Page 78 of Warrior’s Mate

"My granddaughter," he said. "Tavi Meral. Seven years old. Her mother was killed at the south market. I was told Tavi boarded a transport."

Maelis pulled the name search. Three entries appeared. Tavi Meral — missing, South Market.

Tavi Meral — child transfer, unidentified destination.

T. Meral — Carrier Nine.

Maelis's pulse jumped. "What color was her coat?"

The old man looked down at the garment in his hands. "Blue. She wasn't wearing it. I found it at the market."

"Does she have a scar or family mark?"

"Small white line under her chin. Fell from an orchard ladder when she was four."

Maelis opened the intake notes from Carrier Nine.

There. Female child, approximately seven. Scar under chin. Transferred with other unaccompanied minors to the east school shelter after Central Relief exceeded capacity.

The destination field had been entered in a free-text note rather than the transfer column. Maelis stood too quickly and her knee protested.

"She's alive."

The man's face did not change at first.

"What?"

"She's alive. East school shelter. She arrived less than two hours ago."

He gripped the edge of the table.

Maelis sent the reunification request and watched for confirmation. The old man covered his face with both hands.

This, she thought, was why names mattered. Not because records were orderly. Because somewhere inside every line was someone waiting to learn whether the universe still contained the person they loved.

The old man with Tavi's coat returned forty minutes later, this time with the child herself beside him.

Tavi had a bandage over one ear and the stunned, over-alert expression Maelis had begun seeing in children who had been brave for too many hours. Her grandfather kept one hand on her shoulder as though the station might take her again if he loosened his grip.

"You found her," Maelis said.

"You did," the man answered.

Tavi looked at Maelis. "Grandfather says you knew where I was."

"Your records knew. I just made them talk to one another."

The child's brow furrowed. "Records don't talk."

"Most days they don't. Today they have been extremely argumentative."

Tavi considered this and then, solemnly, handed Maelis a small dried orchard blossom crushed nearly flat between her fingers. "For helping."

Maelis took it as carefully as if it were made of glass. "Thank you."

After they left, she placed the blossom beside her terminal.

The gesture steadied her more than she expected. She had spent the day converting lives into fields because fields were what systems could carry: name, age, location, status, destination. But Tavi was not a record. She was a child who had fallen from an orchard ladder at four, who had a grandfather who carried her coat, who had decided a damaged flower was sufficient payment for being found.