Chapter 161: The Missing Copper Page

"The thief did not break the lock. That is the part I hate."

Garron said it in the forge with the cabinet open, one drawer pulled out, and the empty space where the copper page should have been catching firelight like an accusation. Lina stood three paces away because Tamsin had put her there. Tamsin stood between Lina and the cabinet with one hand raised, not touching Lina, not touching the drawer, simply making herself the first thing Lina would have to pass if panic tried to become movement.

The forge smelled of ash, cold iron, morning rain, and old wax. It was too early for work, too late for the comfort of night. The anvil was bare except for Garron's hammer, the witness slate, and a heel of bread Old Pero had pushed into Lina's hand when she tried to leave the inn without eating. She had taken one bite. It sat in her stomach like a scold.

Mila, Garron's adult apprentice, stood by the door with both hands open and dirty nails visible. She was twenty-three, broad-shouldered, red-haired, and furious in the very specific way of a worker whose workplace had been insulted while she slept.

"I was in the loft," Mila said. "I woke when the rain changed, not when anyone entered. I would have heard the front bar. I did not hear the front bar."

Garron nodded once. "Not blaming. Reporting."

"I know the difference, master. I still hate the shape."

Lina knew the shape too. The cabinet had three locks: forge iron, temple cord, household wax. None were broken. The forge lock had been opened with a key or a competent copy. The temple cord had been loosened and tied again badly enough that Isolde had seen it from the doorway and gone very quiet. The plain household wax was still on the latch, but Tamsin had already found the second mark pressed beside her own thumbprint.

Not royal wax and not Rose wax. Market honey wax, softened and mixed with ash to look plain.

"Report your body," Tamsin said.

Lina swallowed, the answer catching halfway down. "Fear is strong, and shame is strong. Arousal mild from fear and from wanting to solve the cabinet. No desire to touch the drawer. Desire to look useful before anyone decides I caused this."

"No one here has decided that," Garron said.

Mila snorted. "If anyone does, I will hand them a cold chisel and invite them to explain keys to me."

Tamsin kept her eyes on Lina. "Useful answer. Stay there."

The missing page was not the full Threshold recipe. That should have comforted Lina more than it did. It was Garron's copper page: the forge condition card, etched thin so damp would not ruin it. It held no amounts. It held no sequence. It held the rules for mountain response near sealed glass, the shape of the hinge breath, and the warning that Stone stability could look like courage while making refusal smaller.

In the wrong hands, incomplete knowledge was not harmless. It was ambitious.

Vex arrived with her hair unbound and her coat over a night shift, which meant Sama had sent for her before dawn and Vex had not wasted time becoming presentable. Thessia followed with a ledger under one arm and a scarf tied badly at her throat. Isolde came last, carrying the loosened temple cord inside a folded cloth.

"Do not let me romanticize this," Orin said from the yard, where Tamsin had ordered him to wait until someone checked his hands. "I am prepared to be useful, but the criminal drama is already trying to improve my posture."

"Stay in the yard," Tamsin called.

"Under supervision?"

"Under weather."

"Harsh but fair."

Thessia set her ledger on the anvil. "List the people who had lawful access to the forge cabinet."

Garron answered without looking away from the drawer. "Me. Lina under witness. Tamsin. Isolde for temple cord. Vex did not have key, only witness rights. Thessia did not have key. Mila has outer forge key, not cabinet. Old Pero has no key and too much opinion. Orin has no key and too much curiosity."

"Sama?" Lina asked.

Vex looked toward the yard. Sama had not come. That was information by itself.

Tamsin said, "Sama had knowledge of the lock structure, not a key. Unless she is lying, which is always possible in the general sense and not useful in this minute."

Isolde unfolded the cloth. "The temple cord was retied by someone who knew the knot from seeing it, not from doing it. The loop sits wrong. It would hold if you did not know to pull the inner thread."

"So a watcher," Thessia said.

"Or someone taught from a description."

