Morning arrived like a careful argument—gray first, then a negotiation toward gold. By ten o'clock the rain had settled into damp brightness, the kind that makes brick remember it was once mud. Leona stood on the curb across from the coordinates in the sketch: a row of narrow shopfronts along the old riverside belt, most with shutters half-up like eyelids. Above them, faded ads for brands long dead clung to the brick.
The sign over the correct door was modest to invisibility:
M. Iskandar & Daughters — Paper • Binding • LedgersEst. 1954
Kemi adjusted her umbrella and peered at the display. "Could they scream secret society any louder without actually screaming?"
Caleb checked the street, not paranoid—composed. "They chose an ordinary mask. People walk past ledgers every day."
Leona's tote felt heavier than paper should. Inside, the portfolio labeled LV-001 waited like a pulse. The rules had been simple: present one work in daylight to the person who keeps the first ledger. No filming. No speaking the painter's name. If she broke either, the ledger would close.
"Ready?" she asked, hearing the steadiness in her own voice with quiet gratitude.
"Define ready," Kemi said. "But yes."
They crossed. A brass bell tinkled as Leona pushed the door. The shop smelled of glue that remembered childhood, linen rag, cotton fibre, tea, and dust warmed by light. Shelves climbed the walls—blank books in cloth and leather, spines stamped with dates and empty months. Marbled papers curled like storm maps in the rack by the counter.
A girl of about twelve looked up from behind a stack of receipts on a high stool, scarf tied with more competence than ceremony, pencil like a conductor's baton.
"Good morning," she said brightly. "Lined, dot-grid, or moral accounting?"
Kemi choked. "Sorry?"
The girl grinned. "Joke. Moral accounting's out of stock. Grandfather! Customers!"
A bead curtain whisked. A man in his seventies emerged—slim, straight-backed, the kind of presence that makes rooms choose tidy. His suit was old and immaculate, his hands inked in tender crescents. His eyes were not the color of any river Leona knew; they were the color of paper that had waited a long time and was still willing.
"Welcome," he said. "I'm Mahmoud Iskandar. How can we keep your days?"
Leona set the tote gently on the glass counter. "By witnessing one of them."
He studied tote, faces, silence. Then: "I see." He flipped the sign to CLOSED, drew the shade halfway. "No filming," he added mildly, and Kemi's phone retreated.
Mahmoud smiled with tactical kindness. "Allowance for a single note afterward if it helps your friend sleep."
Kemi liked him immediately. "Can I adopt you as a grandfather?"
"Standing application," he said.
He led them through the curtain to a workroom clean as a sentence: long table, presses, guillotine cutter. In the corner, a cabinet of labeled drawers—FIRST LEDGER, SECOND, THIRD …
"The first ledger keeps the first promises," Mahmoud said. "The ones made when keeping them was expensive." He looked to Leona. "What do you bring to its doorstep?"
She unwrapped the vellum. The charcoal study lay on the table—the woman's profile, attention tilted toward an unseen frame, faint coordinates in the margin. The air changed; even Aya, the girl, paused mid-step as if hearing a note outside ordinary hearing.
Mahmoud didn't reach; he beheld. "Yes," he said softly. "We have been expecting this hand."
"Not mine," Leona said. "Expected."
"The hand and the house are not the same." He opened the first drawer and drew out a linen-bound book, spine stitched true. On a marked page, neat columns waited: Date, Custodian, Witness, Work Presented, Conditions, Counter-Signature.
"Your name fills the Custodian field," he said, "if you accept the weight."
Leona breathed. "Custodian: Leona Vale."
He wrote it, calm. "Work Presented?"
"LV-001, charcoal study for After Loss."
He signed his own name under Witness and passed the nib to Caleb.
Caleb wrote Caleb Ardent—t-bars straight as rails—and below it in small script: no claim to custody.
Kemi leaned over. "Where's my line? I bring chaos and biscuits."
"You bring courage," Mahmoud said. "Sign as Witness, Second."
She did.
"Conditions," he said.
Leona named three:
No reproduction until the ledger permits.
No claim of authorship assigned to a living person without consent.
The ledger remains open to any who can hear doors breathe—regardless of pedigree.
Mahmoud smiled faintly. "An inclusive ledger. Good. We will need more tables."
He sealed the page with a round stamp: a river line, a leaf, a flame.
From a back pocket he drew an envelope addressed in handwriting Leona's bones knew before her eyes did:
For L. Vale, when ink chooses her — F.
Inside:
Leona — If the ledger opens to you, you chose witness over applause. Good.The next work is where the river keeps its own archive. Take LV-004.Bring no camera. Bring someone who will tell you when to stop and drink water.Take the train.P.S. The painter's name is not a word. It is an agreement. — F.
A small map showed a bend in the river and an old pump house like a stubborn tooth at the bank.
Kemi frowned. "I vote against haunted pump houses."
Mahmoud drew LV-004 from a labeled drawer and unwrapped a watercolor of that bend—fog, reeds, a dark square of building. Seconds marked 10:17 to 10:20:13.
"You'll need this," he said, producing a narrow wooden shadow clock. "It tells you when light is telling the truth."
He blessed the portfolio and pressed it into Leona's hands.
"Before you go," he said, "one more entry." He offered a slim ivory strip etched with tiny marks. "If anyone asks you to trade memory for spectacle, measure their request against it. If the lines don't sing—even a little—walk away."
Outside, a car idled.
"Someone's watching," he said quietly.
Caleb: "We'll leave by the lane."
Mahmoud gave them water; Aya added biscuits "for courage." At the door he told Leona, "You chose witness over applause. Don't let applause disguise itself."
They slipped out into sun. At the lane's end a black sedan rolled past too slow to be casual. Kemi watched it chew the corner. Leona traced the timings on the watercolor and said, "Not hunted—summoned."
Caleb started the engine. "Then let's be on time."