The knight found them in the service cut behind the covered market.
He was one of the eastern-post sergeants, the same man who had stood over the canvas that morning.
He had followed the thinning residual of the second naming farther than the others, and the residual had led him straight to the four of them standing in the damp shade where the drainage channel ran under the market wall. He saw the way Lara's hand rested near the short blade.
He saw the ledger under Clara's arm. He saw Atlas's face and the quiet weight that did not belong to any ordinary knight of the lesser city.
Recognition settled across his features.
"You," he said. His voice stayed low, but the hand on his own sword hilt was already tight. "The residual ended clean. Too clean. And you walked the ground like men who already knew the cut."
