He traced the words with a thumb, feeling the impressions left by the broker's meticulous hand. There was no greeting. No pleasantries. Brennor never wasted ink on such things. Just the offer and the promise of coin that might—if everything went perfectly—erase the debts that had dogged Cael for a decade.
He set the note aside and reached for the battered ledger in the satchel's base. A dozen names filled the yellowed pages—moneylenders, fences, guards bribed to look the other way. Each owed their due. Each would come calling before long.
He flipped to the last line, where Varlo's name sat like a brand. He could almost hear the man's voice in his ear, low and patient.
It's only coin, Cael. You know I'll have it, one way or another.
A shiver went through him, colder than the draft seeping throuCael woke to the stench of boiled hides and the bite of winter through the broken rafters overhead. For a moment, he lay perfectly still on his makeshift pallet, caught in the thin fog between sleep and pain. In that half-place, he almost believed he'd died in the tannery below, that he was only another carcass waiting to be stripped and rendered.
But then the wound behind his knee flared awake, a hot, pulsing ache that left no room for such hopes. He drew a slow, careful breath, feeling splinters of glass shifting behind his ribs, old injuries that never healed straight. He had made himself small here, wedged between a stack of warped crates and the slanted wall. Even so, it wasn't enough to keep out the damp or the memory of why he'd crawled here to hide.
When he forced himself upright, a dozen bruises announced themselves. He pressed his palm over the deepest one, feeling along the familiar ridge where Varlo's boot had cracked a rib two weeks past. A fair warning, Varlo had called it. The next time, he would take more than a measure of flesh.
He pivoted on the pallet and pulled the cracked tin cup close. Three silver bits rattled at the bottom, cold against his fingertips. Three bits. All that remained after the last job, and still not enough to pay what he owed. He almost laughed, but the sound stuck in his throat.
Outside, the tannery yard had begun to stir. Through the slats, he glimpsed men in stiff aprons hauling vats into place. Their breath came in pale ribbons in the dawn air, their faces pinched against the smell. No one looked up. No one ever looked up. It was one of the reasons he'd chosen this place—no questions, no company.
He let the curtain fall back across the gap and drew his satchel to him. One strap was torn clean through, mended twice already. Inside, he inventoried what he had left. A whetstone, worn nearly smooth. Three slender picks wrapped in oiled cloth. A folded scrap of linen stained brown with old blood. And Brennor's note.
He unfolded the parchment slowly.
One job. One last chance to clear your ledger.gh the wall. He closed the ledger and pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes, willing the memory away.
He couldn't stay here another day. If he did, Varlo's runners would sniff him out by dusk, and he'd wake somewhere much darker than this attic.
Movement below drew his attention. A cart creaked into the yard, piled with bundles of raw hide. The tanner lifted one in both arms and staggered under its weight, cursing. The smell rose with the steam—fat and lime and old decay.
In another life, Cael thought, he might have worked here. A quiet trade, honest enough, even if it turned your hands raw and your lungs black. In that life, he'd never have met Brennor Vey. Never have borrowed the first coin that chained him to men like Varlo.
But that life was gone before it ever started.
He reached for his boot and drew out the small knife tucked inside. The edge was dull, notched where it had met steel. He tested the point against his thumb, felt the shallow sting. Still enough to finish the job if it came to that.
He set the knife on the pallet and drew in a careful breath. The pain behind his knee was already spreading, making the leg clumsy. If he waited much longer, he wouldn't be able to climb down at all.
He packed the ledger, the note, the whetstone, and the knife. Then he closed the satchel and slipped the strap across his chest.
Three silver bits he left in the cup. A tithe to the next soul desperate enough to crawl up here.
When he reached the hatch, he hesitated. His reflection looked back at him in the broken pane of glass nailed to the door: a gaunt man with hair grown too long, skin gone to parchment, eyes sunk deep in their sockets.
He looked older than twenty-eight. Older than his father had when he died.
"Cael," he murmured.
It was a habit he'd begun months ago—speaking his own name aloud, like a prayer. If the stories were true, the Ledger Spire would strip away more than memories. It would take the name first, unspooling identity thread by thread.
He said it again, softer.
"Cael."
When no answer came from the dark, he unlatched the hatch and climbed down into the tannery yard.
The men at the vats paid him no mind. He passed them without a word, limping toward the alley where Brennor had promised to meet him. Each step sent pain up his spine, but he didn't slow. Better pain than fear. Better fear than regret.
At the alley's mouth, he paused. The Ledger Spire rose in the distance, pale against the bruised sky. Even here, the sight of it tightened his chest.
A thousand stories clung to that tower.
They said it was built to hold the ledgers of every debt sworn in the city's founding—scrolls too vast to burn, too sacred to bury. They said the Spire had learned to think. Learned to hunger. Learned to whisper.
Some claimed it could peel the past from your mind in strips and leave you empty. Others claimed it offered bargains so perfect no man could resist.
Cael didn't know which was true. He only knew that the Spire was older than any contract, older than any king, older even than the city itself.
And it was waiting for him.
A figure detached itself from the shadows by the wall. Brennor Vey, in a plain gray cloak that looked too clean for the alley's filth.
"Long night?" Brennor asked, his voice mild.
Cael didn't answer. He shifted his weight, bracing against the ache in his leg.
Brennor's eyes flicked to the satchel, then back to Cael's face. "You've considered the offer."
"I've considered it."
"And?"
Cael glanced past him to the Spire's pale silhouette. He felt the first stirrings of something that might have been hope, if he hadn't known better.
"One job," he said. "No more."
Brennor smiled without warmth. He drew a purse from inside his cloak and tossed it underhand. Cael caught it by reflex. The weight told him all he needed to know. Enough to buy a clean departure—if he survived.
"No partners," Cael said.
"No debts except the ones you already carry."
Cael nodded.
"Then we have an understanding," Brennor said. He passed him a folded scrap of parchment. "The Spire has many doors. You'll take the scriptorium window. Less watched."
Cael tucked it away without looking.
"If you fail," Brennor said, "your debts will pass to others. Friends. Strangers. Someone will pay."
"I won't fail."
Brennor studied him for a moment, expression unreadable. Then he stepped back into the deeper shadow, melting from sight.
Cael stood alone in the alley, the purse heavy in his hand. He turned back once, toward the Ledger Spire.
Whatever waited inside, it would not be a clean death.
But perhaps, he thought, it would be a true one.
And that was enough to make him start walking.