Tamsin holds up a hand before I can speak, because the question is aimed at her and she knows it.

"Let me be exact, since you're asking me to be." She taps the countersign in the corner of the entry. "This morning the courier, Rowan Fen, stood at this desk and signed the register in my presence. The main entry had come across with him, already written. My countersign attests to what I witnessed: his signature, and that this office is recorded as the receiving party. It does not attest that I received, inspected, or took custody of any parcel. I have never seen A17. I could not describe it to you beyond what you've just told me."

She leans back slightly. "And you're right to press the distinction. What I copied for you is a register entry. It is not a delivery receipt. A receipt is issued at this desk only when a parcel physically arrives, I accept it, and I write one out. None of that has happened. If anyone ever shows you a paper claiming I took custody of A17, it didn't come from me."

Which leaves the entry itself sitting oddly. The book says received from Black Archive intake. The parcel is in my locked drawer. The record runs ahead of the fact, or describes something that didn't happen as written.

I step up to the desk and look at the main entry properly, the way I looked at the card. "Two observations, kept separate. First: the register's recipient line carries no street, which Tamsin already flagged. Second—" I study the hand a moment longer, the loop of the A, the way the numerals lean. "The main entry is not my hand. I write the archive's intake myself; there's no one else who does. So whoever wrote that entry did it under my roof or with my pen, and I can't tell you who."

I straighten up. "The interpretation, labeled as such: the entry reads as though the parcel left the archive this morning under seal. It didn't. It's still mine, still sealed. Either the entry was written in anticipation of a transfer that hasn't occurred, or it's inaccurate. I can't yet say which, and I'd rather not guess in front of a register."

Tamsin snorts softly. "Anticipatory entries are supposed to be marked as such. This one isn't." She pulls the booklet back toward herself, a small motion that closes the topic as neatly as shutting a cover. "That's the desk's answer. Whether it's a slovenly habit or something worse isn't mine to determine from here."

I glance at [traveler name redacted]. "We have a copy of the entry, and now we know precisely what it does and doesn't claim. Nothing has been delivered, nothing received, and the parcel is where we left it. Do you want to ask her anything further, or shall we head back to the archive while the rain holds off?"