The thick parchment folio beneath Tomas’s hands bore a heavy wax disc the size of a plum, impressed with the royal three-tower crest and the private serpent-seal of the Lantern Company.
The wax had grown brittle in the underground cold, crazed with a fine web of hairline cracks like the glaze of antique pottery. But the deep, sharp stamp of the seal-die was unbroken. It had never been slit by an intake knife. It had never been stamped with the reception mark of the High Council’s High court.
Tomas knelt on the dry gravel of the willow knoll. His fingers shook slightly as he held the bone folder flat against the parchment fold. Beside him, Nessa leaned close with her sound horn. Meanwhile, Pip held a tin lantern steady against the rising marsh draft.
“This is the master dispatch,” Tomas said. His voice dropped into that quiet, solemn register he used only before an unsealed contract. “Not a draft. Not a diary note. This is the official sealed return demanded by Section 10 of the Emergency Charter.”
He slit the wax seal with his cart driver’s skinning knife, the dried wax parting with a crisp, pine-scented snap.
He unfolded the heavy sheet of royal rag paper.
