Elder Bright's Arc

Chapter 4 of 10

Elder Bright climbed the stone steps of the grand archive at dusk. He had set up a small room behind the towering shelves, quiet and out of sight. Here he could call people in one by one and ask his questions without the city watching. He needed a name. Without one, every door he knocked on would slam shut. He pinned a list of suspects to a wooden board outside, under the eaves. He bent close with his magnifying glass, tracing each name with a shaking hand. Witches. Tinkerers. An old rival from the cathedral cafe. Too many names. Not enough threads. His first stop was the stack of papers he had hauled from the old reading room. He sat with it for hours, lifting page after page, hunting for any hand that matched the thief's. Nothing matched. The stack told him only what he already knew. He pushed it aside. Then, near the bottom, a single sheet slipped loose. A signed visitor log from the week the page vanished. One name had been scratched out — but under the glass, the letters rose clear. Elder Bright sat very still. He had a suspect now. And the suspect was someone he had trusted.