The archive door creaks shut behind me.
Dust tastes like old coins.
Shelves tilt with ledgers.
"Copyist," Eunuch Gao says, voice like dry wood.
"Sit," he orders, pointing to a low stool.
I sit.
"Start with imports," he says.
"Imports," I echo.
My fingers find the paper's rhythm.
Numbers march in tight columns.
My hand moves slow and sure.
"Do you know the stamps?" he asks.
"Some," I answer.
"Good."
Xiao Mei slips in with a tray.
"How is it?" she whispers.
"Hidden," I say, folding the word small.
I flip a folio.
A mark bites my eye.
It is small and wrong.
"The symbol," I murmur.
"Bad stitch," Xiao Mei says, peering.
"Bad stitch," I repeat.
We copy the page by hand.
"Amber imports," I read aloud.
"Sixty years," she says.
"South trade route," I add.
"Border prefecture," she finds.
"Blight reported," Xiao Mei says.
"Why mark it?" she asks.
"Pattern," I say.
"Pattern?" she echoes, flat.
We work with owlish focus.
Ink beads on my wrist.
My temple hums.
"Faster," she tells me.
"My wrist aches," I say.
"Push," she snaps.
Gao watches like a shutter.
"Curiosity gets people killed," he mutters.
"Noted," I reply, short.
I pull another brittle folio.
A ledger folds like a mouth.
I scan names and shipments.
A second mark waits, crooked and patient.
"Here," I say.
Xiao Mei leans close.
"Same mark," she breathes.
"Who uses this?" she asks.
"No clue," I say.
"No clue," she repeats.
Gao drops a heavy catalog near my elbow.
"It fell," he says without moving.
I flip it open.
"Extinct clans," Xiao Mei reads.
"Clan Ling," I say, fingers cold.
"Purged seventy years," she whispers.
"Astrologers," I add.
"Occultists," she finishes.
Gao shifts in his stool.
"It fell by accident," he says again.
"You're generous," I say, blunt.
"Once I wanted too much," Gao says.
"I learned the cost," he adds, slow.
"Cost?" Xiao Mei asks, voice small.
"People move when you ask," Gao replies. "They notice."
He slides a sealed packet across the table.
"Open," he says.
I crack wax with nail.
Names spill on old paper.
"A date matches," I say, heart steady as a drum.
"Amber ledger match," Xiao Mei whispers.
"Why give this?" I ask.
"Because I was invisible," Gao says.
"Invisible is safer," he adds.
"Why help?" I press.
"Because paper remembers," he says. "And I liked to read."
Night pulls the archive low.
I tuck copies into my robe seam.
Xiao Mei stares raw and sleepless.
"Be careful," she says, pressing my hand.
Outside, officials read lists and mark names.
Someone knocks at the wrong door.
A family in a village receives visitors with quiet manners.
"Who?" Xiao Mei asks, voice split.
"Two in black cloaks," she says. "They asked names."
"Stay hidden," Gao warns. "Leave before dusk."
"Will you help more?" I ask.
"Not with crowds," he says. "I drop books and nudges. That is my measure."
"Promise me," Xiao Mei insists, fingers tight.
"Come back," she mouths.
"Always," I answer, short and sure.
I sleep with paper pressed to skin.
The Clan Ling mark sits under my ribs like a seed.
Tomorrow I choose.
Dawn is thin.
I slip past the guard and breathe the archive air.
The ledger waits like a sleeping animal.
My palms sweat in measured rhythm.
"Copy the county rolls today," Gao says, voice low.
"County rolls," I repeat.
"Quiet pages. Less eyes."
I flip a county folio.
Names and harvest numbers tick like a counting machine.
The mark appears again, half erased by time.
I trace it under my nail.
"Why hide here?" the clerk asks, curious, not cruel.
"Because the ledger speaks," I answer, too many words.
I copy while the sun slides slow.
My wrist cramps but I keep writing.
The mark repeats on a receipt for amber.
It repeats on a harvest failure.
It repeats on a list of men reassigned.
"Someone tracks," I whisper.
"A ledger marks more than taxes," Xiao Mei hisses under breath.
Gao appears, sudden and quiet.
"Careful," he says, scanning the stacks.
"Careful," I echo.
He leaves a battered chart of heraldic signs on the table.
"It fell," he says, hands folded.
I open the chart with fingers that smell of ink.
"Clan Ling crest," I say, reading the small print.
"Astrologers of the court," Xiao Mei reads.
"Leader: Grand Astrologer," I add.
The word presses.
"Purged for heresy," she whispers.
"Seventy years," I say.
"Why would the court mark trade and blight?" she asks.
"Why tag names in margins?" I answer back with another question, because questions are tools.
I copy faster, hands stiffer than before.
Paper piles like small tombs.
My back aches.
My jaw ticks.
The date aligns with a ledger entry about a shipment diverted through the border.
A clerk's finger points to a note about a sealed altar.
My mouth goes dry.
