She Was Supposed to Stay Broken, So I Let Her Think She Had novel · Chapter 10 of 40

Chapter 10: The Entry the Index Denied

Kael turns to Aldren, and I set the delivery chit beside his hand. 'Why does the bond-reading page lack its seal?'

Aldren's fingers stop on the working ledger. The appointment lies folded nearby, and the chit bears the archive hour he gave me before Vessa's placement changed.

I leave the folded key paper where it is, hidden inside the ledger cover. Aldren knows I saw it. He thinks I'm watching Kael instead.

'The page was submitted without the required seal,' Aldren says. 'That is what the archive holds.'

Kael looks at the closed ledger. 'That is what the archive holds on the bond reading.'

A low amber shimmer gathers around Aldren's head. His unspoken thought slips beneath his voice, thin and hurried.

He has seen the paper. He knows I saw it. The question is whether Kael knows what it opens.

The room loses its small sounds. A boot shifts somewhere behind us; the wall clock ticks. Then both sounds stop. One sentence hangs in full color before me: Lirien said the entry must stay out of his hands.

He thinks I am still the woman who lost the page. I am the woman who kept the chit.

I let the silence close around that sentence, then release it. Sound returns. Aldren's mouth is still moving, his careful answer already underway.

'The bond-reading page is not the only record relevant to this matter,' Kael says. His voice stays level. 'You have just told me what the archive holds. I'm asking what it does not.'

Aldren glances at the chit. 'That is a delivery record.'

'It is a record of what you told Sera to deliver, and when.' Kael does not touch it. 'It is not an answer.'

The paper is useful for exactly what it proves. Aldren gave me a time and a place, then the pack changed Vessa's placement without naming either. I'm not asking him to explain that now. The chit gives Kael a reason to press. The ledger gives Aldren a reason to fear the next question.

I watch the line of Aldren's mouth tighten. He can deny what he said about the bond page. He cannot make the ledger cover vanish without drawing attention to it.

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