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He holds out a pen. The ledger’s open to this year. There’s a column of signatures in the same cheap black ballpoint, D. Hale, D. Hale, D. Hale, going down the page, and then nothing since spring.

I sign my full name under his. Tara Iverson. My hand is shaking, and it looks terrible.

Ashby writes in her notebook. “Oathkeeper,” she says. “So recorded.”

I look up the stairs. Merek’s grinning. Tav’s got one hand over his muzzle. William, behind them both, with his wings folded tight in the narrow stairwell, is staring at my arms.

Harold Pike meets us in Lenart’s office, because he says some things shouldn’t be done in a nightclub. He’s a small man with white hair and reading glasses on a chain, and he looks like he’d rather be in bed, but he’s smiling.

“The conditions are met,” he says. “Every operating night until Lammas, and the oath taken. I’ll file it in the morning. Your share of the Club is yours, Ms. Iverson. Outright. Permanently.”

“Even if I miss a night?”

“You can take a vacation,” he says. “I’d recommend one.”

He opens his briefcase and takes out a long envelope. I’ve never seen it before, but I know what it is. The codicil. Heavy paper, Dez’s handwriting on the front, To be opened only if the condition fails. It’s sealed with a blob of wax, and the wax is black. There’s a mark pressed into it, small and round, too worn to make out.

“The condition hasn’t failed,” Pike says. “So it won’t be opened. It goes back in my safe with the rest of the estate papers, which is what Dez instructed.” He puts it in the briefcase and closes the latch. “As far as you’re concerned, it no longer exists.”

“Okay,” I say.

I don’t ask anything else. I don’t want to.

Pike shakes my hand, and looks down at my arm, and his eyebrows go up behind his glasses. “Dez had those,” he says. “I’d forgotten. He always wore long sleeves.”

When I come back downstairs, the bar’s louder than I’ve ever heard it.

People are clapping. Kit is banging a cocktail shaker on the bar top. Somebody’s put the music back on, and the troll is trying to dance. Members I’ve never talked to want to shake my hand, and then they see my arms and don’t, and nod at me instead. Ashby raises her glass to me from across the room. Odette points at me and then at a chair, and I ignore her.

Kit comes around the end of the bar and hugs me hard, careful of my arms.

“Does this mean you’re not covering my Sunday?” she says.

“It means I’m signing your schedule.”

“God help us,” Kit says, and goes back to her well.

The four of them don’t make a speech. I hold my arms out to show Merek, and he kisses me, quick and hard, in front of everybody.

“Permanent, Trouble,” he says. “You’re stuck with us now.”

“I was stuck with you before.”

“Now it’s in a ledger.”

Tav takes my wrist. He does it slowly, his huge hand under mine, and turns my arm over in the light and looks at the lines for a long time. He runs his thumb along one, very lightly.

“They’re even,” he says finally. “Both sides.”

“Is that good?”

“That’s good work,” Tav says, and doesn’t let go of my wrist.

Lenart is a step back, letting people get to me. When I catch his eye, he lifts his glass an inch. That’s all and it’s enough.

William comes last. He’s still on duty. He has the earpiece in. He leans down so only I can hear him.

“You did that,” he says. “Good job.” He kisses me quick and then he’s gone.