The tally room door shudders with movement inside. Crates scrape over stone, and the ledger in Kynes’s hand answers with a hard gold pulse, bright as a warning bell.
Kynes
The seal is active. Someone is moving records.
Bren shifts beside him, watching the lintel. A thin seam of gold threads through the blue stone, then points, unmistakable, toward the latch.
Bren
They are trying to leave with something. Or hide it.
Kynes presses the ledger closer to the door. The pulse deepens, and a faint line of red script blooms under the wood, as if the building itself is naming the lie.
Kynes
Open the room. This is a bookkeeping matter now.
The door swings inward on a groan. Inside, clerks freeze amid overturned tally shelves and half-packed bundles. At the back wall, a hidden niche glows gold, marking the true cache that the ledger has found.
Corner the supply broker with the incriminating goods