the Registry of Living

The state has found Abigail Cross - twenty-four years after she was declared dead. The problem is that she now lives as June Mercer, with a husband, children, and a life she never consented to surrender. Abigail's mother has spent nineteen years in prison for a murder that never happened. Correcting the conviction should be simple. Instead, the new Office of Identity Continuity decides that one restored truth requires one official name. June's accounts are restricted, her passport is suspended, her family is exposed, and every objection becomes further evidence that the government has found the right woman. Archivist Julian Fayette, journalist Mara Vale, and Nora Kline uncover a system built from the same behavioural methods it was created to repair. Refusal confirms the match. Cooperation confirms it faster. The Registry is not merely finding the missing. It is deciding which version of a person the law is allowed to keep. To free an innocent woman without surrendering another, they must prove that facts can be corrected without granting anyone ownership of the life those facts reveal. The Registry of the Living is Book Four of The Cryptocracy Cycle.