The morning after a promise is a peculiar thing in Shyvirth. It arrives with the same damp patience as any other dawn, but it carries a new weight—an expectation that the world will answer. Whylbirt woke with that weight in his chest, the words he had spoken the night before still warm in his mouth: I will have my revenge. It was a small vow, private and dangerous, and it sat between his ribs like a coin he had not yet spent.
Mara was already awake, perched on a crate outside a tea stall, pretending to read a pamphlet about the virtues of polite theft. She looked up when he emerged from the alley and gave him a grin that suggested she had slept like a cat and dreamed of mischief.
"You look like you swallowed a ledger," she said. "Is that the new look? Very in this season."
"It's vintage," he replied. "From the fall collection."
She snorted. "Of course it is. Everything in Shyvirth is vintage if you wait long enough."
They had no Virt crest now—Whylbirt had traded it for the Archivist's knowledge, and the Archivist had not been the sort to give things back. That trade had felt like a theft in reverse: he had given away a piece of himself to buy a sliver of truth. It was a fair exchange, he told himself, and fair exchanges in Shyvirth were rare enough to be treasured.
"We need a way into the terraces," Mara said, folding the pamphlet into a neat square and tucking it into her sleeve. "Not as thieves. Not as beggars. As something more boring. Servants, perhaps. Or caterers. People who carry platters and do not ask questions."
Whylbirt considered the terraces from memory: the polished stone, the banners, the way nobles practiced their smiles until they fit like gloves. The Restoration Fair would be a theater of favors, a place where Kethran could show his acquisitions and buy loyalty with the same hand he used to sign ledgers. To get close to the ledger that had swallowed the Virts, they would have to be backstage.
"Caterers," he said. "We can be caterers."
Mara's eyebrows climbed. "You? Carrying platters? You'd drop a pie and then sue the pie for negligence."
"I have other skills," he said. "And you have contacts."
She tapped the pamphlet. "I have a cousin who knows a woman who knows a man who rents out livery. He owes me a favor for a thing I did involving a goat and a magistrate's hat. It's complicated and morally ambiguous, but it works."
They moved through the city with the kind of economy that comes from being small and careful. Mara's cousin's contact was a man named Rook, who ran a livery out of a courtyard that smelled of boiled leather and old promises. Rook was a man who measured people by the weight of their debts and the quality of their lies. He looked them over with the slow appraisal of someone who had seen too many costumes.
"You want livery?" he said, as if the question were a favor he might grant for the right price.
"We'll pay," Mara said. "In coin and in gratitude."
Rook's eyes flicked to Whylbirt. "You're not a noble," he observed.
"No," Whylbirt said. "I'm a man with a face that's good at being unnoticed."
Rook considered them, then shrugged. "Fine. Two sets. But you'll owe me a favor. And if you break the livery, you buy me a new one. Nobles are particular about their hems."
Mara grinned. "We'll stitch your hems with compliments."
Rook snorted. "Compliments are not a currency I accept. But I'll take them if you insist."
They left with two plain liveries that smelled faintly of lavender and the faintest hint of someone else's perfume. The clothes made them look like they belonged to the fair's machinery: hands that polished, faces that smiled when told to, backs that carried platters and secrets. Whylbirt felt the fabric like armor and a lie.
"Now we need a story," Mara said as they walked. "Caterers need a story. 'We are humble caterers from the east, here to serve the noble houses'—that sort of thing."
"Or we could be cleaners," Whylbirt suggested. "People who sweep up after the nobles and listen to gossip while pretending not to."
Mara considered him. "Cleaner is less glamorous. Cleaner is also less likely to be fed. Caterers get fed."
"Then caterers," he said. "But we'll need a way to get backstage. Invitations, passes, something that says we belong."
Mara's grin widened. "Leave that to me."
She moved through the fair like someone who had been born with a map of favors in her pocket. She flirted with a stall owner who sold candied figs, traded a story for a ribbon, and slipped a coin into the hand of a clerk who looked bored enough to be bribed. By the time the sun leaned toward noon, they had a small paper token—an invitation stub that smelled faintly of wax and the sort of ink used for polite lies.
"Not bad," Whylbirt said, examining the stub. "It looks official."
