The Empty Shelf

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The restoration room smelled of paste and warm clay.

Its keeper had received no dispatch box. He insisted on showing them the day's intake board, although Amara had not accused him of anything.

“People say things went for restoration when they mean they don't want them found,” he said. Then he noticed who stood before him and went pale.

“Continue,” Amara told him.

He pointed to the receipt Lio carried. The notation resembled his, but the delivery seal belonged to the stewardship office. A red cord had been threaded through its corner. Anyone carrying it would have been admitted without further questions.

Rian leaned over the intake board. “Who usually transports records?”

“Porters. Whoever is available.”

“Names?”

The keeper shook his head. “We record what arrives, not who carries it.”

Lio wrote that down.

They found the morning porter eating beside the laundry court. She remembered a heavy box and a change of destination. A steward had met her on the steps and directed her to the east store instead.

“Did he give his name?” Amara asked.

“He gave your authority.”

The answer followed her across the courtyard.

At the east store, Captain Tovan prevented them from entering.

The order restricting access had come through normal channels, he said. He could not simply set it aside because a foreign envoy asked him to.

“The queen is asking,” Amara said.

“And the council has countersigned the restriction.”

For an instant, she wanted to order him away. Tovan saw it. So did Rian.

She thought of the merchant whose family could not eat a promise. The palace had too many ways to make a simple question wait.

“Then summon Councilor Nima,” she said. “We will ask her what she believes she has protected.”

They waited in the heat. Suri brought water from the kitchens and did not pretend she had come by chance.

Nima arrived angry at the interruption. She became quieter when Lio read the restoration keeper's statement aloud.

“I signed an inventory safeguard,” she said. “Not permission to conceal records.”

Tovan examined her countersignature and opened the door.

The dispatch box sat beneath a stack of unused mats. Its lid was unfastened. Inside, twelve labeled slots remained full.

The thirteenth was empty.

On the lid, pressed into a streak of damp clay, was the print of a bent reed.