Brother Halev's handwriting had changed.
The first pages had been neat, temple‑trained script: columned names, careful dates, the tidy guilt of a man still pretending he was doing accounts. Now, halfway through the stack on Soren's desk, the letters slanted more, ink darker in places where the quill had pressed too hard.
"He is tired," Ecclesias said quietly, skimming a line over Soren's shoulder. "Or angry."
"Both," Soren said. "Possibly at himself. Possibly at us."
The latest sheet listed factors and merchants: no empire crests, no foreign titles, just local names that suddenly felt heavier.
Marven Tole – grain broker.
Hessa Durn – river storage.
Two entries were underlined twice.
Laneth & Sons – coastal freight.
Hal Vire – Blue Rope tavern, back room.
"Hal Vire," Soren said. "The man who watches men with rings walk through his door and pretends not to see them."
"And takes a fee for pretending," Arven said from the window. "We have had our eyes on him before. Smuggling. Cards. Nothing that would have justified more than a fine."
"It just did," Rian said.
Soren set the page down.
"Vharian's ship will not stay forever," he said. "If they have been using Laneth's boats and Hal's back room as parts of their spine, they will either tighten around those segments or cut them loose."
Ecclesias leaned against the desk.
"Hal is small enough for them to sacrifice if he looks inconvenient," he said. "Laneth less so. Goods moving along the coast can be explained many ways."
"Unless we catch him with the wrong crate at the wrong moment," Arven said. "Preferably in a place with witnesses."
Soren rubbed his thumb against the side of the table, feeling the groove worn by years of other hands.
"How many people can we afford to arrest before the city decides we are dismantling it one neighbour at a time?" he asked.
"As many as we need to before Vharian decides to stop being subtle," Arven replied.
"It is not just numbers," Ecclesias said. "It is pattern. If the only people we pull out of their homes are priests and dockworkers, the factors will happily let us bleed the lower wards white while they pour more coin on the fire."
Soren picked up the page again, eyes snagging on another name.
Daril Vess – cartage contracts, temple routes.
"Start here," he said, tapping it. "If Halev is telling the truth, Daril's carts touched more than one temple. Find him. Watch who he visits before he hears we have his name."
Rian nodded once.
"And Halev?" Ecclesias asked.
Soren looked at the uneven ink.
"We keep reading," he said. "And then we decide whether he bends or breaks."
***
The cell smelled of old stone and cold iron.
Halev sat as he had the first time: on the bench, hands chained loosely, back a little straighter, as if writing had given him a spine he had not had before.
The pages were stacked on the floor in a neat pile near the door, where the guards could collect them without letting him within arm's reach of a lock.
"You have been busy," Soren said.
Halev's mouth lifted without humour.
"Confession is hungry work," he said. "It keeps asking for more."
Soren picked up the top sheet, flicked it gently with his fingers.
"Laneth," he said. "Hal Vire. Daril Vess. You could have written fewer names. Chosen not to remember."
"I tried," Halev said. "At first. Then I realised you would only have to dig elsewhere to find them. If I am going to burn, I would rather light a useful fire."
"That is almost noble," Ecclesias said from the doorway.
Halev shot him a look.
"Do not make me into a repentant saint," he said. "I am tired. That is all."
Soren stepped closer to the bars.
"Do you know about the Vharian ship in our harbour?" he asked.
Halev's brows drew together.
"I heard a guard mention a new flag," he said. "I assumed it was another excuse for you all to argue about tax."
"It is more than that," Soren said. "They sent an envoy. He offered me… options."
"To leave," Halev said. It was not a question.
"Yes," Soren said. "To ease everyone's tension. To move the problem onto their nicely tarred deck."
Halev laughed once, harsh.
"And you told him no," he said.
"Yes," Soren said again.
"You are a fool," Halev said.
"I have that on good authority," Soren replied.
Halev's gaze dropped briefly to the pages.
