The word I whispered vanished into the fog, swallowed as though the air itself had been waiting to devour it. The Ledger flared, searing my ribs with its approval—or its hunger. The Collector halted, parchment skin quivering, its coin-teeth clinking with anticipation. Seraphine's pistol stayed steady in her human hand, though her iron arm trembled faintly, not with fear but with the tension of waiting for a judgment that might crush us both.
Collateral accepted, the Collector's voice pressed into my skull. Balance recalculated. Payment prepared.
The crowd cried out as the blue threads snapped taut. The chapel shuddered behind us, Aurelius' corpse jerking once as if dragged by invisible strings. The heartbeat that had haunted the city faltered, skipped, then thundered again—stronger, but wrong. Too loud, too hollow, as if borrowed from a drum rather than a heart.
The Ledger's page burned with fresh ink:
Transaction Complete: One truth, one marrow beat, one secret.
Effect: Collector appeased, temporarily.
Warning: Balance unstable. Further payment inevitable.
I gasped, collapsing to my knees as my chest tightened. My ribs felt like a cage hammered by a cruel blacksmith. The iron sigil at my wrist pulsed, stealing another beat of marrow. My palm's candle mark flickered, guttering low, smoke curling upward though no flame showed.
Seraphine seized my shoulder. "What did you give it?"
I couldn't answer. Not fully. I felt the words carved inside me, the confession I had poured into the Ledger's maw along with marrow and breath. I wanted to be Aurelius, not his clerk. The thought burned like acid. I prayed she could not see it on my face.
The Collector leaned closer. Its parchment face crackled, contracts whispering in a dozen tongues. I smelled mildew, blood, ink—centuries of debts pressed together like wet ledgers stacked in a cellar. One of its claws reached down, brushed the air near my cheek. I froze, every nerve screaming.
Ledger-bearer. Your account is open. It will remain open.
Then, with the hiss of parchment tearing, the Collector dissolved into the fog. Threads snapped, whipping back into the chapel, into the city, into the lungs of the terrified. The blue light dimmed. The fog settled, not gone, merely waiting.
The silence it left behind was almost worse than its presence. Children sobbed. Men coughed raggedly, clutching at their chests. The priests stumbled out of the chapel, eyes wide, lips raw from prayer. The heartbeat still pulsed faintly within the walls, but it was weaker now, tethered and bruised. Aurelius' corpse lay still once more.
Seraphine knelt beside me. Her iron arm hissed softly, cooling. "You bargained with it," she said, low. "You fed it what it asked for."
"I didn't have a choice," I croaked. "It was taking them—" I gestured weakly to the crowd. "All of them."
"You always have a choice," she snapped. Then, softer: "But you chose to spend yourself instead. That's…something."
I laughed weakly. "A compliment, or a warning?"
"Both." She helped me to my feet. "Rook will know about this already. He'll turn it into theater before sundown. He'll make the city love him for warning them about debts you'll be forced to pay."
The Ledger pulsed again, a faint heartbeat echoing through its cover. New ink scratched itself without my consent:
Directive: Pursue Debtor Casimir Rook.
Location: Unclear. Threads point toward the Old Playhouse.
I read the words aloud. Seraphine grimaced. "Of course. The Playhouse. Masks breed there like flies. Rook will have an audience."
"And we'll have a trap," I said bitterly.
She met my gaze, steady and sharp. "Then we'll spring it before he does."
We left the chapel behind. The crowd parted uneasily, whispers following us. Ledger-bearer. Candle-clerk. Debt-worshipper. Every step felt heavier than the last, not only because of the marrow I had paid but because of the invisible tally marks I could feel inscribing themselves across my soul. The city itself seemed to regard me differently, bridges creaking as though counting my footsteps, gulls shrieking like clerks calling totals from the rafters.
At the river's edge, Seraphine stopped. The fog was thinner here, stretched across the water in ragged veils. The Playhouse squatted in the distance, its crumbling dome rising above warehouses, a corpse of stone and velvet still hungry for applause.
She laid her iron hand on my shoulder. "Listen to me, Varrow. The Ledger is using you. It will bleed you of truth, marrow, breath, until you're nothing but ink stains in its book. You need to learn when to refuse."
"And if I had refused tonight?" I asked. "How many corpses would the Collector have carried into its fog?"
Her silence was answer enough. She turned back to the river, jaw tight.
The candle mark on my palm flickered again. I looked at it and wondered how many more truths I had left to burn before I guttered out entirely. The Spine of Iron hummed at my wrist, whispering that strength could be bought, but only for marrow. And deep inside, the Ledger purred with satisfaction, its pages already hungry for the next debt.
Somewhere beyond the fog, in the Playhouse's rotting heart, Casimir Rook laughed. I could hear it even here, like a play's overture carried on a wind no one else noticed.
And for the first time, I realized: the Collector had not come for Aurelius alone. It had marked me.
—End of Chapter 9—