Archivist Vel didn’t look toward the cedar pigeonholes along the eastern wall. Instead, his watery grey eyes turned toward the bolted wooden service wicket at the front of the vault. The outer clerk’s window where clerk hall claims were passed through from the armory cellar.
“You told us when we walked in that Senior Steward Osen Tal came to your outer wicket three evenings ago,” Seyun said quietly, reading the old man’s terror before Vel spoke a word. “What did he demand under Secretariat Seal Four, Master Vel?”
“I didn’t know what was inside the lead tube, young master—I swear it by the third Hall Master’s bones!” Vel whispered, his crooked knuckles pressing hard against his breastbone as he limped to the small wicket ledger chained beside the outer window. “The original First Judge Council transfer order from the winter of the siege was never copied into the furniture folios because it was written on heavy Court-issue oiled sheepskin with seven Jade thumb-seals and a survey map of the Hollow Summit rock-chimney pipes. Two hundred years ago, it was sealed inside a soldered lead metal tube labeled Condemned North-Road Boundary Survey — Parcel Zero and filed in the outer boundary rack near the wicket.”
