The Leaking Archives

The street was crowded with the preparations for the Great Market, but my eyes were only on the wooden box in his hands.

Lowe showed me a seat-base mold. An early piece from our workshop. The one that was supposed to have been seized and destroyed by the Academy decades ago.

"How is it that the Academy's 'lost' treasures are wandering the streets like this?"

His voice wasn't an accusation, but a question meant to pierce. He knew. He knows that the gap between the Academy's official records and the physical reality of our workshop's output is widening.

If the Academy's archives can be so easily bypassed, or if the items themselves are leaking out through the cracks of their own bureaucracy, then what is the weight of a single 'official' certificate?

I felt the weight of the candle holder in my bag. The 'reverse-striking' error recorded in the archives—an error that physically shouldn't exist in the object itself, yet exists perfectly in the ink.

Lowe’s eyes were searching mine, looking for the boy who used to hide behind the truth. I didn't answer him. I can't. Not yet.

I am merely a student. A student who must follow the rules of the ink, even when the metal tells a different story.