The paper first. Third shelf, Kelvin's stock, the same cream sheets as every other page in the settlement. She counted the ream. One short. She counted it again, because counting was what she did when she wanted a fact to be wrong. One short.
Then the ink, and here she stopped.
The inkwell on the desk was Satou's own, the squat glass pot Kelvin refilled on the first of every month. She held it to the lamp. Marked the level with a thread of chalk. Compared it with the notch Kelvin scratched into the stand at each refill.
The ink had dropped by exactly the volume eleven lines of handwriting would need.
"It used our ink," she said aloud.
"What?" said Freda, from the doorway.
"Whatever wrote this didn't bring its own. It used the pot on the desk." Senna set the inkwell down very gently. "I'd have preferred it bring its own."
"Why?"
"Because then it would be a visitor. This way it's a tenant."
——
