies to make forgetting impossible.