Ebonbridge wore its mornings like an old robe—frayed, damp, reluctant to shrug from the shoulders. I walked with the weight of the forge still humming in my bones, each step carrying a faint echo, as if iron had threaded itself into my marrow. The sigil of the Spine of Iron burned faintly at my wrist, a constant reminder that I had purchased strength on credit. I wondered, not for the first time, what kind of collector would come for the debt when my marrow ran thin.
Seraphine strode ahead, her coat snapping in the river breeze. She had not spoken since the forge, save for clipped orders about which alley to cut through, which bridge to cross. I knew better than to break her silence. The inquisitor was tallying, weighing, measuring. When she finished, the sum would be a sentence, and I could only hope not to be on the wrong side of it.
We stopped at Saint Aurelius' chapel. It had become a shrine overnight. Crowds pressed around the steps, clutching candles, holding painted icons, whispering prayers thick as smoke. The saint's death had already blossomed into myth, and myth has teeth sharper than fact. Pamphleteers scurried like beetles through the mass, handing out sheets proclaiming Aurelius a martyr, a savior, a false god, a fraud—depending on the ink.
Seraphine cut through the crowd without apology, her iron arm hissing as it brushed past the desperate. A woman tried to thrust a painted relic into her path; Seraphine brushed her aside with a glare that withered piety into fear. I followed close, my own presence drawing whispers: the clerk with the candle, the ledger-bearer, the man who bought breath with lies.
Inside, the chapel was colder. Shadows pooled in the corners, though the morning sun streamed through fractured glass. Aurelius' body lay on a bier before the altar, his skin pale as wax, his lips tinged faint blue—the mark of the miracle that had killed him. Priests circled, chanting low, their voices thick with fear disguised as devotion.
I felt it before I saw it: a pulse. My hand went to my chest instinctively, but it was not my heart that stumbled. It was the room. A second beat, faint and hollow, rippled through the air like the aftershock of thunder. I staggered. Seraphine caught my shoulder with her human hand, steadying me.
"You felt it," she said. Not a question.
I nodded. "The saint's heart…still beats."
The Ledger writhed against my ribs, demanding to be opened. I gave in. The page flared with ink:
Phenomenon: Residual Heartbeat, Saint Aurelius.
Assessment: Borrowed. Source uncertain.
Directive: Witness. Deadline: Sundown.
The second beat came again, shaking the candles on the altar, making the glass tremble in its leaden frames. The priests faltered in their chant. One dropped his censer with a clatter, spilling ash across the flagstones.
Seraphine's jaw tightened. "Someone is using his corpse as a ledger."
The thought turned my stomach. "A saint's heart is currency now?"
"It always was," she said grimly. "Faith is debt. Saints are collateral."
The heartbeat pulsed again, stronger, and this time I saw the threads—thin lines of blue light spilling from Aurelius' chest, weaving out through the chapel walls like veins. They ran into the city, stretching far, connecting to unseen bodies. Each pulse carried a little more of him away.
I staggered, clutching the pew for balance. "He's paying someone's bill."
Seraphine followed the lines with her gaze, then cursed softly. "Rook."
Of course it was him. The Masked Thespian, the debtor of breath, the actor who turned miracles into stagecraft. He was siphoning Aurelius' death, turning the saint's last sacrifice into a reservoir of stolen credit.
"We have to sever it," I said. My voice trembled. "Before the city drowns in debts not its own."
Seraphine nodded. "The question is how."
The Ledger's pages flicked violently, as if amused by the question. New words bled across the parchment:
Option One: Redline. Cost: One shared secret.
Option Two: Spine of Iron. Cost: Three marrow beats.
Option Three: Candle. Cost: One deeper truth.
I read the options aloud. The priests muttered louder, clutching their beads, as though the Ledger's voice had reached them too. Seraphine stared at me, her face unreadable.
"You can't keep feeding it truths," she said. "It will strip you bare."
"And marrow doesn't grow back quickly," I muttered, staring at the sigil burning on my wrist.
"Secrets, then," she said. "Give it one you can live without."
But what secret could I part with? The Ledger had already stolen my most shameful envy. What was left would cut closer to the bone.
The second heartbeat thundered through the chapel, rattling the pews. Blue threads blazed, pulling tighter, stretching farther. I saw faces in the glow—dockhands, merchants, children—all breathing with Aurelius' stolen pulse.
"Choose," Seraphine urged. "Now."
I closed my eyes. The Ledger's options burned in me like coals. I reached for the candle mark on my palm, the iron spine at my wrist, the aching hollow in my chest where three beats were missing. Truth, marrow, secrets—each a coin I could spend, each a debt I would never escape.
The saint's second heartbeat slammed through me again. I gasped, and the choice tore itself from my throat like a confession.
"I'll—"
The Ledger flared white-hot, its ink writhing into fresh script. The priests screamed, the windows cracked, and Aurelius' chest heaved once as though he had taken a breath from beyond the grave.
—End of Chapter 7—