At dawn, the rain stopped.
The smell of wet horses and spent torches lingered on Revan Bridge. The soldiers had stood around the wagons all night.
What had come out of the boxes marked Kerosene was not kerosene.
That fact alone made people fall silent.
Kael sat in a narrow office inside the checkpoint.
Wet gloves, six sealed bottles, and a note from the marquess lay on the table.
The hungrier the East grows, the better it obeys. The sentence was short. That made it linger all the longer.
Rowan stood by the window, looking beyond the bridge. Somewhere out there, one bottle had disappeared.
"We should pursue him even now."
It was already the third time.
Instead of answering, Kael shook the water from the tip of his brush.
"The horses and men are exhausted."
"The man who ran is even more exhausted."
"They had fresh horses ready over there. If we enter a prepared route, we will not be chasing them. We will be led."
Rowan's jaw hardened. It angered him more because Kael was right.
Mira was drying her hands beside the brazier. Her face was pale from examining the marks on the mouths of the bottles all night.
"Still, that one bottle bothers me."
"It should."
"What do you mean, it should?"
"There is a good chance the other side deliberately left that gap."
Mira narrowed her eyes.
"Deliberately?"
"If they could not steal all three wagons, they would have taken only the most important thing and fled."
Rowan gripped the window frame.
"Then all the more reason to pursue them, is it not?"
"No."
Kael looked at the note.
"When the other side shows you a road, look at who made it."
The office door opened.
Edric came in.
He was out of breath, as befitted someone who had ridden the dawn road. His arms were full of documents.
"I am late."
"If you are alive, you are not late."
Edric smiled briefly, then fell silent at the sight of the bottles on the table. "Six bottles?"
"Six confirmed."
"And the one that escaped?"
"One bottle."
Edric moistened his lips with his tongue.
"That one bottle could let the marquess get away."
"That is why we will write an invitation."
Edric nearly dropped his bundle of documents. "An invitation?"
Rowan turned his head from the window.
"I heard it earlier, but it sounds strange the second time too."
"It is more courteous than a bill."
Kael picked up his brush.
"We need it. Courtesy is not used only to respect the other person."
He wrote the first line.
To His Excellency, Marquess Seradin. "It is also used to create a door the other side will walk through."
Edric pulled over a chair and sat down.
"On what pretext will you summon him?"
"An audit."
"An audit of gratitude?"
"The kind that looks through ledgers."
Mira gave a quiet laugh.
"I think he will hate both kinds."
"That is why it is good."
Kael wrote again. Eastern Sponsored Supply Audit Confirmation Meeting.
The moment Edric saw the phrase, he frowned.
"It is too polished."
"It needs to look polished."
"Then the marquess can simply choose not to come."
"It is better if he does not come."
Rowan turned with a look of incomprehension.
"Why?"
"If the marquess comes, he must name the recipient of the supplies. If he does not come, a record remains that he failed to explain."
"Either way, he loses."
"That is what an invitation is. It makes it look as though there is a choice."
Mira crossed her arms.
"What about the location? The Riorden estate?"
"No."
Edric spoke first.
"If we summon him to the Riorden estate, it becomes a private dispute. The marquess will turn it into a matter of his house's honor."
Kael nodded.
"Revan Checkpoint will not do either. The marquess will not come here."
"Then where do we summon him?"
Kael looked outside. The wagons that had been bound there all night stood exposed and shabby beneath the pale gold light.
"The Eastern Temporary Relief Warehouse."
Mira looked up.
"That old warehouse on the outskirts of the capital?"
"It is not anyone's house, Temple, or the marquess's banquet hall. It is where the supplies should be."
Edric quickly wrote it down.
"And the attendees?"
"Marquess Seradin. A Hyrun representative. The captain of Revan Checkpoint. Ramun. And one representative from the Eastern Border Outpost."
Rowan's eyes changed.
"You mean to invite someone from the soldiers' side?"
"An audit with no one to receive the medicine is a joke."
Mira asked quietly,
"Who can we call?"
Kael unfolded the list of outposts Dorne Havel had given him. Faint red letters rose beside one name.
[Unpaid Treatment Target]
[Guarantee Trace: Eastern Border Outpost No. 7]
[Survival Cost: Delayed]
Kael touched the name with a fingertip. "Theo Varan."
Rowan raised a brow.
"Do you know the name?"
"No."
"Then why him?"
"The ledger did not let go of him."
Dorne Havel, who had been standing in the doorway, spoke low. "I know Theo Varan."
Kael looked up.
"What sort of man is he?"
"He is a supply sergeant at Eastern Border Outpost No. 7. I hear he is good at keeping the figures straight."
"A protest letter?"
"He sent a single torn boot. He wrote numbers on the sole."
Mira blinked.
"On a boot?"
"I hear he had no paper."
The office fell silent.
Dorne continued, looking at the wagons outside.
"The figures were right. Forty-two soldiers, twenty-nine pairs of boots. Thirteen pairs of feet left bare."
If boots were lacking, marching slowed. Ian, too, had died after a delay like that.
Kael marked Theo Varan's name. Invite.
This audit needed the feet of someone who sent numbers written on a sole.
Edric asked carefully,
"How hard do we make the invitation's wording?"
"We do not write it hard."
"We have the marquess's note."
"We use that at the end."
"What if we present it from the start?"
