Brinna’s trunk took longer because nerves made her clumsy. She fumbled the latch. One glove tore at the seam when she caught it on a clasp. Her letters, tied with blue thread, shook in her hands before an attendant relieved her of them. A little silver thimble, almost certainly harmless, was still listed, wrapped, and placed in restricted keeping because rules had no use for attachment unless catalogued first.
“I am sorry,” Brinna said after dropping a comb case.
“No apology is required,” Halvine replied. “Only steadiness.”
Brinna bent to retrieve the comb case before the attendant could, and in doing so she caught the ribbon fastening on the letter bundle as it slid. Quick fingers. She retied it in one motion without looking down, then handed it over with both hands, as though tidiness might still purchase dignity.
Sabine noticed.
Fear had not made the girl empty. Only overexposed.
Then Sabine’s case and trunk were placed on the table.
She had prepared for this from the moment Halcyr became inevitable.
The notebook had been removed from the obvious pockets the night before departure and stitched into the false lining of the document case beneath a reinforced seam, flat enough not to change the structure, deep enough that a quick inspection would miss it unless the case were taken apart. It had cost her an hour of cramped fingers and one needle bent against old leather.
The attendant opened the trunk. Dresses folded with care. Spare gloves. Linen. Hairpins counted and placed in a row. The grandmother’s proof copies already transferred out and safe among official papers. A narrow silver letter opener she had forgotten she packed and lost without regret.
The document case came next.
Sabine placed it on the velvet pad herself.
“Papers,” said the attendant.
“Marriage settlements, line attestations, district registry copies.”
The woman checked them against the intake slip. Efficient. Suspicious. Not imaginative.
Her fingers traced the side seams of the case, pressed the inner pockets, lifted the flap, checked beneath the paper straps, and moved on.
Sabine did not alter her breathing.
The attendant found nothing.
“Admissible materials retained,” she said.
Halvine looked briefly at Sabine then, as if noting the absence of fuss rather than the contents of the luggage. “You packed for search.”
“I packed for procedure.”
A small pause.
“Good,” Halvine said. “Women who force surprise on themselves become burdens.”
Sabine accepted the insult folded into the approval and said nothing.
Yselle Marrow took the next table.
Of all of them, she managed the inventory best. Not by resisting it. By behaving as though the scrutiny itself merely confirmed her value. Her trunk opened to silk, polished boxes, gloves soft enough to bruise under hard handling, and letters sealed in Marrow wax. One attendant skimmed a page. Yselle did not react. Jewelry was counted; she named family origin for three pieces before the clerk could ask, supplying pedigree with the ease of a woman who understood how to turn even confiscation into display.
Halvine held up an enamel hairpin with a hidden point fine enough to draw blood.
“A decorative hazard,” she said.
“My aunt insisted,” Yselle replied, smiling with perfect regret. “She has always mistaken cleverness for charm.”
A few nearby attendants almost smiled back. That was part of the skill. Yselle made people feel as though receiving her was a form of good judgment.
