Turn 4 of 7

Open the door and hear him out

You turn the bolt and pull the door inward. The alley air comes in cool and damp, carrying the mineral smell of the canal and something sharper beneath it — tannery acid from the vats two streets over. Ferris Oleander stands in the frame the way he stands in every doorway: shoulders squared, hands visible, weight balanced as though he might need to leave in a hurry. He is dressed better than usual. A coat with silver buttons, the kind you wear to the Wardens' Hall or a funeral. His face is narrow, guarded, and his eyes go past you immediately, sweeping the office — the desk, the vault, the closed shutters — before they come back to yours.

"Good morning," he says, and steps inside without waiting for an invitation. You close the door behind him and turn the bolt. The room is small enough that the two of you standing in it makes it feel like a negotiation already. He does not sit. He sets his gloves on the edge of your desk, a precise gesture that puts something of his in your space without asking permission, and then he faces you.

"I am not here to threaten you," he says. "I am here because if the Wardens find that token before you understand what it is, your record breaks and my trade suffers. Every broker in Threefall takes a cut when one of us falls. You know that. I know that. So this is not charity. It is risk management."

He meets your eyes and holds them. His hands are still, resting on the back of the chair he has not been offered.

"Someone swore an oath and hid it in your vault because you are the one broker who cannot refuse to hold it without raising questions. Eleven thousand tokens, not one lost — that reputation is not just yours. It is a load-bearing wall, and if it cracks, the floor comes down for all of us. I need that wall standing. So I need to know what you are going to do with it."

Della is silent behind the shutters. You can hear her pen has stopped — no scratching, no turning of pages. She is listening. Ferris's gaze flickers toward the counter window and then back to you, and the corner of his mouth tightens. He had not counted on a witness. That much is plain. He lowers his voice a half-step, enough to stay private in the room but not enough to carry through the shutter slats.

"I can help you find who swore it," he says. "My contact in the records room can pull the last thirty days of oath-filings and cross-reference against anyone who came to your office or mine. But I need something from you. I need you to tell me what the token feels like — the weight, the colour, the warmth. My contact says unmarked tokens carry a signature. If this one has one, it narrows the search. If it does not, then someone went to extraordinary lengths, and we have a different problem entirely."

The light through the slats has moved another inch. It is nearly eight. The first client of the day will arrive within the hour, and Ferris is standing in your office asking you to open the vault and describe the one thing you should not be describing to anyone. But his reasoning holds. If the Wardens find it first, the conversation stops being a negotiation and starts being an inquiry. And Warden-Advocate Sull does not negotiate.

"That is a great deal of certainty about a token you claim you have never seen," you say. Ferris smiles. It does not reach his eyes.

"I never said I had not seen one before. I said I had not seen yours."