The Silver Vault sat like a tooth in the Bastion's jaw: whitewashed stone, iron grates, and a single narrow approach that funneled anyone who wanted in into a place where they could be counted. Dawn had not yet burned the salt from the air when the Loom's cart rolled up the Bastion road, the shard's lead-lined case strapped to the center like a small, stubborn heart. They moved light and tight—Halv and Rell at the flanks, two apprentices with anchor kits, a forensics pair with tracer rigs, and Luna with her teacher's satchel. The city's noise felt far away here; the Bastion's walls swallowed sound and made every footstep a decision.
Forensics set up under the vault's lee with the methodical calm of people who read things the way others read faces. Rell unrolled the tracer and tuned its lattice; the machine hummed like a caged insect and threw pale nets of light across the shard's oilcloth. Halv checked the perimeter and the rope lines, eyes on the Bastion's parapets where a patron's watchers might be posted. Aria stood with the shard at her feet and felt its resonance like a pulse through the soles of her boots. The marginalia had already given them a map; now they needed proof that would hold in a public ledger and in a court of witnesses.
The first breakthrough came from the shard itself. Rell fed the tracer's readout into the forensics rig and watched the lattice tease out a donor registry imprint: a faint, repeating spiral with a dot at its center. The tracer matched the spiral to a registry hash that pointed to a trust account in the Silver Vault's private ledger—an account labeled in a hand that had been scrubbed from public records but left a chemical memory in the ink. Forensics translated the imprint into a manifest line: Virelle; Salted Bastion; Vault 3; transfer code 7‑14.
Aria felt the room tilt. The shard's marginalia had been a lead; the tracer had turned it into a name on a ledger. That name was a key.
"We have a patron mark," Rell said, voice low. "Virelle's imprint on a transfer to Vault 3. If we can open Vault 3, we get manifests, donor receipts, and a paper trail that ties the patron to the plate."
Halv's grin was a quick, dangerous thing. "Then we open Vault 3."
They moved like a small tide. The Bastion's vault doors were heavy and old, sealed with a combination of ironwork and sigil-pressed stone. Halv worked the mechanical locks while Luna and the forensics pair set up a teacher's knot and a small Echo Shield to hold any witness who might be found inside. The shield was a blunt instrument—one minute of protection for up to five witnesses—but it would be enough to let forensics anchor testimony while the tracer read manifests. Luna's hands trembled as she tuned the shield; the Moonborn Echo and the Tidebind Lunge had left her with a thin, private fatigue that she hid behind a practiced calm.
The vault's inner door opened with a sound like a breath. Inside, crates were stacked and sealed, each stamped with a private mark. A private vault in a patron house is a place where favors are kept and names are buried; the air smelled of oilcloth and old coin. Forensics moved in with gloves and lenses, the tracer's lattice crawling across seals and ink. Rell found the manifest crate and eased it free; Halv pried the lid and the room exhaled a colder air.
They did not expect company. They should have.
A patrol of Bastion guards—men in dark coats with donor tokens at their throats—had been posted to the vault's corridor. They moved like men who had been paid to be invisible until they were not. One of them stepped forward, a slim man with a silver spiral at his collar and a smile that did not reach his eyes. He carried a slate and a sigil-pistol; he was not a brute but a broker's agent, the kind who made deals and erased them.
"You shouldn't be here," he said, and the words were a courtesy that hid a threat.
Aria's hand went to the shard's case. The ritual focus they had held on the rocks had been a hinge; this was a different hinge—paper and witness and the law. "We have a warrant," she said. It was not a legal warrant in the Council's sense; it was the Loom's warrant: forensics, witnesses, and a public packet that would not be bought back into silence.
The agent laughed, a short, sharp sound. "Warrants are for those who answer to the Council. The Bastion answers to its patrons."
Halv moved first, a shadow with a crowbar. The corridor erupted into motion: a quick, efficient scuffle, the kind of violence that is over before it is noticed. Halv's pole knocked a guard's balance; Rell's sigil-spike found a seam in a boot. The agent fired his pistol and the shot sang off the vault's iron. For a breath the room smelled of ozone and hot metal.
