Mara closed her eyes. The certificate wasn’t a lie—it was a prayer. And in Cambodia, sometimes that was the only export that cleared customs.

The wood was alive.

The phytosanitary certificate .

Powderpost beetle.

Sophea shrugged. “The certificate needs a lab stamp. Come back tomorrow.”

She looked at the Buddha in her lap—a reject from the crate, its base chipped. A tiny hole, no bigger than a needle’s eye, stared back. She blew on it. Fine sawdust puffed out.

“The species code. Mangifera indica ? Mango wood is high risk for Ceratocystis fimbriata —a fungus that can kill French plane trees.”

Now, at 4:47 p.m., a clerk named Sophea scrolled through a green-screen computer from the 1990s.