Page 76 of Pocket Wife

Water.

Again, water.

Sen speaks sharply. “Memory after thirty-one years is unreliable.”

Eleanor turns to her. “So is a document kept by thieves.”

A stunned sound moves through the room.

Lucy’s eyes fill, but she does not look away from her mother.

Eleanor reaches into her coat and withdraws a folded scrap sealed in aging wax. “I kept my copy because the surveyors made me uneasy. My mother taught me that when officials rush a signature, you keep the paper they do not want.”

She places it on the tribunal scanner.

The display accepts the scan.

Old paper. Old ink. Same signature.

Different title.

Emergency Water Integrity Inspection Acknowledgment.

And beneath Eleanor’s name, written in her own hand:

No mineral consent granted. No common land transfer authorized.

Corvek’s calm finally breaks.

Adjudicator Salo leans toward the display. “Preliminary relevance established. Full ink, substrate, and custody authentication pending.”

“Of course,” Eleanor says. “Test it all.”

My gaze goes to Lucy then.

This time, I allow myself the smallest nod.

The wound has not closed.

But now the room can see who made it.

CHAPTER 29

LUCY

Ido not go to my mother.

Every part of me wants to.

Eleanor stands near the tribunal scanner with one hand still resting beside the paper that saved her name. Samuel has moved close enough to catch her if her strength fails. Celia watches Advocate Sen with the expression of a woman deciding whether a legal proceeding allows thrown bread knives.

I stay where I am.

Not because I feel calm.

Because Helix is watching for the moment I stop being useful.

Adjudicator Salo reviews Eleanor’s copy in silence while the other two tribunal officers examine the expanded metadata. The council chamber waits with the terrible patience of people who have just seen an old wound opened and named.