“My mother always said that those studying the law could learn a thing or two from demons.”
My smile was broad and genuine, the sensation a bit foreign to my cheeks. “She wasn’t wrong.” I chose a handful from the table and flipped through them. “You’ll be looking for markings in silver, those contracts have been fulfilled. Anything red is still an active contract and needs to be retained here, same with the gold, though they are just awaiting payment collections. We can work on the best way to organize them once some of the dead ones have been cleared out.”
“Where will they go?”
“They’ll be archived.”
“In Hell?”
“Yes.”
She frowned. “Why not just destroy them? If they’re fulfilled, why do they need to be kept at all?”
Her excellent question gave me pause. “I honestly don’t know. Those in charge love their files, though. Always have.”
“What do they do with them in the archives?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I can’t imagine that they are referenced all that often, but they must be of some value. Otherwise, why bother?” The weight of the responsibility for keeping them was too heavy for it to be pointless. If I found out I’d worried myself sick over a process that had no value, I might lose what remained of my mind.
“Maybe it really is similar to learning law, or a legal library. They keep all the old files in case they need previous contracts to justify later cases.”
“Perhaps.”
“You never asked?” There was no condemnation in her voice, only wonder.
“No.”
“Weren’t you curious?” Her eyebrows drew together, and her head tilted to one side just slightly.
“I’m sure there was a time I was.”
“Then why not ask?”
Her insistence amused me. “Because it doesn’t matter. Nothing about my job would change, regardless of the answer.”
Her fingertips pushed a few around, a frown creasing her face. “Are they fragile?”
It was my turn to be confused. “No. They’re just parchment and ink. Some wrinkles or bending won’t ruin them. As long as the marks and their color can be made out, the condition is irrelevant.” I recalled Merry’s panic over some of the oldest disintegrating at the lightest touch. “Some may fall apart due to their age. Don’t worry yourself if it happens. Just put what you can of those in one place and we’ll send them back as well. Any contracts that have been languishing here that long are either almost certainly already fulfilled or simply never will be.”
Phin grew thoughtful as she pushed a pile of them out of her way, unearthing a bit of bare tabletop and then a chair as contracts spilled all over the floor. After a glance at me to gauge my reaction, she continued down the table, arms extended wide as she cleared working space and unburied a second chair, then a third. She shuffled her legs as she made her way back, gently carving a walking path through the piles.
The purposeful chaos of her actions unlocked something inside me, and some of the heaviness that pressed on my shoulders when I looked at the mess my negligence had wrought lifted. I’d never considered doing such a thing, despite the fact that my disorderly piles often fell over on their own. Once I put something down, that’s where it stayed, and I couldn’t quite get my mind or body to move things again unless I was going to take the time to complete the whole project. Doing somethinglike she had might have allowed me to get past being frozen in overwhelm—it might have allowed me to get started. It was so simple, yet entirely foreign. I was awed.
“Sometimes, you have to make a bigger mess to get things cleaned up,” she said softly, but with great determination and a bright smile. My heart skipped a beat, then thudded an odd rhythm, trying to catch up again. “Would you mind bringing me some crates? I’d like to get started.”
“Of course.”
“Silver only,” she confirmed, sliding into one of the available chairs and pulling over a pile of contracts, immediately creating a space to stack them by color.
Her smile was sudden and bright, and it left me breathless. My heart felt like it was being squeezed by a giant hand for several seconds, and I fought the wave of dizziness that swept over me as I rushed from the room. I saw no need to burden her with my panic—I could surely manage that in private while her attention was elsewhere.
As I collected some crates, I worried I’d greatly underestimated the possibility that it would be more difficult having her near with the bond unfulfilled than at a distance.
“Where are the books kept?”Phin asked quietly as she blew on her soup to cool it down. At my delay in response, she added, “May I borrow one to read?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll show you the workshops after we eat.”
I was rediscovering my talent for cooking in the short time since she’d arrived, making good use of the groceries Seir routinely delivered for the first time in months. It brought an immense amount of satisfaction to prepare a meal and watch herenjoy it. I knew that was partially the mate bond, but as I mostly lived off of anything I could eat with one hand while walking the great hall, my stomach was rather pleased with the change as well.
