The clerk’s office is tight with old paper and dust, shelves bowing under ledgers. Hestia looks up over her spectacles as Kynes, Bren, and Mara step in, the room going politely still.

A second woman rises from a side desk, charcoal on her fingers and a roll of site maps under one arm. She is plain-clad, weathered, and attentive, an unfamiliar face in the bureaucracy.

Hestia slides a fresh sheet forward. Talla unrolls a narrow map beside it, pointing to a cluster of plots at the edge of town while Bren and Mara lean in to study the options.

Talla studies Kynes for a beat, then slides a second map free from the roll. She taps a secluded patch beyond the last tidy lanes, where a lane bends into older trees and a stream runs close.

Hestia turns one page in the ledger and, for the first time, her neat calm thins into caution. Her quill pauses over a margin note, then marks a line beside Talla's chosen plot.

Talla pins the page with two charcoal marks, then nudges the map toward Kynes. A small deed token, already prepared for transfer, sits beside the ledger as if it has been waiting for this exact answer.

Talla takes the request in stride, then nods once and reaches for her cloak. Hestia marks the ledger with a clipped line, already switching from records to arrangements. The deed token stays on the desk, but the inspection becomes real.

By noon, the four of them stand at the secluded plot beyond the tidy lanes. An old house leans under a weathered roof, the stream runs clean beside the garden ground, and a narrow track opens back toward town.

Bren crouches beside the garden soil, rubbing it between her fingers, then glances toward the wall line and the little workshop shed. She gives Kynes a small, satisfied nod.

Talla walks the edge of the property, points out the corners, and stops where the lane meets the trees. There, half-buried in a post cap, she finds a second waxed seal stamp matched to the deed token, proof the plot has been held in reserve under town record rather than lost to neglect.

Talla straightens from the post cap and flips the waxed seal in her palm, then opens the clerk’s copy of the register with a thumb on the right page. Kynes feels the quiet weight of the place around him, the stream, the lane, the old stones, nothing hidden by glamour or storm.

Hestia leans in from the cart path with a clipped frown, tracing the fresh ink with one finger as if she expects it to smear. Bren watches Talla instead of the page, calm but intent.

Talla turns the register around. Beneath the property entry, a narrow notation names a warding clerk’s routine review, then another hand has crossed it through and replaced it with a simple routing mark to the reeve’s seal. The page smells of old wax and newer intent.

Talla closes the register with a firm snap and tucks the waxed seal into her sleeve. Hestia straightens at once, watching the lane as if expecting trouble to step out of it.

Bren shifts closer to Kynes, her eyes on the clerk’s retreating back, while Mara studies the boundary post and the house beyond it as if measuring how much of the promise is already real.

Talla heads for the lane and disappears toward town with the register under her arm. The deed token stays in view, resting beside the open parcel papers, while the amended custody note is left exposed to the wind.

For a moment, the property feels held by no one and claimed by everyone, until Talla’s footsteps fade toward Phandelver and the rest of them are left waiting on what the originals will say.

The lane stays quiet. Wind skims the exposed custody note, and Kynes keeps his place beside the papers without moving, while the others wait on the clerk's return.

From the yard, Kynes waits out the silence. Bren draws nearer to his shoulder, Mara keeps her eyes on the house line, and Hestia watches the road back to town as if counting the minutes.

At last, distant footsteps return through the lane. Talla comes back with a stack of older ledgers under one arm, their corners dusted from the vault room and their routing marks still visible.

She sets the ledgers beside the open parcel papers. One page bears a second seal impression, half-scraped away, and the amended custody trail points to a single clerk's hand.

Talla does not look away from the scraped seal. Her fingers hover over the damaged impression, then tap the margin where the ink was changed.

Hestia goes pale at that, and Bren's jaw tightens beside Kynes, her attention fixed on Talla's hand as if it might point to a name by force.

Mara lets out a slow breath, half relief and half cold recognition, while Talla slides the ledgers toward Kynes, the hidden seal now impossible to miss.

Talla stills, then gives Kynes a flat, knowing look. Hestia swallows and glances toward the road back to town, as if the answer might be standing there in daylight.

Talla nudges the ledger toward Kynes, and the scraped impression catches the light. Beneath the false entry, a second notation peeks through, a custody mark tied to the reeve’s archive key.

Bren’s hand brushes Kynes’s sleeve once, brief and steady. Around them, the quiet property feels less like a bargain now and more like something reclaimed from under a watchful hand.

Talla’s mouth twitches, not quite a smile, and she draws the ledger closer with two fingers. Hestia lets out a slow breath, shoulders easing as the question turns practical instead of poisonous.

Talla flips to a cleaner page and traces a rough line with her nail. The sketch shows higher ground, a narrow path, and enough distance from town to feel honest.

Talla sets a waxed thumb on the margin and marks the terrace with a neat clerk’s stroke, then slides the page toward Kynes. The hidden custody line stays exposed beneath the altered entry, but now it sits beside a second, untainted plot, ready to be claimed.

Talla points to a faint, authentic stamp pressed into the parchment, a mark of independence that predates the current administration's reach.

Talla folds the parchment and turns on her heel, already leading the way out of the clerk’s office with the ledger tucked under one arm. Bren falls in beside Kynes, eyeing the page as if expecting it to bite.

They cross Phandelver in a short, purposeful line, past damp stone and shuttered fronts. The town’s quiet feels watched, but the route to the river stays open.

By the time they reach the terrace, the river runs below them in a bright, hard ribbon. The plot sits above the bank, level and sheltered, with old boundary stones half-swallowed by grass.

Kynes reaches the nearest marker stone and the afternoon light catches a shallow notch in its face, old enough to be forgotten, deliberate enough to mean something. The terrace answers with stillness, waiting for his judgment.

Talla stops at once, eyes dropping to the spot Kynes indicates. She flips the ledger open and presses two fingers to the page, then to the stone, comparing mark to ground with a surveyor’s certainty.

Bren’s shoulders ease as she looks from the river to Kynes, and the hard edge in her face softens into something openly relieved.

Talla turns the ledger so the page catches the light, and with a neat stroke she marks the river terrace as claimed. Her thumb seals the line with a dab of wax, and the old boundary stones seem to settle into place around the decision.

The river keeps running below, but the plot no longer feels empty. It feels held. Talla closes the book and glances toward the town path, practical as ever, as if the next question is already waiting.