By morning, half the lower tiers knew Leon had been called up once and not thrown down after.
Carrion Market did not need official announcements for things like that. It had stairs, eyes, and people who survived by noticing where movement differed from routine. A provisional arrival who climbed the upper spine on his first night and returned with all his blood still in the right place was not gossip exactly. Gossip implied uselessness. This was market weight.
Leon felt it before anyone said anything aloud.
A trader at the water line looked at his tag and then at his face with more interest than contempt. A pair of runners arguing over haul rights near the lower ribs went briefly quiet when he passed. Pell noticed all of it too and seemed far too entertained by the whole thing.
"You're becoming a type," he said while they stood near a cook line pretending to be there for broth and not because the foot traffic gave them cover to talk.
"That sounds unpleasant."
"It is. Very."
Mara stood on Leon's other side and drank from a rough clay cup without comment.
Toma had stayed back at the shelter slot for the morning, not because the leg had failed him, but because Leon could tell he had made a quiet decision not to push it into failure just to prove he still could. That, among many other reasons, made Toma one of the few people here who seemed to understand the difference between strength and waste.
Orren found them before midday.
He came up through the lower lane with the same rope coil over one shoulder as before, though this time the coil was real work rather than convenient cover. He nodded once to Mara, once to Pell, then looked at Leon and said, "Walk."
Mara said, "No."
Orren looked at her. "Not him. You can come and glare if it helps your temperament."
Pell brightened immediately. "Can I come and worsen the atmosphere?"
"No," three people said at once.
Pell looked offended. "You all cooperate at the worst moments."
They walked anyway, because saying no to a Bone Runner in full public view of the lower tier could become a different kind of invitation, and Leon wanted to hear what Orren had decided was worth this much directness.
Orren led them through a side lane between hanging storage bundles and down a sloped boardwalk that ended at a lower rib alcove open to the basin side. Wind came through there in short, salt-cold cuts. No one else stood close enough to hear easily.
Good meeting place, then. Open sightlines, no easy ambush, enough background movement to blur the edges of speech.
Orren set down the rope coil and leaned one shoulder against the rib.
"You move quickly," he said to Leon.
"That depends what I'm moving through."
"Upper attention."
Leon said nothing.
Orren's gaze slid once toward Mara and back. "I told you not to let Quiet Ledger hear you too early."
"And yet here we are."
Orren almost smiled at that. "Do you know what they do to people who fit too neatly?"
Pell, who had absolutely followed them anyway and was now perched on a lower support just within earshot, said, "This seems like a trick question, and I respect it deeply."
Mara did not bother to turn. "How are you alive?"
"Charm."
"Decay," Mara replied.
Orren ignored them both.
"They don't own people," he said to Leon. "That's what makes them worse. Owned people try to break chains. Ledger people build habits. Debts. Patterns. By the time you notice what they've made you useful for, you're defending the arrangement yourself."
"That sounds personal," Leon said.
Orren's expression did not change. "Everything here is personal if you stay long enough."
He pushed off the rib and reached into the rope coil, pulling out a short strip of hide with three marks burned into it. Nothing formal. Route notation, maybe.
"We have a leak," he said.
Mara's eyes narrowed slightly.
Pell sat up straighter.
Orren continued. "Lower scavenger pulls on the west side have been getting cut off too cleanly. Not by bad luck. Somebody's passing route scraps upward or sideways before the teams move. Not enough to kill everyone. Enough to shave the good hauls and leave the dangerous ones."
"That's expensive," Leon said.
"Yes."
"And you want me to do what?"
Orren held out the strip. "Look."