The hall didn't empty right away. People lingered like they were waiting to see if I'd burst into flames or get dragged out by my ankles. Some still sneered, others whispered like the wind carried secrets and they were trying to catch one before it slipped away.
I could feel their doubt crawling across my skin, same way I could still feel Veylan's stare long after he was gone.
"Is that it, then?" I said, voice low. "We won and now we just… wait for them to erase us anyway?"
Hecate didn't answer right away. She was still standing near the podium, fingers drumming on the edge like she was listening for something that wasn't there.
The boy and his mother had left already. Guards escorted them out the side door. I hoped they were headed somewhere safe, if such a thing even existed in a place like this.
"We bought time," Hecate said finally, her voice unreadable. "That's all Clause K-Nine does. It doesn't erase the debt. It just stops the blade from falling—for now."
I rubbed my face with both hands. I was exhausted. Not just physically, but in that soul-heavy way that feels like you've used up more of yourself than you should have.
"I don't think I can do this," I muttered. "Whatever this is."
"You already are," she said.
"That's not comforting."
"Wasn't meant to be."
The auctioneer was still behind the podium, pretending to sort papers but glancing at us every few seconds like we might explode if he stopped watching.
A few stragglers passed us on the way out—one of them, a sharp-faced man in a yellow vest, made a point to bump me with his shoulder and mutter, "Next time, stay out of things that don't concern you."
I opened my mouth, but Hecate grabbed my arm before I could say anything.
"Let it go," she said under her breath. "You're not ready to win that fight."
Outside, the Wharf was quieter. The sky above had shifted to that sickly purple haze that passed for evening here. Tidewater licked at the posts beneath our feet, and the damp air clung to everything.
We walked without talking, threading through alleys and over slick wooden bridges.
It wasn't until we reached a small, crooked platform behind a shuttered apothecary that Hecate finally spoke again.
"You want to survive?"
I turned. "That depends. On what exactly is trying to kill me."
She didn't laugh. She didn't even smile. "The Syndic."
"I figured," I said, sitting heavily on a crate. "I just don't get it. I made up a clause. That's all. Why is that worth sending people after me?"
Hecate crouched beside a lantern hook and lit the wick with a silver sparkstone. The flame flared, casting her face in gold-edged shadows.
"It's not just the clause," she said. "It's what the clause implies. That people can resist. That the Ledger isn't absolute. You forced it to bend, and worse, you did it in public."
"But I didn't break anything. The boy still owes the debt."
She nodded. "True. But the Syndic doesn't care about technicalities. They care about control. You challenged their machinery. That makes you dangerous."
I let that sink in for a moment.
"I didn't ask for this," I said.
"No one ever does."
We sat in silence for a while, the tide sloshing softly below. Somewhere across the Wharf, bells chimed, dull and heavy, marking the shift to third cycle. That meant the outer ledgers were closing. Shops boarding up. Guards rotating.
"Okay," I said finally, pushing myself to my feet. "So what now? Do we just hide in alleys until they forget about us?"
"No," she said. "Now we move."
"Where?"
"To the place they don't want us to go."
That was all she said before she started walking.
I didn't have the energy to argue.
Hecate led us deeper into the Wharf than I'd ever been. Past the last of the market piers, past the half-sunken taverns and the leaning towers where outlaws lived behind sealed shutters.
We crossed a bridge made of scrap planks lashed together with fishing rope and descended into a district I didn't even know had a name.
The water below was thicker here, choked with algae and refuse. The air smelled like something had drowned in it and never quite finished dying.
The buildings leaned like they were drunk. Moss and rust climbed every surface. Cracks in the wood exposed slick bones of rot underneath.
"This is Hollowbend," Hecate said quietly. "The Syndic's blind spot."
"That seems impossible."
"Even rot has corners," she said.
We passed a man asleep on a coil of ropes, a bottle cradled in his arms like a child. His face was pockmarked and streaked with ink tattoos. As we stepped over him, he opened one bleary eye.
"Clause K-Nine," he slurred. "Nice trick. Won't save you though."
I kept walking.
A minute later, we stopped in front of what looked like an abandoned drydock warehouse. Its doors hung open like broken jaws. The floor inside was damp and littered with crushed crate wood, but a faint glow pulsed from somewhere in the back.
Hecate ducked inside. I followed.
At the far wall, she pushed aside a stack of rusted barrels and revealed a trapdoor. Beneath it was a ladder that descended into blackness.
"You go first," she said.
I looked at her. "What is this place?"
"Records," she said. "The kind the Syndic doesn't want people to know still exist."
I didn't ask more questions. I climbed.
The air below was colder, but cleaner. As I reached the bottom, a row of flickering blue mage-lanterns flared to life, casting pale light over the room.
It wasn't a cellar. It was a vault.
Shelves lined the walls, thick with scrolls and ledgers bound in seals I didn't recognize. Racks of iron drawers filled the center, each one labeled in ink so faded it was barely legible.
"What is this?" I whispered.
"This," Hecate said, stepping down beside me, "is the old Ledger. The one from before the Syndic rewrote it."
My breath caught.
"I didn't even know there was a before."
"Most people don't. They've forgotten. Or they were made to forget."
She walked to one of the shelves and pulled down a scroll sealed with a blue thread. She unrolled it and held it up so I could see.
"These are names," she said. "Names that were erased. Illegally. Silently. This scroll is full of people who didn't default. Their names were sold anyway."
I swallowed. "How is that even possible?"
"Because no one stopped them," she said. "Because people believed the Ledger couldn't be wrong."
I stepped closer. The names were written in tight, neat lines. Hundreds of them. Each one crossed out with a red slash.
"That's why they care about Clause K-Nine," I said quietly.
She nodded. "It's not about the clause. It's about the belief. You made the Ledger blink. That terrifies them."
I stared at the scroll for a long time.
"What do we do with this?"
She met my eyes. "We show it to someone who still has the power to burn the Syndic down."
"And who would that be?" I asked.
Her smile didn't reach her eyes.
"We're going to find out."