The breakthrough came the way most of Wren's discoveries had over the past month, buried in the patient, unglamorous work of cross referencing old records rather than any single dramatic revelation.
She'd been working through the record keeper family's documented history for two days straight, correlating names and dates against the timeline of prior Circle attacks, when a pattern finally surfaced that made her sit back from Ines's desk with a slow, cold certainty settling into her chest.
"Ines," she said, "I need you to look at this."
Ines came over, studying the spread of documents Wren had arranged, ledgers and correspondence spanning nearly a century, and her expression shifted as she followed the pattern Wren had traced.
"The record keeper position wasn't the leak itself," Wren sa
