Tamsin turns the current accession volume toward herself and runs a finger down the columns. "A17. Here." She angles the book so we can both read it, keeping her hand flat on the page — her habit, I suppose, to stop anyone lifting the register.

The entry is fresh ink, dated this morning. Received from Black Archive intake, under seal, contents not inspected. Courier: Rowan Fen. Recipient: ward records office.

"There," Tamsin says, and taps the recipient line. "Notice what's missing. Every intake entry in this book carries a street. North Street, Copper Market Row, Quay Lane — the address column is the point of the column. This one says only 'ward records office.' No street at all."

Which is its own small oddity. The card named two streets. The register named none. Between them, the parcel is addressed everywhere and nowhere.

"Whose hand is the entry in?" I ask. "Yours?"

"No." She says it without hedging. "The courier signed in my presence, but the entry itself came across with the parcel, written at your archive before transfer. Standard practice when a parcel passes between offices under seal — the originating office records it, the receiving office countersigns." She turns the book slightly. "My countersign is there, bottom corner. The main entry isn't my hand and I can't tell you whose it is. I recognize most of the archive's writers by now. This one I don't."

She pulls a slip of paper and copies the entry out in full — date, courier, recipient line, both signatures — then blots it and holds it out to you.

"You can have the copy. It costs nothing and it's a fair record of what this book says, which is not the same as what's true." A dry note enters her voice. "For the record, parcels addressed without a street are rare but not unheard of. Usually it means the sender didn't know the address. Usually."

Usually. She left the other case unsaid on purpose.

"Anything else while you're standing there, or was that the whole of the question?"