When a provincial edict tries to "harmonize" Lydra's rites, the city answers with something older than law and sharper than revolt: questions.

Tamsin—knife-worker, reluctant clerk, expert at making rooms behave—joins a small, stubborn crew: Cassian the river pilot whose attention starves bad magic; Sera whose commas cut cleaner than swords; Orra the clock of any room; and Irie, a chemist who teaches objects to ask before they obey. Together they retune halls, docks, markets and roads so that frames—rails, thresholds, bells, fonts—carry consent, not commands.

Each win uncovers a deeper knot: Annex Aux riding "courtesy," platforms hiring echoes, a wireroom selling consensus hats—and, beneath the Loom, a hidden bridge that lets rites ride law under a false owner named "No One." To anchor the truth, Tamsin's crew will spend a single, forbidden tool—the UNWRITTEN spool—not to erase the past but to .............