The last southbound boat pulls away into the fog, its lantern shrinking beyond the reeds. Tamsin draws Kynes and Bren beneath the accounting awning as river mist veils the landing.
Tamsin Rook
Keep close to the post. If anyone watches the quay, they will see only a ferry clerk sorting the evening accounts.
Under a hooded lantern, Bren lays out the crossing slip, the blue thread, and Iven’s copied ledger. Their marks align around the scraped instruction directing Pellis toward the old salt warehouse.
Bren
The ink was removed, but not the pressure. Someone added Blackwater Quay after Pellis’s crossing, then tried to erase the destination.
Tamsin angles the slip toward the flame. The surviving strokes match a narrow, deliberate hand in the ledger’s altered entries, while a faint blue fiber clings to the wet ink.
Tamsin Rook
That hand belongs to the passenger who carried Hale’s writ. He wrote the destination while I was counting the fares.
Bren
Then the Gray Glove did not merely follow Pellis. They changed the record to send anyone searching toward the kilns, where the veiled woman was waiting.