Krev hasn’t moved. Smart. He knows what I am.
“This doesn’t have to end bloody.” His voice is careful. Measured. “Walk away, Grimshaw. Take the woman somewhere else. I’ll tell them you were gone when we arrived.”
Tempting. Krev was always the reasonable one. But reasonable or not, he’s still an enforcer. Still bound to report. Still obligated to the same master I’ve served since before this city had gas lamps.
“You’d lie for me?”
“I’d forget for you.” He lowers his axes. Fractionally. “We’ve worked too many collections together for me to drag you before the Master like some defaulting merchant. But I can’t help you if you don’t let me.”
Behind me, Ivalys’s breath comes quick and sharp. I smell her fear now—finally, properly—but beneath it, that same thread of anger. That same steel spine refusing to buckle.
She smells like rage and honesty and something else. Something I haven’t scented since the last truth-speaker walked Gravebind’s streets.
Truth.
The realization hits me like a blade between the ribs. I’ve smelled it before. Once. On a woman named Maren who could speak lies into dust and free debtors with nothing but honest words.
The Ledger Master killed her. I was there when he gave the order.
And now her daughter stands behind me, marked by a contract that shouldn’t exist, protected by an enforcer who should have handed her over the moment he walked through the door.
Gods damn it all.
“Go.” I don’t look at Krev. Can’t afford to. “Tell the Ledger Master I’m conducting an extended assessment. Tell him the contract terms require observation before collection. Tell him whatever keeps him off my back for the next seven days.”
“He won’t believe it.”
“He’ll believe what he wants to believe.” I finally meet Krev’s gaze. Hold it. “And what he wants is her. If I’m bringing her in willingly in seven days, he’ll wait. He’s patient. He’s always been patient.”
Krev studies me. I let him look. Let him see whatever he needs to see—loyalty, madness, something in between. After a long moment, he nods.
“Seven days.” He sheathes his axes. Reaches down to haul Maloch’s groaning form off the floor. “After that, I can’t help you. No one can.”
He drags Maloch through the ruined doorway. Their footsteps fade down the external stairs, and then there’s only silence. Silence and the sound of Ivalys breathing behind me.
“You let them go.”
I turn. She’s pressed against the far wall, arms wrapped around herself, but her chin is up and her gaze is steady. The mark glows faintly in the dim light.
“I let one of them go. The other one’s going to have trouble swallowing for a month.”
“Why?”
Direct. No hedging, no softening, no attempt to make the question easier to answer. She wants the truth, and she’s not going to accept anything less.
