The front door, now hanging by a single hinge, shuddered once, then settled into a gaping maw of blackness. The sub-zero draft rushed across the floorboards, carrying soot from the street. Outside, iron truck doors slammed shut. Only Zenia's shallow wheeze broke the quiet. Tazya stared at the gouges left by Vance's hobnailed boots in the entryway dust. On the cedar table lay the carbon slip Vance had countersigned—a formal municipal registry seal stamped over their names in damp purple ink. “Tazya?” Zenia whispered, pressing both hands against her ribs. “Where did they take him?” Tazya shook her head, a violent, involuntary tremor. “The… the draft. The Solstice Labor Draft. He volunteered.” She recited the words like a broken record, trying to convince herself, trying to make the monstrous reality fit a known, albeit terrible, category. But the pit in her stomach deepened. Vance had pocketed Havel's registry card with a smirk too quick, too neat. She looked around the room, a battlefield of splintered wood, overturned furniture, and scattered personal effects. Vance’s enforcers had done a thorough job. Every item, every fragile piece of their nascent domesticity, lay broken or defiled. Beside the hearth, Havel's stool sat crooked near the box of roofing nails and strips of black tar paper he had bought with his tobacco allowance. She had spent two months waiting for him to betray her, hoarding her ration stubs in an iron tin under the floorboards, sure he was calculating the exact moment to report her. “I need to clean this,” she said, her voice raw, cracking on the last word. “We need to clean this.” Zenia wiped her sleeve across her nose and began picking up chunks of broken lath. Tazya righted the table and stacked the two surviving clay bowls. Zenia gathered loose ledgers, stacking them by the cold stove while the wind whistled through the gap where the hinge had sheared. Tazya moved towards the small, communal wardrobe in the corner, where Havel’s few possessions had been kept. His spare coat, a thick, utilitarian garment, lay crumpled on the floor, tossed aside by the enforcers. She picked it up to shake out the sawdust. Her fingers caught on stiff card stock stitched between the wool facing and the lining. She worked the hem open with her thumbnail. Out slipped an official tri-fold document on municipal watermarked bond, written in Havel's familiar, cramped ink. It was a confession. A meticulously detailed document, dated two days prior, outlining his full responsibility for “all and any instances of ration malfeasance, including but not limited to the acquisition of unlisted foodstuffs, illegal housing occupancy, and the fraudulent presentation of marital status for increased allotment points.” He claimed sole culpability, absolving Tazya and Zenia entirely. His signature, bold and unwavering, sealed the document. Every clause was drafted to survive an audit by the Central Procurator. The ink had dried days ago. He had filed duplicate copies somewhere in the central registry stacks before Vance ever knocked. Zenia, sensing the shift in Tazya’s posture, looked up. “What is it?” Tazya handed her the vellum, her hands shaking. Zenia scanned the dense paragraphs, her fingers tightening on the border. “He filed this before the solstice audit.” “We have to find him,” Tazya declared, the words tearing from her chest. “He can’t… he can’t just disappear like this.” Zenia’s eyes brightened with a sudden, desperate resolve. “The dispatch set under the floorboards,” Zenia said, dropping to her knees by the hearth. She pried loose the loose hearth tile, hauling out the illicit two-way receiver Havel had salvaged from the canal works. “Who can you reach on that?” Tazya asked, kneeling beside her. “A contact. A friend of a friend. From before my illness, when I used to deliver parcels for the Ministry,” Zenia explained, her voice tight with concentration. “A clerk. Name’s Kallen. He owes me a favor.” Zenia spoke in low, clipped murmurs, reciting Havel’s serial number and the district transport manifest code. Tazya kept her back against the broken door frame, watching the empty street. Zenia pressed the earpiece hard against her skull. The copper coil hummed. Her mouth opened, slack. “Zenia. What is on the wire?” Tazya said, gripping her sister's wrist. Zenia looked up, dry-mouthed. “Kallen pulled the transport manifest. Vance routed Havel's transport away from the rail depot. He's listed for summary disposition at the municipal incinerators tonight at midnight.”

The Forged Confession