Nyra laid the two folded records beside each other without opening either one.
The red cord around Vhar's source offer had been cut from the same spool as the cord around Elara's comparison order. That proved very little by itself because the Academy issued cord by the basket, but the wax beneath each knot carried the same shallow drag along its lower edge.
One press had marked both folds.
Nima sat on the comparison-yard bench with her loosened wrist strap hanging between both hands. Elara stood nearby, turning the practice shield while a worker checked its warped steel rim. Neither woman had left before learning what the paper said about them.
Vhar remained beyond the bench with his crossed scabbards clear of the passing workers. His new body had recovered quietly throughout the morning, though nothing about his stillness told the yard how much force it contained.
Nyra pointed to the wax. "Who brought these together?"
The evidence runner shifted his empty satchel. "They were waiting in one dispatch sleeve at the lower records hatch, but I signed for the sleeve, not the documents inside it."
"Did the hatch worker see both?"
"She opened the sleeve in front of me because one record required a witness seal, and I watched her place both under the cord."
Elara rested the shield against the rack. "So the same hand did not necessarily write them, but somebody wanted them traveling as one task."
"Yes," Nyra said, grateful that Elara had named the limit before anyone inflated the evidence. "I need the dispatch sleeve, the hatch handprint, and the press that made this wax."
The runner looked toward the lane he had just crossed. "I can take you back, although the hatch closes when the meal bell sounds."
Nima stood. "What happens to my result while you look?"
"Nothing changes without another signed action," Nyra said. "Stay with Elara until I return because the order placed both of you under the same witness chain."
"That's protection. Or a warning."
"Take it as both, and stay close."
Nyra took the unopened records. Vhar fell into step beside her, but she stopped before the gate.
"I need the chain to remain mine," she said. "If you enter the records hatch after receiving the source offer, every guarded official will watch you instead of the paper."
"That seems unfair to my quiet manner."
"Your quiet manner destroyed a proof yard yesterday."
"I hit it harder than I meant to."
Despite herself, Nyra smiled. "Wait with them."
He looked back at Nima and Elara, then nodded. "Bring back what the paper can prove."
The runner led Nyra through a covered passage toward the lower records hatch. They moved quickly enough that conversation had to fit around breath, workers, and two handcarts coming the other way.
At the hatch, an older worker was already lowering the wooden shutter.
"Not yet," the runner called. "She needs the sleeve I carried to the comparison yard."
"Everyone needs something when my food is getting cold."
Nyra placed both folds beneath the open shutter. "These traveled together, and one assigned a living student to a failing lane, so I need to know who joined them before someone decides the cord means nothing."
The worker stopped lowering the shutter. Her eyes found the wax drag immediately.
"That press sticks when the handle is turned too far left," she said. "It belongs to the sponsor-dispatch cabinet, not this hatch."
She brought out the discarded sleeve from a sorting basket. Its inside carried two wax crumbs, a gray thread, and a rectangular pressure mark where a rigid authorization plate had lain against the paper.
The runner offered his receipt. His thumbprint time matched the hatch ledger, while the worker's handprint proved she had opened the sleeve and found both records together.
"Who can use the sponsor cabinet?" Nyra asked.
"The evidence office can read its outgoing number, but the protected register owns the authorizing name. I only verify that the plate and dispatch agree."
"Did they?"
The worker turned the sleeve toward the light. "They agreed so well that I did not ask why a source offer and body comparison shared one plate."
Her anger landed on herself before it reached anyone else.
Nyra softened her voice without softening the question. "Can you prove that agreement now?"
"I can prove the plate impression, cabinet press, sleeve number, and both contents. If the evidence office opens the protected reference, it can prove who had authority."
"That is enough for the chain."
The worker reopened the shutter fully. She placed the sleeve on white cloth, fixed its four corners beneath plain glass weights, and pressed her hand into the witness strip. The runner added his thumb beside hers.
A dark-coated House Severin courier entered the passage before Nyra could sign.
He was the same man who had carried away her lineage plate after she broke the hidden seal. This time he held a narrow written notice instead of silver.