Lina's stomach tightened. "Perric's people saw the forge during festival repairs. Soval came near the yard. Halven Rook had palace inventory access. Caldus has watched locks. Seraphine saw the cradle."

"Seraphine did not need to steal one copper page badly," Vex said. "If she moved, she would make the door thank her first."

"Then Perric."

"Likely, not proven," Thessia said. "Do not spend proof before we earn it."

Tamsin finally stepped aside enough for Lina to see the drawer fully. "Come here. Slowly. Hands behind your back."

Lina obeyed. The order sent heat through her that had no right to exist in a room with theft. It was not the false pull of the bottle. It was Tamsin's voice, sharp and close, knowing exactly how much command Lina could use without losing herself. Lina named it because unrecorded arousal became leverage.

"Arousal is moderate from Tamsin giving practical orders. Consent present. No relation to missing page."

Mila coughed into one fist and looked at the ceiling.

Vex said, "Good distinction. Let the room hear it. Desire during danger is not proof of wanting the danger."

Tamsin's face softened for half a breath. "Hands stay back."

The drawer had not been searched roughly. That was worse than chaos. The thief had lifted only one copper sheet from a stack and left two decoy scraps in place. Lina read the top decoy through the open drawer:

Pressure steadies wanting only when refusal remains louder than endurance.

The missing page came after that line.

"They took the page after the warning," Lina said. "They saw the sentence and wanted the part that looked useful anyway."

Garron's voice was flat. "Then they will try to make endurance without refusal."

No one answered. The forge felt too small.

Thessia wrote three headings in her ledger: lawful access, observed access, copied access. "We need not know who stole it before we warn what they can do with it. Missing page permits a false claim: mountain-stable heat. Market language will become safer, steadier, braver. They will sell courage to people who want permission."

"And they will use the queen's shadow," Vex said. "Perric likes looking inevitable."

Lina's wrist, where Seraphine's mark had faded, prickled under the cloth wrap.

Tamsin saw her flinch. "Name."

"Wrist memory. Royal pressure remembered. No current touch."

"Ordinary thing; hold that."

Lina looked at the anvil. "Hammer. Scratched handle. Garron has repaired the same split twice instead of replacing it."

Garron picked up the hammer. "Still works."

"So do you," Tamsin said to Lina, and then seemed to regret the tenderness because it almost broke Lina open.

Isolde rang her bell once, not alarm, but beginning. "Public warning now. The missing page does not wait for proof. We say what cannot be trusted."

Mila opened the door wider. "I can run to the north market."

"No," Tamsin said.

Mila stiffened.

"You stay with your master and account for the forge. Runners who know too much become story pieces. Old Pero's soup boys run with sealed notices because nobody expects them to explain anything."

Garron looked at Tamsin. "You are taking command."

"Someone has to while Lina tries to become twelve useful people and one guilty furnace."

Lina wanted to object. She could not, because that was exactly what she had been doing inside her skin.

Vex took the blank notice sheet. "Say the public face."

Lina closed her eyes and spoke as if the whole market were already listening.

"A copper forge page has been stolen. Any brew claiming mountain-stable courage, royal readiness, safe endurance, or Threshold access is counterfeit. Safe public brew remains Hearthwater only. If heat makes refusal smaller, it is harm. If a seller says urgency replaces witnesses, walk away and send for the inn, temple, forge, Rose, or market office."

Thessia wrote fast. "Again, shorter for walls."

"No courage brew, no stable heat, and no royal readiness. Hearthwater only. Refusal must get louder, not smaller."

"That is the version we keep."

From the yard, Orin said, "I hate how good the thief's slogans will be."

"Then write better warnings under supervision," Tamsin said.

"That may be the finest invitation I have ever received."

Lina reached for the bread in her hand and forced herself to eat the second bite. Dry. Dense. Real.

Then the market bell rang three times. Not temple and not forge.

Thessia's face changed.

"False sale warning," she said. "Someone is already selling."

Tamsin turned toward the street. "Lina, you walk beside me, not ahead."

Lina looked at the empty drawer one last time.

The missing page had already become a crowd.