Three days passed while they stayed at the farmhouse.
Still moving, never pausing, shaping words into lines while sleep stayed out of reach. From Auren's voice, sentences formed beneath Orren's pen, steady and precise. Page after page grew with facts instead of stories - timelines pinned down, choices recorded exactly, the full titles of investors listed without omission. Each command, copied word for word, carried the weight of how it played out later. What sounded like strategy at the time now wore its real name in the margins.
After sorting the papers into three sets - every one holding both ledgers, Auren's statement, notes on minerals, maps from after the phase - Ysse studied them quietly. Each wrapper bore unique script. Separate custody trails were noted down. Her usual care shaped the work. Silence followed once it ended.
After a pause, her voice broke the silence. This one's for all of us, she added.
Kael turned his eyes toward her.
"Everyone who died. Everyone who was marked as terrain. Everyone who won't be written down." She touched the edge of one package. "It's all in here. The proof that they existed and were used and were erased. That's what this is."
For a second, nobody spoke. Then silence just hung there.
"Then we make sure it can't be erased again," Bren said.
Auren found three paths for deliveries, each one drawn out by Orren as if it mattered above all else. Six days on horseback east would get you to where the historian stayed among the free cities. South past the border, a dozen days along roads led to the trade auditor's place. Waterways opened up toward the north, carrying anyone who sought the exiled journalist in the free ports.
"We can't all go together," Kael said. "Three packages, three routes."
"Four of us," Bren said.
His eyes landed on the man. Kael studied his face, quiet. The moment stretched between them. He stood still, watching.
"Ysse and I take two routes. You and Orren take the third and find the journalist." Bren said it with the clarity of someone who had already worked through the argument. "We split the risk. If one route is intercepted the others complete."
Still, he agreed even though Kael hated what they chose.
"We just got out," he said.
"I know."
"We promised - "
"We promised to survive," Bren said. "We're surviving. We're just doing it in different directions for a while." He looked at Kael with the directness that had replaced fear. "We'll find each other after. Pick a place."
Out past the river, Kael let his mind drift. Not far now - just beyond the smokestacks, where the rooftops sag low. His place perched over a shuttered mill, quiet most days. One window rattles when trains pass by. Floor steady again after he hammered it back whole last week.
"The eastern square," he said. "Low Quarter. The board where the recruitment notice was posted."
Three months, that was what Bren stated.
"Ninety days."
Bren offered his hand. Kael reached for it. For a breath, they stayed like that - holding on as if touching something too full to name.
After that, their hands dropped away.