Chapter 24 – The Ledger and the Loom
I did not go back to the loft.
When the door to Vaun Meret's house closed behind me, it felt as though the street itself had changed—become a place that no longer belonged to the city I thought I knew.
Snow drifted in slow, whispering curtains, softening every edge. But nothing in me softened in return.
Six doors opened.
No more names remained.
And yet, as I stood beneath the eaves, I knew it was not an ending. Only the place where all the lines began to converge.
---
I turned south without thinking. My steps carried me toward the warehouse district, though I had no purpose there that morning.
Habit, perhaps. Or the simple need to walk until the last of my doubt wore itself away.
Each footstep sounded too loud in the hush, the crunch of frozen snow carrying farther than it should.
---
The lanes were nearly empty. A few carts creaked past, laden with sacks of winter grain bound for the outer settlements. The drivers hunched against the cold, faces hidden behind scarves.
One man looked up as I passed. His eyes met mine just long enough for me to feel the chill deepen—recognition, or warning, or both.
For an instant, I imagined he might lift a hand, call out my name, demand to know what I had traded to come this far.
But he only watched, silent and unreadable, before turning back to his reins.
I did not stop to decide which.
---
At the riverfront, I paused beside an old bollard where the ropes had frayed to gray threads.
I rested my hand on the iron ring, feeling the cold bite into my palm.
If I failed now—if any piece of what I'd set in motion unraveled—there would be no second attempt. No hidden reserves of goodwill left to draw upon.
I closed my eyes.
The wind off the water smelled of silt and ice and old iron.
It smelled like something waiting.
---
I remembered the first time I had stood here, a boy with no ledger, no seal, no claim to anything.
I remembered thinking that someday I would own the river.
Now, I understood the river was never owned.
Only endured.
---
When I opened my eyes again, the resolve had returned—thin as a blade's edge, but no less sharp.
---
I retraced my steps to the loft.
The door was as I'd left it, snow heaped against the threshold.
But when I lifted the latch, I felt it before I saw it.
The hush inside was wrong—emptier than it should have been.
A quiet that listened.
---
I stepped across the sill, scanning every corner.
Nothing disturbed.
Nothing taken.
Only the ledger, moved from where I'd left it to the center of the table.
And atop it, a single length of coarse twine, coiled in a perfect spiral.
---
I did not touch it.
I only stood there, feeling the chill settle deeper into my bones.
Some message had been delivered in my absence.
Not a threat.
A promise.
---
I unbuttoned my coat and set it aside. My hands did not shake as I reached for the ledger and lifted it free of the twine.
The cord unraveled easily, falling away to the floor in a loose curl.
I turned it over in my hand, feeling the roughness of the fibers.
Someone had measured this length carefully—cut it to match the circumference of the book.
Nothing done by accident.
---
I opened the ledger to the last page I'd written.
Six doors opened.
One ledger closed.
The ink had dried hours before.
Yet seeing it again felt like reading the record of another man's life—someone braver, or more foolish, than I had ever intended to be.
---
I sat at the table and drew the tokens from my pocket one by one.
Each was placed in a careful line beside the iron seal.
Yvane's tokens.
Meret's tokens.
The copper favor from Ves.
Proof of everything I had wagered—and everything I could still lose.
---
For a long time, I only looked at them.
I thought of the men who had pressed those sigils into warm metal, each believing they controlled what came next.
I wondered if any of them had felt the same sick certainty that no amount of cleverness could save them from the day the account came due.
---
Outside, a bell began to toll the hour.
Clear. Measured.
The city breathing in time with a heartbeat that did not care whether I survived.
---
I dipped my pen, ink pooling at the nib.
Then I wrote:
The ledger is nearly complete.
But the loom is still in motion.
I will not be unmade.
---
The words settled onto the page like a verdict.
I did not look away until the last line dried.
---
When I closed the book, I set my palm against its cover.
The weight of it was not comforting.
But it was honest.
---
Dusk would come soon.
And when it did, I knew they would expect me to wait here—pinned in place by the certainty of their watching.
But I had never been content to wait.
---
I stood, slipping the ledger into my satchel.
The tokens followed, each dropped one by one into the deep pocket where I kept my last remaining hope of escape.
One last promise remained to be made.
And it would not be spoken in this quiet room.
---
I paused at the door, my hand resting on the latch.
Behind me, the candle flickered low, its light unsteady as my own heartbeat.
---
I left without extinguishing the flame.
Let them find it still burning.
Let them wonder what it meant.