The fog wrapped us tight as we left the bridge. My knees trembled with the memory of the stairwell, the way ink had become steps and steps had become lies, and lies had become debts that weighed in my chest like stones. I still counted with a stutter—my heart beating in a rhythm I did not quite trust. Three stolen pulses echoed inside me, hollow, unpaid.
Seraphine moved with her usual cold certainty, though I could tell by the set of her jaw she was furious. Not at me—not entirely. At the Ledger. At Rook. At the world for daring to write debts in its own crooked hand.
"You're bleeding," she said at last.
I wiped my mouth and looked at the red smear on my sleeve. "Not as much as I should be."
"That's not reassurance."
"No," I said, "it's accounting."
She stopped suddenly, spun, and pinned me against a dripping wall with her human hand. The iron arm hovered at my chest, pistons sighing. I could feel the heat radiating from its runes.
"You think this is a game," she hissed. "You think words on a page and clever sums will keep you alive. But you are bound now, Varrow. That Ledger will eat you one truth at a time, and you are already too willing to feed it."
Her eyes were close enough that I saw flecks of iron in the grey. I wanted to look away, but her grip refused it.
"I don't want it," I said hoarsely. "I didn't ask for it."
"No one asks for a relic," she snapped. "And yet here you are. So either you learn to stand under its weight, or you break, and the city pays for your collapse."
The iron arm pressed a fraction closer, just enough to remind me how easily ribs crack. Then she let go, turned, and kept walking. The moment passed, but the heat of it lingered in my bones.
We followed the river deeper into the industrial quarter, where the Ferroners kept their forges. The air was alive with sparks and soot, hammer blows ringing like iron sermons. Men and women with soot-streaked faces lifted their heads as Seraphine entered, their gazes flicking to her arm with reverence and fear. The Ferroners respect iron the way priests respect scripture.
A master smith greeted us, his apron stiff with scorch marks. His beard was ashy white, his arms thick as girders. "Inquisitor," he rumbled. "And…your clerk?"
"Temporary ballast," she said automatically.
I scowled. "Archivist."
He ignored me, eyes on her. "What do you require?"
"Rites," she said. "Ferroner's Third."
He nodded grimly, as if already knowing she wouldn't ask without cause. "Come, then."
The forge's belly glowed red, heat pressing against us like a living thing. Chains hung from beams, etched with sigils that shimmered faintly in the firelight. The master smith drew a length of iron rod from the coals, hammered it thrice, and plunged it into a basin of dark oil that hissed like serpents.
He pulled it free and turned to me. "Hold out your hand."
I froze. "What?"
"Ferroner's Third Rite: The Spine of Iron. Strength enough to stand when flesh falters. But it needs a host. The inquisitor cannot carry both candle and chain. You are the ledger-bearer. You'll need it."
Seraphine gave me a look like a blade's edge. "Do it."
My hand shook as I extended it. The master pressed the still-glowing rod into my palm. It burned, not just flesh but deeper—into marrow, into the mark where the candle already flickered. Pain lanced up my arm, white and searing. I bit down on a cry, but it came anyway, ragged and raw.
The sigil etched itself in heat across my wrist: a spine drawn in iron strokes, each vertebra a clause. The Ledger flared open in my coat without touch:
New Rite: Ferroner's Third — Spine of Iron.
Form: Skeletal reinforcement.
Edict:Hammerfall — unleash stored kinetic force through a strike.
Cost: Endures strain; each use weakens marrow.
I doubled over, gasping. The world swam red-gold, the hammer blows of the forge echoing inside my skull. But I felt it—strength humming in my bones, like steel threaded through flesh.
The master smith withdrew the rod, quenched it, and turned away without ceremony. "He'll live," he said. "If he's careful. If not, he'll snap like wire."
Seraphine put a hand on my shoulder, firm, grounding. "Stand up, Varrow. You're not ballast anymore. You're carrying weight."
I staggered to my feet. The candle mark on my palm flickered faintly beside the new iron spine carved into my wrist. Light and steel, truth and weight, both mine now whether I wanted them or not.
Outside, the city's bells rang the quarter. The sound seemed sharper than before, clearer, as though each peal struck bone as well as air.
The Ledger whispered, satisfied:
Rights Acquired: Candle and Spine.
Obligations: Endure. Count. Pay.
I closed the book with shaking hands, though I knew it would never really close again. Seraphine watched me with a look I couldn't read—half approval, half pity.
"We hunt Rook," she said. "Now you have more than ink to bring to the chase."
I swallowed the pain, felt the new strength coiled in my marrow, and wondered how many more truths and bones I could spend before the Ledger decided the sum of me was paid in full.
—End of Chapter 6—