Void System: Every Heroine Makes Me Stronger

By morning, Nyra was still in the manor.

Severin found that more useful than any promise she could have made at the gate.

She came into the west records room after breakfast dressed for the street. She wore the dark slate shirt and black-brown trousers cut around her tail. The new knife sat at her belt, and the same leather bag rested against her hip.

Alicia was already beside Severin at the worktable.

Nyra stopped across from him. "You said you had work."

"I do." Severin said.

"Good."

She didn’t thank him or try to make yesterday sound larger than it had been.

"Give me a name I can check," Severin said. "Someone outside the market who handled the route. I want where he works and something he actually did."

Nyra’s smoke-black ears angled forward. "You want the top?"

"I want the next thing I can prove."

A corner of her mouth shifted.

"Price?"

"1 Stellar Gold if you give me what I asked for."

"You’re cheap."

"Finish this job first."

Nyra glanced at Alicia, then let the price stand without arguing again. Alicia looked back without comment.

Severin tapped the table. "The job."

Nyra gave a quiet huff and pulled the folded paper from her bag.

She opened it herself.

Severin didn’t lean closer.

Her palm covered most of the page while her eyes moved over what remained exposed. She shifted the fold and stopped on a small freight mark drawn beside an entry.

Her mouth tightened before she said anything.

"I know this mark."

"The name?" Severin asked.

"No. The route."

She took a scrap from the records table and copied the mark with charcoal in quick, economical strokes.

"It’s a cartage mark used near the rail warehouses. The office is legal. They move ordinary freight all day and ask fewer questions when the paper’s sealed."

"You know who to ask?"

"I know where the mark gets serviced. That’s enough."

She refolded the original list and put it back in her bag before Severin saw another line.

The mark gave him a source to test.

"We’re going now."

Nyra slid the charcoal scrap into the outer pocket of her bag. "Thought you might say that."

Alicia was already moving. "I’ll have the carriage brought around, Master."

The carriage left them on a public side street near the rail warehouses.

Severin stepped down first. Alicia followed, then Nyra. The driver stayed with the horses while Nyra took them through a narrower street where warehouses crowded close enough to turn the morning noise into a constant wooden clatter.

She led the last turn.

The brokerage looked ordinary: a painted sign, a wide front window, delivery slips stacked behind the counter, and a clerk arguing with a carter about a late wagon.

Nyra walked in without slowing.

The clerk looked up. His attention caught on her ears, shifted to Severin, then returned to the paper scrap she placed on the counter.

"Who’s handling this mark?" Nyra asked.

The clerk looked at the mark again before answering.

"Wait here."

He disappeared through the interior doorway.

Alicia edged nearer Severin. Her attention went past the counter toward the deeper rooms.

Nyra said nothing.

The clerk returned with a narrow man in a brown waistcoat whose fingers were stained with ink.

The broker looked at the copied mark before he looked at any of them.

"Back room," he said.

He didn’t ask their names.

The rear counting room held a plain table, with a loading-yard door behind the broker’s chair. Severin sat opposite him. Nyra took the chair to Severin’s right with the yard door in view. Alicia stayed near the entry behind him.

The broker set his hands on the table.

"What’s this about?"

Nyra took out the copied mark and laid it where he could see it.

"Routing slips. Sealed. This mark."

"I Don’t know it."

Nyra watched him. Severin let the denial hang.

The broker glanced toward the loading-yard door.

"Master. Loading door."

"I see it."

The man’s jaw tightened. "I said I don’t know it."

Nyra’s answer came flat. "That denial was deliberate."

The broker’s face lost color.

Severin leaned back instead of crowding him.

"What did you carry?"

The broker said nothing.

Nyra said, "Pick a cheaper mistake."

The broker looked at her. "You don’t know what you’re touching."

"Maybe. Answer him."

His fingers curled against the table.

Severin cut in. "You carried the slips. What were they?"

"Routing slips. Sealed."

"For that mark?"

A muscle moved in the broker’s cheek.

"Yes."

Nyra picked up her scrap and returned it to the outer pocket of her bag.

"Where did you take them?"

"Different places."

"Last batch you handled yourself."

The broker looked toward Nyra instead of answering.

She gave him nothing.

"Greycross registry office."

"Which desk?"

"Records intake."

"Who received them from your hand?"

The broker rubbed his thumb over the ink stain on his finger.

"A registry man."

Severin waited.

"Name," Nyra said.

The broker’s mouth flattened. "Hadrin Voss."

A crate struck wood in the loading yard. Someone shouted about a wheel pin.

"I don’t know what was inside the slips," the broker said, the words coming faster now.

"I didn’t ask." Severin kept his attention on him. "Stay with what you did. You handed the slips to Hadrin Voss?"

"Yes. At the registry desk. That’s what I saw. That’s what I did. That’s all."

That could be checked.

The broker said, "That’s all I know."

Severin ignored the claim. By then, the wagon at the loading door was gone and another was backing into its place.

"What were you told to call Voss outside the registry?"

The broker’s eyes moved away.

"I wasn’t. They only told me not to use Voss. Never around the market. Never write it where a runner could see it."

"Why forbid the name?" Severin asked.

The broker dragged a hand over his mouth. "Because Voss is the registry name. Market side, they use another name for the same man. I never got it."

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