"Someone inside records more than taxes," I say, so low the paper might hear it.
"Then who?" Xiao Mei asks, eyes wide and red.
"People with reach," I say.
Gao watches me, a thin kindness and a deeper caution in his face.
"Curiosity is expensive," he says. "It stains more than hands."
At dusk, a knock comes for Xiao Mei's family.
She returns pale and ragged.
"They asked names," she sobs, voice breaking.
"They wrote down her mother's name," she says.
"They wanted who leaves for the capital."
My fingers close on a copied folio until it creases.
"Who?" I ask, breath too loud.
"Two men in cloaks. No insignia."
Xiao Mei clutches my sleeve.
"Don't go tomorrow," she pleads, lips raw.
"Don't go," she repeats, voice scraping.
"I cannot stop," I say, short.
"You can," she cries. "You can save them."
"Save them how?" I counter, empty as my mouth.
"Stop," she says. "Forget this."
I lift the copied pages like a shield.
"The ledger will be buried if I don't push," I whisper.
"It might be the only map we have," I add, the words small and sharp.
"Then stop," she begs. "Your search kills."
My chest knots.
My jaw clenches.
My hand finds the coin in my robe, the one with the tiny sigil pressed into metal.
I press it until my nail hurts.
"Do you want them to come again?" I ask, teeth tight.
"Do you want names on lists?" she answers, breath ragged.
"Someone watches families," she says. "They will knock until someone hides."
"Stay hidden," Gao advises from the doorway.
"Stay hidden," he echoes, like an old prayer.
"But if I stop," I say, "I lose the trail."
"If you stop," Xiao Mei says, "we live."
My heart is a heavy thing that knows calculus.
I picture a ledger and a list of matches.
I picture two men writing names in a quiet kitchen.
I picture my hand sliding a paper under a seam.
"This is not a fight of fists," I say, voice steadying like a rig.
"It is a counting."
Xiao Mei grabs my arm so hard her nails bite.
"Do you not hear them?" she hisses. "At night, footsteps. At dawn, trucks. My father left and didn't return from the market."
Her eyes are red and furious and human.
"Go," she says finally, voice thin and raw. "If you must, go at night. But promise me this—you will not bring others."
"Promise," I say, the word small and iron.
She lets go and slides to the floor.
"Come back," she whispers between sobs.
"Come back," she repeats.
I tuck the copied folio into my robe.
I fold the heraldic chart and hide it beneath my skirt.
I press my palm to the coin, the sigil cold against skin.
The archive breathes around me.
Gao nods once, a slow and small gesture.
"Trace quietly," he says.
"Trace quietly," I repeat.
I slip back inside, careful as a reed in wind.
A clerk blocks my path, face bored and hungry.
"Working late?" he asks.
"Copying," I say, voice even.
He leans close, breath warm.
"People notice threads," he whispers.
"Then let them," I answer, steady.
My hands return to the folio.
The mark waits, patient.
I trace it with a fingertip.
A scrap flutters from above and lands at my feet.
I pick it up.
A name.
A date circled.
A token pressed flat in folded paper.
"Someone keeps secret notes," I tell Xiao Mei, low.
"Find the hand," she says, eyes bright.
"Find the hand," I echo.
Gao slips in like dusk.
"Mind where you look," he warns, soft.
"Why help?" I ask, blunt.
"Because I was once careless," he says. "I learned to move thin."
"That won't stop them," I say.
"It buys time," Gao replies. "Time is sometimes enough."
A bell rings in the courtyard.
A messenger runs past and pauses, scanning faces.
"Who is the copyist?" he asks, blunt.
"Who?" I answer, pulse loud.
"Orders to check ledgers," he says. "Someone flagged unusual imports."
My stomach drops.
"Who flagged it?" I force out.
"No name," he says. "Only urgency."
Xiao Mei presses against the shelf, breath sharp.
"Hide the copy," she says, frantic.
"Where?" I ask.
"Inside the scroll tube," Gao suggests, hand pointing to old chest.
"Good," I whisper.
I slide the folio into the hollow and seal it with cloth.
My fingers shake like new soldiers.
I wrap the Clan chart in oilcloth and press it to my chest.
The coin in my palm feels cold and heavy.
"Tomorrow you must not linger," Gao says, low and final.
"Tomorrow," I repeat.
Xiao Mei grabs my sleeve hard.
"Don't pull the thread," she hisses. "They'll come for more than paper."
"They'll come for anything tied to you," she adds, voice raw.
"Then I go alone," I say, because choices break into two.
"Promise you won't drag others," she begs.
"Promise," I answer, measured and small.
Night breathes cold through the archways.
Lanterns swing, guards move slow.
Two cloaked men pass, hands near chests.
I hug the hidden folio and the coin to my ribs.
I count one, two, three and step into the county records building.
My hands go steady now, fingers folding the copy tight.
The ledger hums like a breath.
I step forward into risk.
Which do I choose?
Save them or follow the mark?