There are few things more dangerous than a city at war. One of them is a city at peace with paperwork. The steps of the Hall of Justice had become an altar to narrow patience that morning. A line curled down from the great doors, coiling around stone pillars carved with saints and victories. Petitioners clutched writs, ledgers, sealed boxes, and—once—an extremely offended goose. The Lord of Neverwinter would not see most of them. That was not the point. The line itself was a kind of ritual, a communal confession of grievances shouted at a closed door. Halfway down the steps stood a dwarf with ink-stained fingers, a stack of parchment, and the look of someone deeply offended by how slowly reality updated itself. Aubeya Mystradreamer tapped her boot against the stone as if the city might answer. “The Weave shifts faster than this line,” she muttered. “Mystra is asleep and still has better reaction time.” In front of her, a broader dwarf in ore-dusted leathers turned around and squinted. “You talking to me, lass, or to a goddess who cannot sign building permits?” “Both,” Aubeya replied. “Mostly the goddess. Partly the Lord. Somewhat the architect who thought one door was sufficient.” “Name’s Durnan Oreseek,” he said. “Here about a collapsed tunnel. Stone gave where it should not have. I want a decree that says we fix it before some noble puts a wine cellar there instead.” “Aubeya. Here about a collapsed understanding of magic,” she said. “I want a decree that says they stop treating wizardry like decorative fireworks and start listening when the Weave twitches.” “Stone twitches too,” Durnan grunted. “Right before it falls on your head.” “Then we are united in our grievances,” she said dryly. Behind them, a human in alchemist’s leathers bounced on the balls of his feet, a satchel thumping restlessly at his side. Selwyn Flaskwright smelled faintly of alcohol in the ‘volatile solution’ sense, not the ‘last call’ sense. “I am merely here to insist the city stops storing lamp oil near the grain,” Selwyn said to no one in particular, which was precisely when everyone decided to listen. “It is a simple request. I even brought diagrams.” He held up a scroll. It unraveled all the way down three steps and brushed a half-asleep tiefling’s tail. “Your priorities are adorable,” came a dry voice from behind him. Varri Skynner lounged against the railing, arms folded, his expression that of a man who knew exactly how much trouble he could cause and was currently restraining himself out of sheer boredom. “What urgent petition brings you here?” Aubeya asked. Varri smiled without much warmth. “Some paperwork went missing. It would be a shame if the wrong people remembered the right things. Best to get ahead of it.” “So the tunnel, the oil, the arcane catastrophe, and the mysterious missing documents all stand in the same line,” Aubeya said. “What a fragile little city we are propping up with our ankles.” The line lurched forward one body length and then froze again, as if the entire Hall had decided that was enough progress for the morning. They waited. They traded fragments of story the way soldiers trade rations—carefully, without revealing how hungry they truly are. Durnan described the tunnel. Aubeya described the way spells had started to hum wrong near the Chasm. Selwyn described the chemical properties of bad municipal planning. Varri did not describe anything, which was in itself a description. In the end, the outer clerk emerged, not Lord Neverember. He took their petitions, their diagrams, their carefully written notes, and promised—on behalf of the great, distant machinery of power—that someone would read them. No decree was signed that day. The tunnel did not mend itself. The grain remained flammable. The Chasm continued to brood. Yet when they descended the steps, they did so together. Durnan promised to show Aubeya the fault lines in the rock beneath the city. Selwyn offered to bring safer lantern oil to any excavation that happened to ‘accidentally’ start without permission. Varri merely said, “If you need a signature that is not yours, I know where the ink hides.” And in the margin of the Ledger, the Soul Bearer wrote: Four threads brushed together and did not yet knot. The Lord remained distant, but the city quietly armed itself.