"If you go," he said, "things here might quiet. For a while."
"Until the next excuse," Soren said. "Until they decide they want something else we have. Until they decide someone else's birth is a useful story."
Halev's shoulders slumped.
"You think writing these names will make them let go," he said.
"No," Soren said. "I think writing these names will make it harder for them to pretend they are not holding on."
He rested his hand lightly on the bars.
"You asked me, last time, if any of this changed anything," he said. "This is what it changes: when we move against Laneth, against Hal Vire, against Daril, we will be able to say why. Not just 'because the palace says so', but 'because the man you trusted to bless your dead wrote down how he helped others plan their deaths'."
Halev winced.
"You do not have to twist it so neatly," he said.
"You twisted it first," Soren said, not unkindly.
He glanced at the pile.
"Is that all of it?" he asked. "Everyone you remember?"
Halev hesitated.
"No," he said. "There is one more. But I do not know if the name belongs where you think it does."
Soren's stomach tightened.
"Who?" he asked.
Halev's gaze met his.
"A scribe," he said. "From the palace. Not one of yours. One of theirs."
Soren went very still.
"Explain," he said.
"He came to the temple twice," Halev said slowly. "Always at dusk. Said he was there to check donation records. To ensure the crown's share was being recorded properly. He asked questions about which priests handled which funds. At the time, I thought it was merely another layer of your queen's suspicion."
"It was not ordered by the queen," Ecclesias said quietly.
"No," Soren said.
His heart was beating too fast now, a dull drum against his ribs.
"What did this scribe look like?" he asked.
Halev frowned in concentration.
"Mid‑age," he said. "Not young, not old. Dark hair going thin at the temples. Ink on his cuffs. A habit of rubbing his thumb against the side of his nose when he thought."
"It could be half the scribes in the lower city," Arven said later, when Soren relayed it. "We have an entire breed of men designed to look like that."
"Not all of them visit temples on invented errands," Soren said.
He looked at Rian.
"Can you trace who has been sent to Saint Tilas in the last year?" he asked. "From our own records. Anyone who had a legitimate reason to be there."
Rian nodded once.
"And if no one matches?" Ecclesias asked.
"Then we have a Vharian pen already inside our walls," Soren said.
***
By the time the sun slid toward the rooftops, Rian had three names.
"They are the only palace scribes who had official assignments touching temple ledgers in the last year," he said, laying out the files on the table. "One for a general audit. One for a specific dispute about inheritance. One for a census of charitable distributions."
Soren skimmed the brief descriptions.
Marel Dahn – temple audits.
Jeren Foss – inheritance review.
Salik Een – distributions census.
"Marel is forty and blond," Rian said. "Too tall. Jeren is thirty, and has not been near Saint Tilas in three years. Salik…"
He tapped the third sheet.
"Salik is forty‑five," Rian said. "Dark hair. Receding. Habit of rubbing his nose when he thinks. According to this, he never left the palace for any temple assignment."
"According to our records," Ecclesias said.
Soren felt that dull drumbeat again.
"Where is Salik now?" he asked.
Rian's jaw tightened.
"In the east archive," he said. "Same corridor where the first stone came through the window."
For a moment, the room felt too small.
"Bring him," Soren said. "Quietly. No spectacle. We ask first."
"And if he runs?" Arven asked.
"Then we know we did not imagine the snake under our own door," Soren said.
***
Salik did not run.
He came to the small chamber off the archive looking harried and mildly annoyed, a man pulled away from work he considered more important than whatever new crisis the royal household had dreamed up.
He bowed, eyes flicking from the queen to Ecclesias to Soren, lingering an extra heartbeat on the ring.
"Your Majesties," he said. "My lord. I was told you required clarification on some figures."
"We do," the queen said. "But not the kind written in your ledgers."
Salik's brows creased.
"I do not understand," he said.
Soren studied him.
