Chapter 18: The Ally Who Stepped Out
Alistair helped me by removing himself from the room.
On Thursday morning, PageTurn had arranged six chairs around a workshop table and one secure screen for the blind-review briefing. Coffee cooled in identical paper cups, and every place held the same four-criterion card face down beside a sharpened pencil.
I took the chair nearest the window.
Alistair’s name stood third on the provisional independent-publisher panel.
For twelve hopeful seconds, that felt like luck I had not earned and could not trust.
He had seen the discarded marriage pitch and the first clean sentence about Saltmere.
He understood what I had removed to reach it.
Then he placed a signed sheet before the PageTurn moderator.
“I diagnosed Grace Ellison’s proposal yesterday,” he said.
The other panellists looked towards me, not my numbered application.
“I saw no draft,” he continued. “I still influenced the direction before submission.”
The moderator opened the conflict protocol on the shared screen.
Prior recorded pitch feedback did not disqualify my project.
It disqualified the adviser from judging its content, budget, or performance data.
The red boundary covered preliminary ranking, later revision scores, pilot spending, retention results, and every decision that could move money or visibility.
“You could stay for the general briefing,” I said.
I heard the wish inside the suggestion. If Alistair remained, one person at the later table would know why the story had cost me something.
He shook his head.
“If I hear today’s creative discussion, the boundary becomes harder to prove.”
“And if the replacement thinks the new idea is too quiet?”
“Then the pages must make it loud enough,” he said.
He signed three withdrawals: CONTENT REVIEW, BUDGET DECISION, DATA ASSESSMENT.
The moderator countersigned, stored the matching declaration with Alistair’s press, and replaced him with reviewer B-17, who had reported no applicant contact. North Quay played no part.
B-17’s camera showed only a blank wall and a stack of criterion cards; no biography or employer name entered our view.
My application became PT-041.
Oliver and Pippa’s number remained hidden from me.
“What may Alistair do now?” another applicant asked.
“Discuss public industry information available on equal terms,” the moderator said. “Nothing about entries, scores, budgets, or data.”
Alistair slid his chair back.
“The public bookseller directory is still public,” he said, addressing the room rather than me.
That was all he offered.
He took his diagnostic notes with him because his press retained the authorised working record.
I watched him tuck the pages into a black folder, including the circle he had drawn around refused, and fasten its elastic strap.
The door closed, leaving the sixth chair empty until B-17 arrived by video.
I had wanted an ally who could recognise my intention.
What I received was a process in which intention would not matter unless the pages carried it.
The moderator distributed the cold-open criteria.
Immediate danger. Character agency. Narrative question. A voice distinct from any existing property.
Each criterion had the same weight.
No familiar reader, sales history, public scandal, or sympathetic explanation could compensate for a protagonist who did nothing on the page.
My harbour ledger supplied the question.
It supplied fog, missing ink, and a seventh call no authority admitted receiving.
It did not decide what Carys would do when she found it.
I wrote CORPSE at the top of one card.
On another, I wrote SEVENTH CALL.
A body promised immediate danger but belonged to any competent mystery.
The altered call made the threat mine, provided Carys acted before the explanation swallowed her.
At 11:06, the moderator confirmed twenty-eight hours and fifty-six minutes remained on PT-041’s submission clock.
Without Alistair at the review table, I had to decide whether my first page opened on the corpse or the seventh distress call.