I look at the draft again, and the flaw is obvious the moment you name it. I wrote the questions as if I already knew the shape of his answers.

"You're right, and I'll own the error plainly: I don't know where he saw either name. I've had no word from Rowan since he left the parcel this morning. When I drafted, I filled the gap with a plausible route — outward one street, back another — because that's how a courier's day usually runs. Plausible isn't known. That's exactly the habit I was warning him against in the letter, which is an embarrassing way to learn a lesson."

I turn the sheet over and start fresh.

"Revised draft, then. Listen to the shape."

"Rowan — a question about the parcel you left with us, A17. No urgency, no trouble attached. Its card names two streets for the ward records office: North Street and Marsh Lane. What did you actually see on your trip — street signs, markers, gate names, anything — and where? Say what you saw and where you saw it, in whatever order it happened. Don't guess at anything beyond that. — M.V."

I set the pen down. "The differences: I no longer tie either street to a leg of the journey, because I don't know which street he encountered where, or whether he saw both, or neither. I ask for what he saw in the order it happened, so his account comes to us as an observation, not fitted to my expectation. And I don't tell him the card is strange — only that it names two streets. If both names are ordinary to him, that's an answer too."

_If he says he saw one sign on the way out and a different one coming back, that will be worth having precisely because I didn't lead him to it._

I leave the new sheet unfolded beside the first, which I'll keep only as a reminder to myself. "A17 stays on the counter, seal intact. The note stays here, unsent, until you say otherwise. Read it through — and if you catch me assuming again, keep doing exactly what you just did."