"It looks official because it was official," Mara said. "I borrowed it from a man who thought he could impress a woman by pretending to be a steward. He was wrong about the woman, but right about the steward."
They practiced their smiles in a dark doorway until they could make them look like the practiced things nobles wore. Whylbirt's smile was a small, economical thing; Mara's was a blade wrapped in charm. They rehearsed their roles—how to carry a tray without spilling, how to nod at the right moment, how to look interested in a conversation without being seen as a threat.
"You know how to pour wine?" Mara asked.
"I know how to pour water," he said. "Wine is a different beast. It requires confidence and a willingness to be judged."
"Then pour water," she said. "If anyone asks, say it's a rare vintage. Nobles like to be lied to about their own tastes."
They entered the terraces as the fair reached its practiced peak. Musicians tuned to the exact pitch of civility; nobles moved like men who had been taught to be admired. Kethran's pavilion gleamed at the center, a small palace of glass and iron. Curiosities were arranged like trophies: a clock that ran backward, a jar of bottled thunder, contracts sealed with unfamiliar sigils. The crowd leaned toward the pavilion as if toward a sermon.
They worked the edges of the fair, carrying platters of roasted meat and trays of sugared figs. Whylbirt kept his head down, letting the crowd's tide carry him. He watched Kethran from the corner of his eye: the noble's smile was a map of intentions, practiced and precise. He spoke to merchants about renewal and investment, his voice smooth as a coin sliding across a table.
"Watch his hands," Mara murmured as they passed a group of laughing merchants. "Hands tell stories faces hide."
Whylbirt watched. Kethran's hands were steady, the fingers long and used to signing things that changed lives. They were the hands of a man who had learned to make promises look like gifts.
They moved through the fair like two small, useful things. Whylbirt's tray was steady; Mara's conversation was a net that caught gossip. They learned the routes of servants and the timing of deliveries. Backstage was a maze of service corridors and storage rooms, a place where the fair's polished face met the city's practical underbelly. It was there, in the places no one admired, that the real work of the terraces happened.
"Service stair," Mara whispered, pointing to a narrow door that opened into a stairwell. "That's our way down. The Archivist said the Registry's entrance would be somewhere near the service routes."
Whylbirt's pulse quickened. The Archivist had told them where ledgers went to be forgotten; now they had a way to follow the thread. The stair was guarded by two men who liked their jobs and the weight of their authority. Whylbirt watched them for a long moment, learning the rhythm of their conversation, the way one of them tapped his boot when he was bored.
Mara moved like a shadow that had learned to be useful. She slipped a coin into the bored man's hand with the casualness of a practiced thief. The man's eyes brightened, and his attention shifted to the coin's shine. The other guard, distracted by the sudden interest, did not notice the small figures that slipped past him.
"You bribed him with a coin and a compliment," Whylbirt whispered as they passed. "That's a new low."
Mara grinned. "Compliments are underused. Try it sometime—'Your boots are very authoritative.' Works wonders."
The stair smelled of old paper and water. Each step took them deeper into the city's memory, into a place where ledgers went to be forgotten or kept safe from curious eyes. The corridor opened into a room lined with doors, each one labeled with a ledger's name and a date. Lanterns burned with a blue flame that made the ink on the spines look like veins. The Drowned Registry was a room that had been built to forget things in an organized way: contracts that had been inconvenient, ledgers that had been altered, pages that had been set aside until they could be safely ignored.
They moved between the stacks like ghosts. Whylbirt's fingers brushed the spines, feeling the raised letters and the scars of use. He had imagined ledgers as heavy things, but here they were lighter—thin, folded, tucked into margins where memory had been made small. The Archivist had been right: the ritual had not erased the Virts so much as scattered them into the margins of other people's lives.
"Find anything?" Mara whispered.
Whylbirt held up a page he had pulled from a ledger that smelled faintly of salt. The handwriting was cramped and hurried; the ink had bled where water had touched it. There, in a margin, was a notation that made his breath catch: a ledger entry that referenced a transfer of obligations from the Virt house to a magistrate's trust, dated the night of the fall. The entry was signed with a mark that was not a name but a seal—one Whylbirt had seen in the scrap he had stolen.
