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Chapter 8: The Money Rectangles
The mansion had corners that Ari had never explored, even though she lived in it like a princess wandering her own castle. Most rooms stayed locked or too big and lonely, and she liked her little corners best which were ;the kitchen stool, the rug in the sitting room, the patch of hallway with the long mirror where she could make faces at herself. But every once in a while, curiosity tugged her toward the forbidden places.
That morning, she pulled Ace by the wrist down the long corridor that smelled of polish and dust. She was humming, curls bouncing, her bare feet making soft pats against the marble floor. He followed with heavy steps, silent as ever, his red eyes scanning the tall doors lined like guards along the hallway.
"My papa's room is this way," Ari announced proudly, as though the words themselves gave her permission. "It's the biggest one. It smells like leather and soap. I'm not really supposed to go in, but nobody tells me no anymore, so… I can."
Ace said nothing. He only arched a brow as she pushed at the heavy oak door. It groaned open, revealing a cavern of a room with curtains drawn, shelves lined with books, a desk stacked neatly, a bed too large for one person. The air felt still, like someone had left in the middle of a thought and never returned.
Ari padded to the desk and pulled open the top drawer with both hands, her tongue poking from the corner of her mouth in concentration. From inside, she produced a small leather wallet.
"See?" she chirped, holding it up with both hands like treasure. "I found these!"
She spread its contents on the desk: a neat fan of glossy plastic cards, shining under the slant of light sneaking through the curtains. Gold edges caught against dark colors, and embossed numbers ran across their faces.
Ace tilted his head, frowning faintly. "What are those?"
Ari puffed her cheeks, then answered with the kind of confidence that only came from guessing. "They're rectangles. Instruments for money." She nodded sagely. "Papa used them when he didn't want to carry coins. He would just put one on a counter, press some buttons, and people gave him things."
Ace leaned closer, picking one up between long fingers. It was light, thinner than parchment, with numbers and letters pressed into its surface. A strange symbol glittered in the corner. He flipped it back and forth, searching for power inside it, but there was none just another human invention, flat and small.
"You don't know how to use them," he said, not quite a question.
Ari flopped into the leather chair behind the desk, spinning herself halfway around before her toes dragged her to a stop. "Nope. I tried once, with the phone. Didn't work." She wrinkled her nose. "The rectangles are stubborn. But…" She leaned forward, whispering like she was about to share the world's greatest secret, "I do know the password."
Ace's gaze sharpened. "Password?"
She nodded eagerly. "It's a song of numbers. Four of them. Papa typed it whenever the machine wanted to be bossy." She lowered her voice to a sing-song whisper. "Seven-three-one-nine. Don't tell anybody, okay?"
He froze. The carelessness in her tone pressed against something deep inside him—an ache he didn't know he carried. She had no idea. No understanding that the numbers she whispered so freely could unlock everything in this house, everything her parents had left behind.
"Why would you tell me that?" he asked, voice rough.
Ari blinked up at him, curls falling over her green eyes. "Because you're here. And I like sharing secrets. Makes them lighter." She swung her feet under the chair. "Besides, you wouldn't use it without me. Right?"
He stared at her, torn between exasperation and something stranger like an urge to shield her, not from monsters in the dark, but from the world she didn't understand.
"You should not tell people such things," he muttered.
She tilted her head, confused. "Why? It's just numbers."
"Numbers mean power."
Her little laugh tinkled in the silence. "Everything's power to you. Horns, bread, numbers. You're funny."
He didn't answer. His gaze fell again on the cards scattered across the desk. Humans had found a way to hide wealth in these flimsy things, and yet here was a child treating them like shiny toys. He placed the one he held back onto the pile with careful precision.
Ari leaned her chin in her hands, studying him. "You look grumpy. Don't you like the rectangles?"
"They are… dangerous," he said finally.
She gasped, half in awe, half in delight. "Dangerous? Really? Like knives?"
"Worse," he murmured.
Her mouth formed a little 'o' at the thought, but instead of fear, her expression brightened with imagination. "So they're like cursed cards! Ooooh, that makes sense. Papa always looked serious when he used them. Maybe he was fighting them!"
Ace gave a sound that was almost a laugh, though it rumbled low, quickly stifled. He turned away before she could see the crack in his mask.
Ari scooped the cards back into the wallet with clumsy hands and shoved it toward him. "You keep them," she said cheerfully. "You're better at dangerous things than me. I'm only good at eating candy."
He stared at the little bundle pressed into his chest, speechless. She was handing him trust in its most fragile form with wealth, access, survival and she didn't even know him that well. Slowly, he set the wallet back in the drawer and closed it.
"No," he said quietly. "They stay here."
Ari shrugged, already distracted by spinning the chair again. "Okay. You can be bossy sometimes." She grinned at him upside down as she hung half off the chair. "But I like when you stay."
The words hit him harder than they should have. He looked around the room, at the neatness frozen in time, at the emptiness that clung to the air. And then back at the girl who had given her trust, her innocence, her unshaken belief that monsters could be knights, that numbers were songs, that secrets were meant to be shared.
The mansion was full of riches she didn't understand, but her true treasure was simpler: she had no fear of him.
And for reasons he couldn't yet name, that was more dangerous than any card....
---struck by him staying he wasn't sure yet but had started to feel sorry for the girl... contemplating..,