Chapter 22 – The Man Behind the Door

The hall was long and narrow, lit by a single lantern hung from an iron hook.

Its flame was so small it threw more shadows than light, making the walls seem closer than they were. The air smelled faintly of old resin and something sharper—ink, maybe, or the tannin of treated parchment.

The woman led me without a word. Her steps were nearly silent, the hem of her coat brushing the packed earth floor in a rhythm that felt deliberate, rehearsed.

I counted each step as we went, though I couldn't have said why. It felt like the sort of place where it mattered to keep track of where you stood.

We passed three doors on the right—each unmarked, each closed. No sound came from behind them.

When she paused before the last door, the hush settled so thick around us it felt like I'd stepped out of time.

She turned to face me, her expression unchanged.

"When you speak to Yvane," she said, "you'll say only what you came to say. Nothing more."

"I understand."

"If you try to bargain with what you don't own…"

She let the sentence trail away, but her meaning was clear enough.

"I won't."

She studied me a moment longer, her eyes searching for something I didn't know if I possessed. Then she nodded once and lifted the latch.

The door swung inward without a sound.

The room beyond was small, lined floor to ceiling with shelves crowded by ledgers and wooden cases. The walls were paneled in dark wood, polished to a low sheen that caught the lantern's glow in fitful glints.

A brazier burned low in one corner, its coals red as old embers. A faint thread of smoke drifted up and pooled along the ceiling.

At the broad table in the center of the room sat a man with a pen in hand.

He did not look up as I stepped inside.

The woman closed the door behind me.

The latch settled with a soft, final click.

For a time, the only sound was the faint rasp of the pen crossing parchment.

He wrote as though nothing in the world could interrupt him—steady strokes, each line precisely measured.

It felt like waiting for judgment to finish being recorded before I'd even spoken.

At last, he lifted his eyes to meet mine.

They were dark and quick, more curious than suspicious. Though I had never seen him before, I had the unshakable sense he had been expecting me all along.

"You've come a long way to find me," he said.

His voice was soft, almost unassuming, but it carried the same stillness as the room.

"I have," I said.

He set the pen aside with deliberate care.

"Then say your piece."

I drew the iron seal from my coat, feeling the cold of it bite my palm, and laid it on the table between us.

"I came to offer you a trade."

Yvane did not reach for the seal. Instead, he regarded it with a thoughtful detachment, as if he could read the whole history of my defiance etched in the copper.

"You're either very brave," he said, "or very desperate."

"Both."

Something flickered across his face—amusement, perhaps, or curiosity.

"Do you know what it means to walk in here carrying her mark?"

"That I have fewer illusions left than most."

"Or that you've run out of safer doors to knock on."

He leaned back in his chair, one hand resting lightly on the ledger before him. His thumb traced the edge of the page with a softness that struck me as almost affectionate.

"Tell me, Arcanon—what is it you think I can give you?"

"Routes," I said. "Access to scrip the guild can't trace. Passage when their patrols close the river."

He inclined his head slightly, as though acknowledging the practicality of the answer.

"And in return?"

"A share in whatever I bring through."

Yvane's gaze did not waver.

"You think you're the first to come here with an offer."

"No," I said evenly. "But I intend to be the last."

The corner of his mouth lifted, though it never became a smile.

"Arrogant."

"Necessary."

He stood without haste, moving to a shelf behind the table. His hand trailed lightly over the spines of the ledgers—some bound in plain cloth, others wrapped in leather so dark it swallowed the light.

When he selected one, it was with the certainty of a man retrieving something often consulted.

He returned to the table, opened the ledger to a marked page, and turned it so I could see.

A list of names, each line precise, each entry crossed through in red ink.

"These," he said, "are all the men and women who sat where you are."

He traced one finger down the column, stopping at the last line.

Blank. Waiting.

"You understand what this means?"

"That you keep your own record," I said.

"That I keep the truth," he corrected, voice mild.

He closed the ledger carefully, as though sealing a confession inside it.

"Very well," he said. "I will hear the terms."

---

I did not sit.

Standing felt truer, somehow—an admission that no matter how this conversation ended, I would leave it under my own power.

"The guild is moving to close the upper routes," I began. "They'll tighten inspections before the thaw. Once the passes open, they'll have patrols on every crossing."

Yvane watched me without interruption, his expression unchanged.

I set my hand lightly on the seal.

"I have contracts waiting in three quarters. Stock ready to move the moment the ice breaks. What I lack is the corridor to see it through."

"And you assume I control such a corridor," he said.

"I assume you know who does."

He was silent a moment, considering.

Then he reached again for the ledger, tapping the blank space at the bottom of the page.

"I can open the way," he said. "But you will owe me."

"I understand."

"Do you?" His voice sharpened a fraction. "Owing me is not the same as owing her."

"I've never confused the two."

He studied me with a gaze so unblinking it felt like a test in itself.

"You have a ledger of your own," he said finally.

"I do."

"And when this fails—because eventually it will—what record will you leave behind?"

"The truth," I said quietly.

At last, something like satisfaction flickered in his eyes.

"That is the only answer I respect."

---

He moved to the shelf again, selecting a narrow box of polished wood. When he set it on the table and lifted the lid, I saw a small collection of tokens—some stamped, some blank, a few bearing sigils I did not recognize.

"You'll take two," he said. "One for passage. One for payment."

He did not offer me a choice of which.

I reached out and accepted them without protest.

The brass was cold as river stone.

Yvane closed the box and replaced it on the shelf.

"Bring these to the lockmaster on the upper pier," he instructed. "Say you come under my word. Nothing more."

"Understood."

"And if you fail to deliver the share you promised…"

He let the sentence trail away.

"I won't," I said.

He inclined his head, a small motion heavy with finality.

"Then we have an understanding."

---

For a time, neither of us moved. The brazier crackled softly, its heat too meager to warm the hush between us.

At last, Yvane lowered himself into the chair again, retrieving his pen.

"You may go," he said without looking up.

---

I turned and crossed to the door.

When I lifted the latch, I felt the weight of his ledger behind me, the certainty that somewhere in its pages my name was already being written.

I stepped into the hall.

The woman was waiting, her face as impassive as when I had arrived.

"Did he accept?" she asked.

"Yes."

She studied me a moment, then nodded once.

"Then you're a fool," she said, "or something worse."

"Perhaps," I agreed.

She did not reply.

She only watched as I walked the length of the hall back to the door I'd first entered.

---

When I stepped into the street, the wind had picked up, sweeping the snow in low, curling drifts.

I paused at the threshold, drawing a breath that felt too cold to hold.

Five doors opened.

One name remained.

And somewhere beyond the hush of the falling snow, the ledger of my choices was waiting to be balanced.