Chapter 14: Crane Explains the Ledger's Enchantment Architecture

The message was not in the dead drop.

It was in the Record Room, which was worse. A single strip of paper tucked beneath the near edge of his blotter, perpendicular to the desk's grain, precisely aligned — placed by someone who understood that disorder would be noticed faster than order, that the safest hiding place is the one that looks like it belongs. Elias found it at quarter past seven, before the lamp had warmed the room enough to lift the chill from the stone, before he had opened the morning's correction slips. He stood with his satchel still on his shoulder and read it without touching it.

*East corridor, third sub-level. Junction with the heating duct passage. Sixth hour.*