"The marquess will deny the handwriting. Then we will be led along."
Edric nodded.
"Then we first ask about the supplies, the recipient, and the person responsible."
"And when the marquess evades an answer."
Kael folded the note. "We read him that sentence."
Mira gave a quiet laugh.
"Is that etiquette?"
"Very courteous."
Kael took out a new sheet of paper. "It is calling a name before drawing a sword."
At that moment, a commotion rose outside the office door.
A soldier hurriedly poked his head in.
"The checkpoint captain is calling for you. Hyrun has sent someone."
Rowan immediately put a hand on his sword hilt.
"Already?"
Kael rose from his seat.
"The marquess does not move like this. The ones in a hurry are those below him who will bear the loss."
A narrow black carriage stood in the checkpoint yard.
There was no decoration on its door. That made it look all the more expensive.
A middle-aged woman stood before the carriage. She wore a dark gray dress, and her hair was twisted low at the back of her head. There was almost no dirt on her shoes.
Semor stood beside her. For someone detained all night, he looked far too composed.
Dorne Havel spoke low.
"They say she is from Hyrun's Central Accounting Office."
The woman bowed first. "I am Vanessa Karn of the Central Accounting Office of the Hyrun Trading Company."
"The Accounting Office arrives faster than the convoy."
"When a convoy stops, the accounts are hurt."
Kael looked at her. Her voice was gentle, but her eyes were counting the wagons, soldiers, sealed bottles, and even the document cases.
"Your business."
Vanessa took an envelope from inside her coat. "The Hyrun Trading Company acknowledges that some items in this shipment were mislabeled."
Rowan gave a hollow laugh.
"Medicine came out of boxes marked Kerosene, and that is a labeling error?"
"It is a labeling error. We will compensate for the inconvenience."
"Inconvenience."
Mira murmured the word.
That one word hardened the soldiers' faces.
Vanessa continued.
"We will release the six confirmed bottles at once. We will also provide ten additional bottles of medicine. In return."
She held out the envelope. "Please settle this matter as an internal Hyrun labeling error."
Rowan took a step forward.
Kael raised a hand to stop him.
"Ten bottles. That is a generous price."
"We do not spare expense in saving lives."
"Why did a company like that put medicine in boxes of kerosene?"
Vanessa's eyes lowered at the corners ever so slightly.
"That is why I said it was a labeling error."
"Good."
Kael did not take the envelope. "Then write down the names of the people who made the error."
For the first time, Vanessa fell silent.
"The warehouse officer, the inspection officer, the sealing officer, and the person who authorized departure. Four names will suffice."
"Young Master. They are internal records."
"Then distribute the ten bottles inside the Hyrun Trading Company."
"Pardon?"
"We caught six bottles. Ten bottles without names will disappear tomorrow under another name."
Kael looked at the envelope in her hand.
"Money saves lives. But money without responsibility kills the next person."
The gentleness disappeared from Vanessa's expression. "Are you trying to make all of Hyrun your enemy, Young Master Riorden?"
"No."
Kael answered evenly.
"I am determining whether Hyrun is the enemy in this matter."
Semor's face turned pale.
Vanessa looked at Kael for a long time.
"Then what is it you want, Young Master?"
Kael took the unfinished invitation from inside his coat. "Your timing is excellent."
He wrote the final line on the page. Attendance requested: representative of Hyrun's Central Accounting Office.
Vanessa's eyes followed the letters downward. "An invitation?"
"Yes."
"What if we decline?"
"You may write down the reason for declining."
"And if we attend?"
"We verify where the supplies departed from, through whose hands they passed, and where they were meant to go."
Vanessa gave a short laugh.
"That is a heavy invitation."
"Is it not more courteous than a bill?"
She did not answer.
Then a horse came in along the road outside the checkpoint. The man wore a cloak stamped with the silver seal of House Seradin.
"A reply from Marquess Seradin."
Rowan looked at Kael as though he could not believe it.
"We have not even sent ours yet."
Kael accepted the sealed letter.
The sealing wax was intact.
Seradin's silver rose. Inside was a short invitation.
To resolve the misunderstanding concerning Eastern sponsored supplies, I invite you to the Central Temple Audit Office at noon today.
Marquess Seradin.
Mira spoke low.
"They invited us before we could invite them."
Edric's face hardened.
"The location is the Central Temple."
Rowan laughed with his hand still on his sword hilt.
"We have become the sort who exchange invitations."
Kael folded the letter.
The Central Temple Audit Office. A place with many ledgers, many witnesses, and responsibility that was always blurred.
The marquess had not run. He had moved the board onto a larger table.
Kael looked down at the invitation he had been writing. Ink still wet. And the completed invitation the marquess had sent.
He had not been a step late. The other side had simply been thinking the same thing.
"Will you go?"
Rowan asked.
Kael tucked Seradin's letter inside his coat.
"We have to."
"It is a trap."
"It is."
"And yet?"
Kael looked at the three wagons. Six bottles were inside them. One bottle had disappeared beyond the river. The marquess waited in the Central Temple.
The borrower repays. But sometimes the borrower opens the ledger first.
"A trap costs money too," Kael said.
"If it is a table set by the other side, we start with the price of the plates."
"The price of the chairs too."
"And even the price of the candles."
"We will check those costs first."
An invitation was a folded bill.