POV: Mara
Morning starts with steam and lists. Pia beats a pan with a spoon and shouts, “Rations!” like it’s a war cry. I tie my apron, reach for the ledger on the pantry shelf, and feel my stomach turn to water. The shelf is bare.
“No,” I say. “No, no, no.”
“What?” Pia asks, elbow-deep in flour.
“The ledger’s gone.”
Pia stops moving. Even the dog lifts his head. In Hearthworks, that book is our spine. Without it, people wait with empty bowls while we argue the alphabet.
“Maybe Silvie moved it?” Pia offers, but her eyes say she knows Silvie never moves anything without a note.
We check the usual wrong places. Under the dry goods bins. Beside the coal bucket. On the windowsill where a breeze could have flirted it away. Nothing.
Silvie comes in with a crate of onions. “What’s the matter with your faces?”
“The ledger,” I say. “It’s missing.”
Silvie sets the onions down softly. “No panic. We feed with or without paper. Pia, start porridge by heads, not names. Mara, fetch Jax.”
I run the corridor. At the corner I almost collide with Jax and bounce off his chest. He steadies me.
“Ledger?” he asks, because he always knows when something is wrong.
“Gone,” I breathe.
“Let’s find it.”
We trace my steps from last night. Kitchen. Stairs. The courtyard pump. The alcove where I sat for five minutes to rub my eyes and listen to the chimes. I hate that I sat. Rest feels like a confession when something goes missing.
Jax crouches to peer under benches. “When did you see it last?”
“After evening rations,” I say. “I wrote counts, marked shortages, slipped the ribbon through the spine, closed it, and put it on the pantry shelf. I remember because Pia stole my quill and said I hold it like a knife.”
“She wasn’t wrong,” Jax mutters. He points at a faint smear on the floor. “Wet where it shouldn’t be. Leak?”
“Roof drip over that bench,” I say. “We set a bowl.” The bowl isn’t there. The floor is damp.
Jax slides his arm under the bench. His knuckles knock wood. “Something’s wedged.” He grunts, twists, and pulls. A corner of sodden leather appears. I drop to my knees and help. We drag the ledger free, wrapped in a torn apron to hide the shine.
I cradle it. Water runs down my forearms.
Pia kneels beside us. “Is it ruined?”
“Not if we’re lucky,” I say. We carry it to the back table. Silvie brings clean cloths and a look that could sew a wound shut. We blot, no rubbing, no smearing. The room holds its breath while breakfast keeps moving.
The first pages are readable. Names, tallies, debts. The middle is worse—ink rivers, black blossoms. I blow close to the paper. The last third survives like it wanted to.
Then I see.
“Mara?” Pia says from over my shoulder.
Three names near the bottom blur more than the others. Not water—fingers. Someone pressed while the ink was soft. Two are strangers. The third is mine. Beside it, a small, deliberate mark. A question curve.
“Mara?”
The room tilts. I grip the table until it stops. Jax leans in.
“Someone asked a question about me,” I say. “With my own book.”
“Or they wanted you to feel asked,” he answers evenly. “Fear is a pen.”
I want to rip the page and burn it. I do none of that. I blot again. “If the counts are right, we can still feed everyone.”
Silvie sets a cup of tea by me. “We were always going to feed everyone,” she says. “Even if it meant guessing and then arguing about who guesses better.”
Pia taps the smudged line. “This is a message.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m not opening it.”
Jax checks the binding. “No cut pages. No extra sheets. Whoever hid it wanted to delay you, not steal it.”
“To make us stumble,” I say. “To shake trust.” I think of yesterday’s burned flower. “To tell me they can touch anything.”
“Can they?” Jax asks softly.
I lift my head. “Not if we watch together.”
We finish. We copy the worst totals onto fresh paper. Pia runs bowls out like a victorious thief, shouting names, collecting thanks, swatting greedy hands. The room brightens the way kitchens do when work wins.
After the rush, Jax nods toward the courtyard door. “Walk?”
We sit on the low wall under the chime strings. The air tastes of oats and smoke. My hands still smell like old ink.
“Tell me if you want this quiet,” he says. “Tell me if you want it loud. Either way, I’m your man.”
I think of Cael’s face when he saw my raw fingers last night. How he almost asked and almost touched and chose rule over reach. The bond hums low.
“If we tell him,” I say slowly, “he’ll turn the house upside down and frost the doors with guards. He’ll do it to keep me breathing, and half the city will choke on dust.”
“He also might catch the hand that did this,” Jax says gently.
“I know.” I pick at the ragged edge of my apron. “But I need one more day to move without a shadow on my heels. One day.”
Jax studies my face. “You’re not asking for permission. You’re asking for partnership.”
“Yes.” The word comes out small, fierce. “Stand with me, not run to him with a bell.”
He stretches his leg, winces. “I can do that. I can post plain clothes on the corners and call it a drill. I can check roof leaks and call it logistics.”
“Thank you,” I say.
He tips his head. “You know they want you rattled.”
“I am,” I admit. “But I’m steadier than my fear.”
We sit while a boy practices Glasswalk steps two courtyards over, counting under his breath. One-two. He stumbles, swears, tries again. The sound makes me smile.
“Why the question mark?” Jax asks finally.
“To make me ask it for them,” I say. “To make me feel less like a person and more like a problem.” I look at my hands. The vow-ink on my wrist glows faintly in the slant light. “I have spent a lifetime being asked if I count. I do.”
Jax’s mouth twitches. “I liked you the first day you told me to wash my hands before touching onions. I like you more now.”
“Wash your hands anyway,” I say, and he laughs.
We carry the ledger inside. Silvie takes it and tucks it into a bread bin because thieves rarely check bread. Pia draws a skull on the bin with chalk and writes DO NOT EAT ME, I AM A BOOK. The dog barks approval.
At the door, Jax catches my sleeve. His eyes are kind and sharp. “You’re sure you don’t want me to tell him?”
I inhale. The answer balances on a point inside me. “Not yet,” I say. “Please don’t tell Cael.”
Jax nods once, swearing an oath. “Then I won’t.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He taps the bell string lightly. One soft note. Not alarm. Not warning. A promise.
We go back to work.