"Your House reader learned that you remained beside another sponsored body comparison," he said. "House Severin will not contest discipline arising from your personal intervention, and it will provide no witness escort for records outside your assigned Academy work."
The hatch worker became intensely interested in arranging her glass weights.
Nyra read the notice. Her direct archive route was already gone. This removed something less visible but no less practical: if the Academy punished her for opening the protected reference, House Severin would call it her private choice rather than interference with its blood.
"They sent this before I opened either record," she said.
"They sent it because you asked the runner to preserve the sleeve."
House attention had reached the passage almost as quickly as she had.
"Do you need my answer in writing?"
"Only if you reject the notice's terms."
"The choice is mine. Calling it personal doesn't make the evidence disappear."
The courier's expression changed by very little. "That is not a rejection."
"No, but you may repeat it accurately."
He bowed and left. Nyra waited until his coat passed beyond the turn before setting the notice beside the sleeve. House Severin's withdrawal now carried a time, a messenger, and a physical page. It could not later become protection she had secretly retained.
She signed the witness strip.
The sponsor reference on the source offer matched the one on Elara's comparison order. It also matched the protected authorization family that had moved the altered meter, although the evidence officer alone could open the next layer.
Nyra did not need the hidden name yet. She needed the remaining tissue to travel where one authorization could not choose every eye around it.
"Who currently witnesses source transfer?" she asked.
The worker checked the route sheet. "One evidence officer, one source-room carrier, and whichever sponsor representative presents the plate."
"Add the meter reader who discovered the early movement, the comparison-yard runner who carried both records, and one worker selected after the route is posted."
"The sponsor may object."
"Record the objection in front of the added witnesses."
The worker looked at the cooling meal wrapped beneath her stool, then at the sleeve that had turned routine handling into personal risk. "I will select the worker myself."
She amended the route in thick black ink, pressed the hatch seal across the change, and sent one copy to the source room before Nyra left. The physical witness list no longer belonged to the protected authorization alone.
The evidence runner read the amended names over her shoulder. "You added me because I carried the sleeve."
"You saw the two records joined before anyone knew we would compare them."
"I also delivered them without asking why."
"You still saw them joined. Ask the question next time, and keep watching."
He folded his receipt more carefully than before. "Will I lose dispatch work for this?"
Nyra could have promised the Academy would protect him, but she controlled neither his supervisor nor the sponsor cabinet. "Possibly. Keep your original receipt on you, and give the evidence office a copy before the evening ledger closes. If someone changes your route, make them mark when and why."
"That sounds like expecting trouble."
"If this goes wrong, your memory of it won't help you. Keep the receipt close."
The hatch worker pushed her untouched meal toward him. "Eat half while you copy the receipt. You run badly when you are frightened, and I need you faster than whoever wants that sleeve."
He laughed once, though his hands still trembled. They split the meal over the preserved evidence while Nyra watched the first copy leave through a different corridor from the amended source route.
When Nyra returned to the comparison yard, Nima was eating from a paper wrap while Elara repaired the torn edge of her wrist strap. Vhar had moved no closer to the source offer.
Nyra gave the authenticated copy to the evidence runner and kept the House notice visible in her own hand.
"The same protected reference carried both records," she said, "and it belongs to the authorization family that moved the meter. I changed the source-transfer witnesses before the remaining tissue leaves its room."
Elara tied off the repaired strap. "What did that cost you?"
"House Severin will not shield me from Academy discipline over this evidence."
Nima looked at the notice, then at the strap Elara returned to her. "They removed your protection because you asked who put me in the lane?"
"They removed it because I kept asking after the answer became expensive."
Vhar's gaze settled on the new witness list. "Can the transfer still be moved?"
"Yes, but not quietly, and not with the same people choosing the route and every witness."
Three copies left the yard by different routes: one in the runner's coat, one beneath the hatch worker's seal, and one folded against Nyra's House notice. Whoever reached for the tissue next would have to choose which witness to expose first.
The protected name remained hidden, but taking the tissue now would cost far more than it had this morning.