"Why market day?" Lissy asks.
Caden shrugs. "He likes the noise. Nobody watches anybody when the whole street is shouting."
Pa looks at the evidence again for a long moment. "We cannot break into a duke's property."
"No," Lissy agrees. “But I know who can.”
Everyone turns toward her.
"The Crown can."
Pa studies her. "The Crown requires cause."
She gestures at the muslin covering his desk. "Then let's give it cause."
"Then we build the case," I say.
She meets my eyes across her own chart. "Yes."
Not I.
We.
It takeseight days to turn Lissy's map into a case the Crown can carry.
She stays at the Hall. On the first evening I tell her she doesn't have to.
We're in the small library beside Pa's study. Brynna has gone off in search of a tariff schedule she claims one of the footmen moved, as though footmen commonly steal shipping documents for entertainment.
"What about your shop?" I ask.
Lissy doesn't look up from the letter she's copying. "Arabella has a key. Grammy can take messages."
"You have fittings."
"I moved them."
"For how long?"
"A week."
"And if it takes longer than that?"
She finally looks at me. "If the Vosses own my street by autumn, none of those fittings will matter. Even if they don’t own my shop, they can squeeze me out in different ways."
There is nothing to say to that. She dips her pen again.
"Lyra will make sure nobody panics," she adds. Then she stops with a short chuckle. "No. Lyra will make sure everybody panics in the correct direction. Arabella will handle the rest."
That sounds more likely.
On the second day, couriers begin arriving from Starling Vale. Arabella sends mill receipts and statements from three suppliers. Lyra sends June's accounts, two lease letters, and a note informing us that Petra at the flower stall has panicked quite usefully. Noemi sends her inventory record for the stolendraught along with a signed statement describing its effects, and then Noemi herself arrives, because Ma refuses to trust magical evidence to paper alone.
Pa writes to the trade council. Duran Ironhoof's cousin brings us a Crown auditor who has wanted an excuse to inspect the Merreach books for two years. Kenna rides from dockmaster to dockmaster and collects statements from every captain forced to accept Voss prices.
Brynna builds the figures. Lissy makes them understandable.
Every morning another section of muslin appears across the library table. Lissy pins each new account into place while Brynna checks every total twice, and they work together disturbingly well.
