Rain follows Mara beyond the House of Quiet Tides, blurring the blue lamps behind her. Orra and the river custodian remain inside with the sealed deposit and its warning.
A mud-streaked courier approaches from the coastal road, a young woman in a soaked brown cloak, narrow-built and sharp-faced, with copper hair braided beneath a dripping hood.
the mud-streaked courier
Mara? I was told to find the mage who refused the custody clause. This belongs in your hands, if you choose to read it.
She offers a waxed fragment between two gloved fingers. The paper bears a copied registry entry, its ink threaded with the same boundary scholar’s method-mark.
the mud-streaked courier
The mark names where the alteration was made: the Drowned Ledgerhouse, beneath the old salt granary on the western quay.
The fragment remains offered but unclaimed. Rain beads on its wax, while the method-mark gives one faint pulse toward the harbor and then falls still.
the mud-streaked courier
No summons came with it. Only the place, and a warning that someone there is still teaching records to speak with borrowed authority.
Reach the Drowned Ledgerhouse
Prevent the copied registry entry from imposing authority over Mara