Aria stepped into the breach. She did not want blood; she wanted the manifest. She moved with the practiced economy of someone who had learned to make violence precise. The agent lunged, blade flashing. Aria parried, the blade ringing on her guard. The corridor was tight; there was no room for grand gestures. The agent's movements were clean and practiced—he had been trained to make a spectacle of a scuffle so that witnesses would remember the violence and forget the ledger.
Luna's voice rose, a thin, steady thread. She set the Echo Shield and let it bloom like a net. The agent's eyes flicked to the shield and for a moment his confidence faltered. Forensics moved in and the tracer's lattice crawled across the manifest crate. Rell's hands were steady; Halv's breath came in short, controlled pulls.
They took the agent down without killing him—Halv's pole, Rell's spike, Aria's blade a warning more than a wound. The man cursed and spat and then went still as the Echo Shield wrapped him in a minute of held memory. Forensics worked fast. The tracer read the manifests and the ledger's lines unspooled: donor receipts, transfer codes, a list of plates and their destinations. Virelle's donor mark was stamped across several entries; a private notation—"Field grafting rig funding; see account 7‑14"—sat like a nail.
Rell's face went taut. "This is it," he said. "This ties Virelle to procurement and to the Moonforge accounts."
Forensics printed the manifests and bound them with a teacher's knot. The shard's marginalia had been confirmed; the donor trust had been found. The Bastion's vault had been opened and the ledger's margins had been made public in a way that could not be easily smoothed over.
Outside, the Bastion's courtyards were stirring. Word travels fast when a patron's vault is opened. House Virelle's agents would be calling envoys and lawyers; the Council would be receiving messages and calculating risk. The Loom had what it needed: paper, witness, and a public packet that could be read aloud in the market and in the Council's halls.
They did not leave quietly. The Bastion's corridors filled with men who had been paid to make trouble. A skirmish spilled into the vault's approach—glass blades, a thrown sigil that cracked a lamp, a teacher's knot that saved a witness from a memory bleed. Halv and Rell moved like shadows; Luna's cadence braided the air and kept forensics' work steady. Aria felt the shard's hum like a pulse at her hip and the ledger's weight in her chest.
When they finally stepped out into the Bastion's light, the manifests were bound and the agent was tied and the tracer's readouts were copied. The public packet would be delivered; the market would see the donor marks and the Council would have to answer. House Virelle's name was no longer a rumor in the margins. It was a stamped fact on a manifest.
They rode back to Saltport with the shard's case between them and the manifests wrapped in oilcloth. The city's mood had shifted while they were gone: brokers whispered, envoys moved, and the public's anger had a new, focused edge. Forensics would present the manifests at the Silver Vault steps; witnesses would be called; the packet would be read again, this time with the Bastion's own paper in hand.
In the safehouse that night, Luna unwrapped the tracer's printouts and set them under the lamp. Her hands trembled as she smoothed the pages; the Moonborn Echo and the Tidebind's aftereffects had left her with a thin, private ache. Aria sat across from her and watched the teacher's fingers move.
"We did it," Aria said, and the words were both a relief and a warning.
Luna's smile was small and tired. "We did," she said. "But the ledger's arithmetic keeps tallying. We have proof now. They will try to bury it. They will try to buy it back."
Aria nodded. The manifests were a blade and a shield. They had forced a patron's hand; they had given the city a choice. The cost would be paid in hearings and in field actions, in teachers' memories and in witnesses' courage. The Loom had turned a lead into a lever.
Outside, Saltport's night breathed and the Bonebridge hummed with the residue of the mass cadence. Inside, the Loom bound the manifests with a teacher's knot and prepared the packet for the morning. Forensics had given them the proof; the city would have to decide what to do with it.
Aria closed her eyes for a moment and tried to call back the name that had slipped in the vault breach. It hovered at the edge of her mind like a coin she could not find. She felt the ledger's thread hum under her palm and the shard's small, insistent heartbeat at her hip. They had won a forensic payoff; the next steps would be political and dangerous. They would need witnesses, anchors, and the stubborn courage to make the public remember.
When dawn came, the Silver Vault steps would be crowded. The manifests would be read aloud. House Virelle would have to answer in public or watch the city decide for them. The Loom had given the city a map and the proof to follow it. Now the work of turning exposure into justice would begin—and the ledger's margins would be a battlefield.