LUCY
The seventh altered record has a child’s thumbprint on it.
I notice the smudge before Rethan does. It sits near the edge of an old water-tax receipt, small and dark where some long-dead clerk’s son or daughter must have grabbed the page before the ink dried. A stupid detail. A human detail. One no corporate archive would bother to invent.
The receipt lists the Kest field as active farmland.
The regional transfer file calls the same field dormant reserve land.
Both carry the same year.
I stare until the numbers blur. “This is enough.”
Rethan doesn’t lift his eyes from the projection matrix. “It is significant.”
“Enough,” I repeat.
He adjusts the receipt beneath the scanner. “Enough to justify continued investigation. Not enough to present an accusation publicly.”
A humorless laugh escapes me. I’ve slept less than an hour, my back hurts from leaning over tables, and half the valley is waiting outside the cooperative hall for news I can barely hold in my own hands.
“Not enough?” I say. “We have altered entries, impossible parcel numbers, missing archive years, witness letters, tax records, and now a receipt proving a field they called empty was feeding people.”
“That proves contradiction.”
“It proves fraud.”
“It suggests fraud.”
I push away from the table. “Do you hear yourself?”
“Yes.”
“That is somehow worse.”
His gaze lifts to mine. Calm. Steady. Infuriating.
“If we present this before the claim is strong enough, Helix will challenge every piece separately. They will call the witness letters sentimental, the family ledgers unreliable, the local marks unofficial, and the thumbprint irrelevant. By the time they finish, your people may be more frightened than before.”
“They are already frightened.”
“And fear can be sharpened or shattered.”
Outside the records room, voices gather near the hall.
People began arriving before dawn, carrying breakfast wrapped in cloth and questions they’re too tired to phrase politely.
I’ve seen Mr. Pell beside his box of letters, Jessa copying school records, and my mother sorting burial maps with steady hands.
They need something.
Hope. Direction. Proof that yesterday was not another day lost to Helix.
I pick up the water-tax receipt with careful fingers. “This valley has spent three days being told to wait. Wait for Helix’s documents. Wait for your review. Wait for the Authority. If we have proof, they deserve to hear it.”
Rethan speaks more quietly. “And if I allow premature disclosure, I may lose authority over the inquiry.”
That word changes the shape of my anger.
“Allow?” I say.
His expression doesn’t change, but I see the mistake register.
“I meant—”
“I know what you meant.” I set the receipt down before my grip damages it. “You meant you are the official. I am the local woman with the messy satchel and emotional neighbors.”
“No.”
“No?”
“You are not merely local.”
“That is not the compliment you think it is.”
Rethan stands. The room is small enough that his height alters it. Shelves, tables, hanging archive lights—all of it seems built for people who don’t have to lower their heads beneath old beams. He steps around the table and stops at a careful distance.
“I meant,” he says, “that you are central to this investigation.”
I should find satisfaction in that. Instead, the care in his restraint irritates me more. “Central until I want to speak without permission.”
“Central because people trust you. If you say fraud before we can defend the word, they will believe you. Then Helix will break the claim apart in public and make your leadership look reckless.”
My anger falters, then returns with fresh teeth. “You think I am reckless.”
“I think you are responsible for more fear than one person should have to carry.”
I have no answer ready.
Rethan’s gaze drops to the receipt between us. “That is why caution matters.”
I hate how close he’s come to kindness. It would be easier if he were cold. Easier if he dismissed the valley outright, if he sneered like Corvek, if his careful words didn’t keep circling the truth I don’t want to admit.
I’m afraid.
Not of Helix alone. Of standing in front of my people with half-formed proof and watching hope collapse if I’m wrong.
Of waiting too long and letting fear rot them from the inside.
Of trusting a man who could leave on the next shuttle with his career bruised but intact while my whole life remains in the ground.
“You get to be careful,” I say quietly. “I have to be believed.”
Rethan’s face goes still. Not blank. Listening.
“I understand that distinction,” he says.
“Do you?”
His eyes hold mine. “I am beginning to.”
The archive lights cast a hard white glow over the table. Beyond the door, someone calls my name, then stops as if warned not to interrupt.
We’re standing too close now. I know it because I can see the faint bioluminescent pattern beneath the skin at his throat, pale as moonlit frost. I know it because he’s lowered his voice and I’ve lowered mine, and anger has become something tighter than argument.
Rethan looks away first.
Only to the receipt.
“We can tell them there are serious inconsistencies,” he says. “We can tell them the inquiry has expanded. We can ask for more documents, more witnesses, more time. But we do not name fraud until the evidence can survive Helix trying to kill it.”
I breathe through the answer I want to give.
Outside, the waiting voices rise again.
“Fine,” I say at last. “Serious inconsistencies. Expanded inquiry. More witnesses.”
Then I add, “But I speak first.”
His gaze returns to me. “Yes.”
The single word surprises me more than an argument would have.
I gather the receipt, the ledger copy, and three witness statements into a folder. When I reach for the door, Rethan moves with me, not ahead, not behind.
Beside me.
The cooperative hall doors open, and every frightened face turns to me for an answer I’m still learning how to give.