Lina came to his room before dawn.

  He heard her footsteps in the corridor—light, deliberate, the walk of someone who didn't want to be heard but needed to move faster than silence allowed. He was already awake. Had been awake since the last star faded, lying on the floor with his back against the wall and the fragment resting in his palm.

  The knock came. Soft. Three beats.

  He opened the door.

  Lina stood in the darkness of the corridor, a rolled bundle under her arm. Her face was still in the way faces were still when they were carrying something that mattered.

  "You need to see this."

  She came in without waiting for an answer. Unrolled the bundle on his floor—papers, official-looking, stamped with seals he recognized from Chen Ling's quarters.

  "Where did you get these?"

  "Wei's office. He has a locked cabinet. I've known where the key is since I was twelve."

  He looked at her. At the girl who had sat beside him in the courtyard and asked sharp questions and watched everything the way her mother watched everything.

  "You broke into Wei's office."

  "I borrowed these. He won't notice until morning." She pointed at the top paper. "Look at this."

  He looked.

  It was a tax document. Similar to the one Chen Ling had shown him, but different—older, with annotations in the margins that told a story. Adjustments. Corrections. A pattern of small changes over time, each one shifting the building's tax burden in ways that benefited someone.

  Wei. Not his brother. Wei himself, reaching back years, building the foundation for the current review.

  "He's been planning this longer than six months," Lina said. "The promotion gave him the opportunity, but the groundwork—" She pointed at the earliest annotation, dated three years ago. "He's been waiting. Preparing. Making sure when the time came, the records would tell the story he wanted."

  He read through the documents. The pattern was clear once you saw it—small adjustments, each one defensible alone, together creating a picture of mismanagement that could be laid at Chen Ling's feet.

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  "This is how he wins," he said. "Not with one big lie. With a thousand small truths that add up to something false."

  Lina nodded. "My mother doesn't know. She's been fighting the current review, but she doesn't know about the history. If I show her—"

  "Don't. Not yet."

  She looked at him. "Why?"

  He thought about the Trace function. About the fragment beneath his shirt. About what it might find here.

  "Because there's something I need to try first."

  ---

  He waited until Lina left.

  Then he sat on the floor with the documents spread before him. He took out the fragment—held it in one hand, reached for the system with the other.

  CONSUMPTION TRACE — ACTIVE

  Scanning for energy signatures matching fragment resonance...

  Scanning...

  Match found.

  Secondary signature detected on documents. Faint. Consistent with proximity to fragment source.

  Origin: Unknown. Signature does not match any individual in current database.

  Note: This signature is recent. Days, not months.

  He went still.

  Recent. Days, not months.

  Someone had touched these documents—or something near them—who had also been near the fragment. Recently. Within the time he had been gone.

  Which meant someone else had been in that valley. Had found the fragment before him? No—the fragment was buried, hidden. But they had been close. Close enough for the resonance to transfer.

  He looked at the documents again. At the annotations. At the name at the bottom of each page—Wei's brother, signing off on the adjustments.

  Wei's brother worked for House Jin. In the tax office.

  Wei's brother had access to records. To documents. To places where someone who had been near the fragment might have passed.

  "Lina," he said.

  She was still in the corridor, waiting. She came back to the door.

  "Your mother said Wei's brother works for House Jin. In the tax office."

  "Yes."

  "Does he travel? Leave the city?"

  She thought. "Sometimes. They send clerks to verify records in person. Properties outside the walls. Farms, villages. He's been gone a few times in the last month."

  A few times in the last month.

  Including the days A had been walking east.

  "Where does he go when he travels?"

  "I don't know. My mother might."

  He stood. Rolled the documents carefully. Handed them back to Lina.

  "Put these back. Before he notices."

  "What did you find?"

  "I don't know yet. But someone else was near where I went. Someone connected to Wei's brother. I need to understand what that means."

  Lina looked at him. Then nodded. Took the documents and slipped back into the corridor, silent as shadows.

  ---

  He sat alone in the dark.

  The fragment rested in his palm. Warm now, from his skin, from the resonance it had detected. Someone else had been near it. Someone connected to Wei's brother. Someone who had touched these documents after returning.

  Not B. He knew that now. The signature was different—fainter, less personal, the residue of proximity rather than ownership.

  But it was a thread. A connection. Something that linked the fragment to the building, to the fight, to Wei and his brother and whatever they were planning.

  He looked at the word etched into the fragment.

  Shen Wei.

  "I don't know who you are," he whispered. "But you're connected to this. Somehow. And I'm going to find out how."

  The sealed thing pressed against his chest. Steady. Patient.

  He held the fragment until dawn.

  ---

  End of Chapter 22

  ---