"It's a seam," he said. "They moved the obligations into another ledger. They made the Virts' debts someone else's to remember."
Mara's face hardened. "So Kethran stitched the ledger. He made the Virts small by making other people carry the weight."
"Or he's trying to stitch them back together," Whylbirt said. The thought felt like a splinter under his skin. If Kethran was collecting fragments to restore the Virts, then the fair was not only a show of power but a reclamation. If he was burying them deeper, then the registry was a place of finality.
A sound cut through the quiet: footsteps, deliberate and close. Lantern light moved between the stacks. Whylbirt froze, the page in his hand suddenly heavier than it had any right to be. The footsteps belonged to someone who did not belong in the Registry at this hour.
"Kethran's men," Mara breathed.
They had been careful, but the Registry had ears. A shadow detached itself from the stacks and resolved into a figure in a coat that had been tailored to command attention even in the dark. The man's face was half-hidden by a hood, but the way he carried himself spoke of a man who had never learned to be small. He moved with the certainty of someone who expected doors to open for him.
"You shouldn't be here," he said, voice low and amused. The amusement was a blade.
Whylbirt did not answer. He folded the page and slid it into his sleeve, feeling the paper's dampness against his skin. The man stepped closer, and the lantern light caught the edge of a ring on his hand—a ring Whylbirt recognized from the scrap: a seal that matched the mark on the ledger entry.
"Kethran's seal," Mara whispered.
The man's hood fell back, and for a heartbeat Whylbirt saw the face that had been a map in his mind: Lord Kethran, up close and unadorned by the theater of the fair. The smile he wore was the same practiced thing, but now it had an edge—an expectation that the world would bend to his will.
"You're far from home, little Virt," Kethran said. The name slipped from his mouth like a test. He had the power to make the name mean nothing, to make it a sound that dissolved in the air. Whylbirt felt the old ache in his chest, the memory of a ledger closing like a lid.
"You've been busy," Whylbirt said. His voice did not tremble. He had rehearsed this moment in the dark, but rehearsals are poor teachers for the heat of a real confrontation.
Kethran's smile widened. "So have you. It's a shame when old names try to come back into fashion. They rarely fit the new clothes."
Mara stepped forward, her hand on the hilt of a small blade. "We're leaving," she said. "Before this gets messy."
Kethran's eyes flicked to her blade and then back to Whylbirt. "You could leave," he said. "Or you could stay and tell me what you think you know. I have a fondness for stories that end with useful bargains."
Whylbirt felt the city press against him from all sides—the terraces above, the Registry's damp air, the weight of the Virt crest he no longer carried. He had come for a ledger, for proof, for the shape of the truth. Now he stood in front of the man who had been stitching the city's memory and felt the thinness of his own plans.
He could run. He could fight. He could hand over the page and watch the Virts be folded into someone else's ledger again. Or he could do something that had never been his way: speak a truth loud enough to make the city listen.
He chose a different kind of risk. He stepped forward and let his voice carry in the Registry's hush. "You stitched a ledger," he said. "You moved obligations. You made my family small. I have proof."
Kethran's amusement faltered, replaced by a look that was almost curiosity. "Proof," he repeated. "Bring it to light, then. Show me."
From somewhere deeper in the Registry came the sound of boots—more men, arriving faster than either side had planned. The lantern light threw long shadows that looked like fingers reaching for the truth.
Whylbirt met Kethran's eyes and, for the first time since the fall, felt the shape of his revenge take a clearer form. It would not be a single strike. It would be a pulling at threads, a patient unweaving. But the first pull had to be made now, in the damp heart of the city, with Kethran watching and the ledgers listening.
Mara's hand found his sleeve. "If this goes badly," she murmured, "I will tell everyone you were my favorite mistake."
Whylbirt allowed himself a small, sharp smile. "Make sure they spell my name correctly in the epitaph."
Kethran's men closed in, boots like punctuation. The Registry's air tasted of ink and salt and the sudden, electric possibility of change. Whylbirt folded the page back into his sleeve and felt the city's memory press against him like a tide.
Outside, the fair's music swelled, oblivious and perfect. Inside, the ledgers waited. Whylbirt had come to pull at a seam. The whole garment trembled.