Turn 3 of 7

Call through the door and demand to know what he thinks he knows

You plant your feet and raise your voice to carry through the wood without shouting. A broker does not shout. A broker speaks at the volume that demands attention and invites nothing more.

"You know what I do with threats, Ferris. I log them. So tell me what you think you know, and I will decide whether it's worth opening this door."

There is a pause on the other side. Not the pause of a man caught off guard, but the pause of a man deciding how much to spend. You know that pause. You have used it yourself, across the counter, when a client is desperate and does not yet know how desperate you can afford to let them become. The alley is silent around him — no breeze, no cart traffic, no footstep. He chose this hour deliberately. The canyon wind does not start until midmorning, and the alley behind your office sees no traffic until the tanners open their vats at ten.

"I know it is unmarked," Ferris says. His voice is measured, almost gentle, which means he is enjoying this.

"I know it is heavier than it should be. I know it arrived in a satchel that should have carried ten tokens from the Greencross courier, and that the courier does not remember adding an eleventh. I know you have not logged it, because I have someone in the Wardens' records room who tells me when your daily filings come in, and today's filing was nine. You always file ten. Sometimes twelve. Never nine."

You let that settle. He has someone in the records room — that is useful to know and more useful to keep him believing you have not already noted. The courier detail is the problem. If the Greencross courier genuinely does not remember adding the token, then someone placed it in the satchel between the courier's pickup and your doorstep. That narrows the window to the twenty minutes between the Greencross depot and your office, a route that passes through the Narrows, under the canal bridge, and up the Backstep. A dozen people could have intercepted it. A dozen people could have put the token in your bag and arranged for it to arrive in the one brokerage in Threefall that has never lost an oath.

"That is what you know," you say. "That is not what it is."

"No," Ferris agrees, and you hear him lean against the door — the wood creaks at shoulder height, and his weight shifts as though he has crossed his arms. "What it is, I can guess. And what I can guess, the Wardens can subpoena. So open the door, and we can discuss what guessing is worth these days. The market rate has changed since the last time you and I did business."