Borrowed Levels

Chapter 8: Assume the Debt

Ren did not go alone.

He sat on the floor of the flat for nearly an hour with the note in his hands, listening to Bram's slow breathing and the tick of the clock on the wall. He thought about walking into the Bank with the Ledger held out like an offering. He thought about it very seriously.

Then Dara kicked open the door, with Pip and Hesk behind her, and ruined it.

"No," she said.

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to. You have the face." She dropped into a crouch in front of him. "We're not letting you walk in there and hand it over. Mira's my friend too."

"She is?"

"She makes Pip do her math homework."

"She does not," said Pip. "I do it for fun."

Ren laughed, and it turned halfway into something else. Hesk put one big hand on his shoulder and left it there.

It was Pip who saw the figure standing in the doorway. Kessin Aldous leaned against the frame with his arms folded, in a rumpled coat that had clearly been slept in. The silver thread was gone from the collar.

"I need to speak to the Unrated," he said.

"You've got a nerve," Dara snapped.

"I've got a problem." Kessin pushed off the frame. "The Bank called in my father's accounts this morning. Every one. They took the shipping company, my level, everything. A clerk told me it was a recall. Because of Friday. Because I lost." His voice was tight. "My father says Voss ordered it personally."

"I'm sorry," said Ren, and found that he meant it.

"Don't be. I've spent my whole life believing the Bank was just. I want to know what I've been standing on." Kessin met his eyes. "Our ships deliver the Bank's supplies through a private tunnel under the river. Voss never changed the lock. If you want in, I can get you in."

Nobody spoke for a moment.

"Why would you help me?" Ren asked.

"Because you beat me fairly," said Kessin. "And because I don't enjoy being used."

They went in at midnight.

The tunnel smelled of tar and river mud. Kessin walked at the head with a lantern, muttering about rust on the locks, and Ren followed with the sword Bram had lent him. The Ledger flickered at the edge of his sight.

[ DEBT: 3.9 YEARS. GRACE PERIOD EXPIRED. ]

The Collector would be coming for him any hour now. He could feel it, a faint pressure behind his eyes.

The tunnel ended at an iron door, and the door opened onto the lowest level of the Bank, a long hall lined with sealed vaults. Voss's enforcers were not here. Voss clearly believed no one would come this way.

He was nearly right.

When Ren reached the end of the hall, the Collector was waiting for him.

It stood in the center of the corridor, tall and silent, the book open against its chest. Behind it, a staircase of black stone spiraled downward into the dark.

"Stay back," Ren told the others.

"Ren..." said Dara.

"Please."

He walked forward alone, and the Collector walked forward to meet him, and the Ledger spoke in his head, quiet and urgent.

[ HOLDER IN PROXIMITY OF DEFAULTED ACCOUNT. ] [ ACCOUNT: CALDER, ALDRIC. DEBT: 41 YEARS. ] [ ASSUME DEBT? Y / N ]

Ren stopped dead.

He read the line again. And again. A third time, to be sure, because it was not a question the Ledger had asked him before.

Assume the debt.

He could take his father's account onto his own. The interest would freeze. The Collector would be released.

Forty-one years.

He was nineteen. A normal life would give him fifty, sixty more. This would leave him with a handful, if he was lucky.

"If I do this," he whispered, "I won't have a life."

The Collector lifted its head. Behind the white plate, a faint hand of silver light brushed across the surface, like fingers across a window. For one moment, Ren heard it, the rusty, broken voice.

Don't.

He smiled, though it hurt.

"Sorry, Dad," he said. "You always told me never to leave a debt unpaid."

He thought yes as hard as he could.

[ DEBT ASSUMED. ACCOUNT TRANSFERRED. ] [ DEBT: 44.9 YEARS. ]

The pain came all at once, like a hand closing around his lungs. He fell to his knees. The gray streak in his hair spread, as if someone had poured milk over it, until every strand was white. His skin tightened. When he put a hand to his face, he felt lines that hadn't been there a moment ago.

The Collector shuddered.

The smooth plate cracked and fell away. The coat dissolved like smoke. The book slid from its fingers and winked out, and Aldric Calder crumpled to the floor, gasping, alive, with his own face and his own tired eyes.

"Ren," he croaked. "What did you do?"

Ren crawled to him. They held each other in the middle of that cold black corridor, a father who looked sixty and a son who now looked forty, shaking and laughing and crying all at once.

"I paid it," said Ren. "I paid it, Dad."

"You fool. You absolute fool." His father's hands were tight in his hair. "I'm so proud of you."

Behind them, Dara was crying openly. Pip was crying harder. Kessin stood with his hand over his mouth, staring at the white-haired boy who had just given up half his life.

Below them, down the black staircase, a hum began to swell.