“Those are a ship's manifests, rough lists of everything they had with them when they docked.” She tapped the top sheet pointedly. “See if you notice a pattern there.”
I gave them a cursory glance, a question playing on my lips. I had no idea how I was supposed to know how to read a manifest, as she'd called it. As it turned out, I really didn't need to.
“These are blank,” I said. I flipped through each page, and every one was the same as the last: a name of some business, a date set sometime in the last two years, and the same looping signature at the bottom of every one. Not a single item was listed.
“Now, ask yourself this,” the Goodmother said, leaning over my shoulder. She pretended to study the strange documents, but her lips were right next to my ear, and her question was barely
