A Courier's Water-Ruined Note

The scrap still in the drowned courier's satchel: half a route, a false seal named, and the word Highbridge — the thread the forged Vandahl seal runs on.

Oilcloth kept most of it, but the water took the rest. What remains: a route, half-legible, that goes down into the drains and does not come back up — he was meant to pass through, not to stay. A line of instruction: carry the Vandahl face to the crossing; do not let the checkpoint hold you; the seal is good enough to pass a tired eye. And underlined twice, the one word the ink held: Highbridge. He never reached it. The drains had him near the mouth, close enough to taste the grass, and the seal he carried is still cut a stroke wrong — a forgery good enough to walk cargo through the House's own gates, and good enough to hang the crew that cut it.