Toma took the medicine without complaint, which was how Leon knew the leg hurt more than he was showing.
Mara cleaned the wound first, because she trusted her own hands more than anyone else's and because Toma let her, which was its own kind of answer. The cut along the shin had gone stiff and hot around the edges, not infected yet but close enough to make delay a bad idea. The binding came away with dried blood stuck to the cloth, and Pell looked elsewhere with exaggerated concentration while Mara worked.
Leon set the purchased bundles down and leaned against the upright support near the edge of the compartment.
"You paid less than I expected," Mara said without looking up.
"Trade Row is full of charitable elders," Pell replied at once.
Leon said, "We paid in timing."
Mara glanced up at him briefly, then back to Toma's leg. "That sounds like the sort of sentence that becomes trouble later."
"It usually does," Pell said.
Toma exhaled through his teeth as Mara tightened the fresh wrap. "Did you make any enemies?"
Leon considered the question honestly. "Not confirmed."
"That's encouraging," Toma muttered.
Pell stretched out on the platform and folded both hands under his head. "He impressed a trader, annoyed at least one listener, and got warned about something called Quiet Ledger, which means yes, but in a refined way."
Mara's hands paused for a fraction of a second.
"Who warned you?"
"Bone Runner named Orren," Leon said.
Now that got a full look from her.
Toma noticed it too. "That matters?"
Mara tied off the binding and sat back. "Everything matters here."
Pell made a thoughtful sound. "I hate it when she says reasonable things before I do."
"You almost never do," Mara replied.
"That's unfair. I do it occasionally by accident."
Toma's leg was rewrapped, the medicine used as far as made sense, and the four of them had, for the first time since arriving, something close to a compartment shape that might have passed for temporary order. The problem was that Carrion Market had no interest in allowing stillness to harden into comfort.
Someone stopped outside their shelter slot.
Not the uncertain pause of a passerby deciding whether the next compartment was theirs. A deliberate stop.
Leon looked up first.
A young runner stood there holding a strip of folded cloth sealed with a dark cord. He wore no armor and no visible weapon besides a narrow knife at the back of the belt, but he had the same Market ease the others did, the sense of someone who did not fear low-tier space because it belonged to his routines.
"For Leon," he said.
Pell sat up at once. "That was fast."
Leon stepped forward and took the folded strip.
The runner did not leave immediately. He waited just long enough for Leon to open it.
Inside was a narrow piece of treated cloth with a single clean line written in dark ink.
Upper trade spine. Third rib landing. Come alone.
No name.
No explanation.
Only a small mark pressed into the corner in red wax.
Not a symbol Leon recognized.
Not one he liked.
Mara stood.
"No."
Pell craned his neck. "That is a very dramatic little message."
Toma held out a hand. "Let me see."
Leon passed him the strip.
The runner spoke then, because of course the room had not contained enough irritation already.
"Now would be better," he said.
Mara turned toward him with a face so flat it had become dangerous. "Who sent it?"
"I was told to deliver it."
"By who?"
He hesitated.
Pell made a delighted little noise. "Ah. So that means by someone who expects the question to work."
The runner looked at Pell and visibly regretted acknowledging him as alive.
Leon said, "How long has this been waiting?"
"Not long."
Another half-answer.
Useful in its own way.
Mara took the cloth from Toma's hand and read it herself. "You're not going alone."
The runner said, "It says alone."
Pell tilted his head. "That seems rude. We're a package now."
No one rewarded that.
Leon looked at the cloth again.
This was exactly the kind of invitation that killed stupid people, and exactly the kind of refusal that also killed them, just with more delay and less information.
More important than the danger of going was the timing.
They had been in Market shelter barely long enough to wash blood from one wound and bind another. Which meant someone had watched the approach, heard about Trade Row, or both. Fast interest. Deliberate interest. That narrowed the kind of sender.
Not Bone Runner. Too neat.
Not random trader. Too high a location.
Someone from farther up.
Mara said, "Say no."
Leon looked at her.
"On what grounds?" he asked quietly.
"That we don't know them."
"That's probably why they asked."
"It's still a trap."
"Yes."
Pell raised one finger. "To be fair, everything here appears to be a trap with furniture."
Toma handed the cloth back to Leon. "Then don't go blind."
There it was.
Not yes.
Not no.
The actual workable answer.
Leon looked at the runner. "Tell whoever sent this that I'll come. Not alone, not openly, and not stupid. If that offends them, they should've written a warmer note."
The runner stared at him for a second as if deciding whether repeating that message would shorten his own life in some unpleasant way.
Then he nodded once. "I'll pass it."
He left.
The compartment stayed quiet after that, though the quiet had changed.
Mara folded her arms. "That was not agreement."
"No," Leon said. "It was shape."
Pell looked between them. "I don't know what that means, but it sounded expensive."
Toma rested both forearms on his knees and thought for a moment. "Upper trade spine means they want height, control, and a cleaner line of exit than down here."
"Or they want him to feel seen while still reminding him where he stands," Mara said.
Leon nodded once. "Probably both."
Pell swung his legs down from the platform. "You cannot go alone."
"I know."
"You also cannot take all of us, because that would look defensive and desperate."
"Yes."
"And if Mara shadows you, whoever sent this will probably notice."
Mara said, "They'll notice him breathing too. That isn't useful."
Pell ignored her and pointed at himself. "I am, against all reason, the answer."
Three people looked at him.
He spread his hands. "I don't mean beside him. I mean elsewhere. I know lower routes, side ladders, the ways people stop looking at someone if he belongs there long enough. You need eyes, not company."
Toma said, "He's right."
Pell put a hand to his chest. "That's twice in one day. I'm becoming unbearable."
Mara thought it through, and Leon could see the point where she stopped arguing with the shape of it and started refining it instead.
"I go too," she said. "Not close. Not visible unless needed."
Pell groaned softly. "That's less elegant."
"That's survival."
Toma stayed where he was. The leg had made the decision for him before anyone needed to. He did not seem pleased by that, but he accepted it faster than many people would have.
"I stay here," he said. "If this goes wrong and somebody comes asking questions, better one of us is where we're expected to be."
Leon looked at him, then at Mara, then at Pell.
A few days ago, if a few days could even be called a real measurement anymore, he would have hated this arrangement on principle. Too many moving parts. Too much trust demanded too early. Too much room for someone else to shape the outcome.
Now he understood the darker version of the truth.
He needed them.
Not sentimentally. Not yet.
Structurally.
That was more dangerous.
Pell was already on his feet, talking through routes under his breath and revising them halfway through the sentence. Mara checked the angle of her spear, then stopped, thought, and left it behind in favor of the shorter blade at her hip. Toma leaned back against the wall and watched them all with the tired expression of a man who had accepted that his life now included far too many difficult people.
Leon tucked the cloth inside his coat and looked up through the gaps in the shelter roof toward the higher levels of Carrion Market, where the ribs curved overhead and the better platforms held the last of the evening light.
Someone up there had decided he was worth inviting.
That was not good news.
And as he stepped out of the compartment to answer the invitation, he had the very strong feeling that whatever waited on the third rib landing had been watching him since before Trade Row.