The neutral vault smelled of cold stone and ink and the kind of careful gravity that makes people speak in shorter sentences. It was a place built to hold things that could not be trusted to memory alone: sigil-pressed disks, microetched frames, and folios whose margins had been used as maps for harm. Keeper Sera moved through the vault like a woman who had learned to keep promises in wax; her hands were steady and her face unreadable in the way of people who had watched too many oaths break.
Aria arrived with the Remnants' convoy at dawn. The convoy had been a small, deliberate thing: warded crates, two Remnants witnesses, Thorne's sealed lens case, and a magistrate from Haven who had agreed to observe under neutral tiles. Marcus rode at the convoy's flank with a discreet escort; his presence was a promise that the Loom would not be bullied into secrecy. The city had watched the convoy leave—marketkeepers, guild clerks, and a scattering of delegates who wanted to see whether law could be more than a rumor.
Thorne carried the first crate like a man carrying a small, dangerous heart. He set it on the vault's outer table and fed a slow lighthouse cadence through the warded tiles. The crate's seals glowed faintly and then settled; the sigildamp tiles hummed a counternote that made tampering feel like walking on ice. Keeper Sera read the Remnants' witness slate aloud and notarized the transfer in triplicate. The magistrate stamped the outer manifest and the vault's heavy doors closed with a sound like a verdict.
Custody, Aria had learned, was not a single act but a choreography. It required witnesses who could not be bought, tiles that would show if a seal had been broken, and a public record that could not be erased by a clerk's favor. The neutral vault offered all three: Remnants tiles, a guild‑backed escrow clause, and a public ledger that would be mirrored in Haven and Greyford. The compact the Council had ratified the week before made the transfer legal; the Loom's work made it visible.
Inside the vault, Thorne opened the crate under warded light. The device lay in a bed of sigil‑pressed cloth: a hammered frame threaded with blackened microetch, the same hybrid geometry they had found at the Veiled Crossing. Thorne fed a measured pulse through the lens and watched the microetch answer. It was the same variant—cadence keys braided to scent orders, a memoryhook keyed to market rhythms. He cataloged the reply in shorthand only he could read and sealed the sample in a double‑warded case that would require both Remnants and guild keys to open.
Keeper Sera recorded the microetch's signature in the public ledger and then did something Aria had insisted on: she read the device's danger aloud and asked the vault's clerk to enter a formal restriction. The restriction would prevent any single office—Council, guild, or Order—from requesting the artifact without a joint subpoena and a Remnants witness. It was a legal hinge that turned custody into a civic lock.
The vault's clerk—a neutral man with a face that had learned to keep secrets for a living—looked up from his ledger and said, "We will hold it. We will not hand it to any office without the compact's clause." His voice was small and practical; his oath was the kind that made law feel like a tool rather than a threat.
They moved through the day like a machine. Thorne fed microetch samples into the warded lens and sketched countervariations that would make the device's hooks inert in controlled conditions. Keeper Sera prepared witness packets for each artifact and arranged for notarized testimony from the magistrates who had seen the devices in the field. Marcus organized a second convoy to move the remaining crates to the vault's inner stacks under Remnants seal. Aria wrote the public notice that would be posted in Highbridge and in neutral towns: artifacts transferred to neutral custody; Remnants oversight active; public hearings scheduled.
The hearings were the hard part. Custody was not only about keeping dangerous things safe; it was about deciding who could see them and why. The Council's inquiry demanded access; the Loom insisted on witness protections. The committee's patrons—those who had funded trials—wanted the artifacts returned for "further study." The difference between study and weaponization was a thin line, and the vault's tiles would not decide it for them.
The first hearing convened in the Council Hall with a procedural calm that felt like a blade. Aria presented the chain of custody: manifests from Saltport, courier logs from Greyhaven, Calder's notarized testimony, and the Remnants' witness packets. Thorne explained the microetch variant in principle—how cadence keys and scent orders could be used to graft memory—without handing anyone a recipe. Keeper Sera read the vault's restriction clause and asked the Council to ratify the neutral custody arrangement.
A midrank aide rose and argued for access. "If the Council's technicians can study the devices, we can learn how to neutralize them faster," he said. "Keeping them sealed slows the inquiry."
Aria answered with the bluntness she had learned to use in rooms where law could be a cudgel. "Access without witnesses is a way to bury evidence. We will not hand artifacts to an office that can retune them in private. Neutral custody with joint subpoenas is not obstruction; it is accountability."
The vote was narrow and ugly. The Council authorized the neutral custody but reserved the right to request access under a joint subpoena that required Remnants and guild approval. It was a compromise that left room for both oversight and obstruction. The ledger's teeth had been given a legal jaw; whether it would bite depended on who held the keys.
Outside the Hall, the city's hand‑run sheets printed the hearing's highlights and the smear campaign intensified. Anonymous notes accused the Loom of hoarding knowledge; a merchant's warehouse burned in a suspicious blaze that night and the conservative bloc whispered about the Loom's "overreach." The threats were thin and human, but they were meant to be read as promises.
Custody, Aria realized, was not only a legal problem; it was a moral one. The devices were dangerous. Destroying them would remove the immediate threat but would also erase evidence that could prove who had funded the trials. Keeping them risked letting technicians learn how to weaponize the same geometry. The neutral vault was a middle path: preserve evidence, restrict access, and make every opening a public act.
The moral calculus came to a head when Calder—who had agreed to testify under warded conditions—appeared at the vault with a new confession. He had found a ledger entry that suggested a patron's name had been encoded in a donor trust. The name was not a public face but a trust that mapped to a Council aide's office. Calder's hands shook as he handed the copy to Keeper Sera. "I thought I was building safety," he said. "I didn't know what they would do with it."
Keeper Sera took the paper and sealed it in a witness packet. "We will add this to the vault's record," she said. "We will not let procedure bury it."
Aria felt the ledger's map shift again. Custody had become a way to follow the money and the channels. The neutral vault was not a final answer; it was a hinge that would let them pry open rooms where patrons hid behind procedure.
That night, as the vault's lamps burned low, Thorne fed the microetch samples one last pulse and sketched a countervariation that would make the devices inert in a controlled lab. It was a small, technical mercy: a way to study harm without teaching craft. Keeper Sera filed the witness packets and arranged for copies of the public ledger to be mirrored in Haven and Greyford. Marcus organized a discreet patrol to watch the vault's docks. Aria wrote the Spiral Log entry with hands that did not tremble: Artifacts transferred to neutral vault; Remnants custody active; joint subpoena clause ratified; Calder's ledger entry added to witness packets; countervariation protocols drafted; public ledger mirrored in neutral towns; patrols assigned.
Custody of memory was not a single act of safekeeping. It was a civic architecture: locks and witnesses, public records and mirrored ledgers, legal fuses and technical countermeasures. The neutral vault would hold the devices for now, but the work of accountability would be slow and stubborn. The ledger's teeth had been given a jaw; the Loom's job was to make sure it bit where it should.
Outside, the city slept under lamps that felt less indifferent than before. Inside the vault, Keeper Sera closed the final seal and looked at Aria with a tired, fierce calm. "We keep it honest," she said simply.
Aria nodded. "We keep it honest and we keep it visible. That's the only way procedure stops being a grave."