The man's hair was indeed dark, thinner at the temples. Ink stained his cuffs. When he shifted his weight, his thumb brushed the side of his nose.
"Brother Halev says someone from the palace came to Saint Tilas," Soren said. "A scribe. Twice. Asking questions about donations."
Salik's throat bobbed.
"I handle many accounts," he said. "If I went there, it would have been in the course of my duties."
"Our records show no such assignment," Rian said.
"Then your records are incomplete," Salik snapped, irritation flashing through his composure.
"Or someone else's are," Arven said.
Soren leaned forward.
"Who asked you to go?" he asked. "Which seal did you see?"
Salik hesitated.
"It came through the usual channels," he said. "A request for review. Stamped. Signed."
"By whom?" Ecclesias asked.
"A minister," Salik said. "Of trade. Or of faith. They blur together after a while."
He was lying.
Not badly he had the practiced vagueness of a man used to being beneath notice but enough that Soren could taste it.
"Look at me," Soren said.
Salik's eyes flicked up.
"Did you ever take instructions from anyone not on our rolls?" Soren asked. "Couriers who did not wear our livery? Letters with seals you did not recognise?"
"I receive many letters," Salik said. "I do not study the wax."
"You study everything," Arven said. "You once sent back a decree because someone had miscopied a decimal."
Salik's jaw clenched. His thumb rubbed his nose again.
"If you are accusing me of treason," he said, "be direct."
"Very well," Soren said. "Did Vharian pay you to look at our temples?"
The silence landed heavily.
Salik's gaze flicked to the queen, then to the door, calculating.
"No," he said.
"Then who did?" Ecclesias asked.
"I have served this crown for fifteen years," Salik said. "Through three winters of famine, two outbreaks of fever, and the last king's insistence on counting his horses personally every month. If you choose to doubt me now because a frightened priest misremembered a visit, that is your choice."
He spoke like a man offended, not afraid. It might even have been partly true.
Soren exhaled slowly.
"We will check your letters," he said. "Every assignment. Every seal. If you are telling the truth, the paper will prove it. If you are not—"
"If I am not," Salik cut in, "you will do what you have already decided you will do. Put me in a cell. Add my name to your list."
His gaze flicked again to the ring.
"I have seen that list," he said. "Not the paper. The consequences. The way you look at people when you decide they are part of someone else's game."
"You are not answering the question," Rian said flatly.
Salik's shoulders slumped, just a fraction.
"I answer to the crown," he said. "I have always answered to the crown."
"The question," Soren repeated, "was whether you ever answered to anyone else."
Salik's mouth thinned.
"I answered to hunger," he said finally. "To the knowledge that if this city falls, my children fall with it. When someone offered me coin to ensure that certain donations were… not overcounted, I accepted. It was still our money, I told myself. Just moving along a different path."
"Whose coin?" Arven asked.
"I do not know," Salik said. "The factors do not sign their purses."
"But they sign their letters," Ecclesias said. "Names, Salik."
"If I give them to you," Salik said, "what happens to me?"
"That depends on how many people you are willing to admit you helped," Soren said.
Salik laughed without humour.
"Then I suppose we will both find out," he said.
***
Later, back in the study, Soren added Salik's name to the list.
Not under priests or dockworkers, but in a new, uncomfortable space between.
Ecclesias watched the ink sink into the page.
"This is what informant networks look like from the other side," he said. "Lines crossing in directions no one wants to admit. Everyone telling themselves they were protecting something more important while they moved the rot."
Soren's hand tightened around the quill.
"We are using informants too," he said. "Dorven. Halev. We are asking them to risk their lives so we can see more of the board."
"Yes," Ecclesias said. "The difference is that you are not pretending there is no cost."
Soren looked at Salik's name.
"If I start pretending that," he said quietly, "you will tell me."
"I will do more than tell you," Ecclesias replied. "I will throw a stone at your window."
Soren huffed.
"Leave the glass alone," he said. "We are going to need it."