Turn 4 of 7

Go to Rell's Provisions, two floors down, and ask about the dead drop

You lock the token in your floor safe, behind the iron plate that requires both a key and a specific sequence of tumbler turns. It's not enough — nothing is enough for an unmarked oath — but it buys you a moment of privacy. You pocket the key, check that the ledger is closed, and take the stairwell down. The Canyon Span's interior is a vertical maze of wooden walkways and rented rooms, each floor smelling slightly different than the last: ink and paper up top, spices and dry goods in the middle, fish and rope at the canal level. Rell's Provisions sits at the ground floor, its front counter facing the main thoroughfare, its back storage room pressed against the canyon wall.

The shop is narrow and deep, shelves stacked with the kind of supplies that brokers and clerks need: ledger paper, sealing wax, brass weights, ink in clay pots. Rell is behind the counter, sorting a delivery of candle stubs into bins. She is a compact woman in her fifties, grey-haired, with hands that move with the efficiency of someone who has done this work for decades. She looks up when you enter, and her expression shifts — a flicker of something that might be concern, quickly smoothed into professional neutrality.

"Broker," she says. "Early today."

"Rell." You stop at the counter and set your hands flat on the wood, the way you do when you're conducting escrow business. It signals that this is formal.

"My morning satchel. The one you passed up today. I need to know everything about how it arrived."

Rell's hands stop moving over the candle stubs. She holds one between her thumb and forefinger, not placing it, not setting it down. Her gaze drops to the counter surface, then back up to yours, and you watch her weigh something — the same calculation you've seen a thousand times in escrow negotiations, the balance between what's owed and what's safe to say.

"It came through the back," she says. "She sets the candle stub down and wipes her hands on her apron. "I didn't see anyone. I heard the bell on the canal door ring at fourth bell, same as every morning. Went to check, and the bag was there. But the usual slip — the one your runner signs when he picks up — wasn't yours. Different handwriting, different mark."

You lean forward. "What mark?"

Rell reaches under the counter and produces a scrap of paper — cheap stock, canal-grade, the kind that falls apart in damp. She holds it out to you between two fingers, and you see it immediately: a mark drawn in dark ink, a stylized bird with a broken wing. You don't recognize it. But someone would.

"Ferris Oleander's messenger came by an hour later asking about the same thing," Rell says. "I told him I'd already passed the satchel up to you. He didn't like that answer much."

You study the drop slip. The mark is deliberate, practiced — not a doodle but a signature, and the fact that it isn't yours means someone knew where your drop was and used it. The handwriting on the address line is steady, no tremor, no haste. Whoever did this had time and calm and a reason to send you an unmarked token through a channel they knew you trusted.

"Rell," you say. "Has anyone else asked about the morning satchel? Anyone at all?"

She hesitates. The hesitation lasts half a breath, but you've built a career on reading smaller gaps than that.

"The Warden-Advocate's office sent a runner," she says. "Twenty minutes ago. Asking if I'd handled any irregular deliveries."

The canal door bell chimes behind you, and Rell's eyes flick past your shoulder. You turn, and a figure stands in the doorway — tall, narrow-shouldered, wearing the dark grey coat of the Warden-Advocate's office. The light from the canal behind them turns their face into a silhouette, but you can see the silver badge at their collar. Rell's hand has found the edge of the counter and is gripping it.

"Rell of Rell's Provisions?" the figure says. Their voice is measured, careful, the tone of someone who knows that every word they speak is being recorded by the person hearing it. The badge at their collar reads Warden-Advocate Sull.

"Actually," Sull says, looking at you, "I think you're exactly who I'm looking for."