THE NINTH DEBT

Chapter Seven: Three Rules for Staying Alive

Tavian drove his fist forward with all his remaining strength, slamming it directly into Ordan's jaw.

The archivist staggered violently backward, colliding with the damp alley wall hard enough to knock loose a shower of grey dust and mortar. His rusted key slipped from his fingers, clattering loudly across the uneven cobblestones.

"Do not move another inch!" Tavian shouted, his chest heaving.

Ordan lifted a trembling hand to touch his bleeding lip, staring across the narrow space in utter disbelief. "Have you completely lost your mind?"

"My mother literally just spoke to me through that wall and warned me not to trust you!"

"Your mother is presumably trapped somewhere inside a nightmarish city that feeds on people's identities, and you are ready to believe a disembodied voice coming out of a piece of masonry?"

Tavian dropped to one knee and snatched up the discarded key from the ground.

Nine distinct circles had been intricately carved into its heavy, rusted surface. The ninth circle was blackened to a crisp, exactly matching the symbol burned into the aged Treasury document he had seen earlier.

"Explain this to me right now," Tavian demanded, holding up the key.

Ordan glanced down at the metal in Tavian's hand, and something stark flickered across his rugged face.

It was pure fear.

Not confusion. Not sudden surprise. Deep, bone-chilling fear.

"You told me to my face that you had no idea who I was," Tavian pressed on, his voice shaking with anger. "You claimed you could not remember a single thing about my past. Yet you are carrying a key that directly matches the dark markings on my wrist, and somehow, by sheer coincidence, we keep ending up precisely wherever my name is written on a wall."

Ordan wiped a smear of blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his sleeve. "I can explain everything."

"Then start talking."

"Not out here in the open."

"Wrong answer."

Tavian raised his marked hand toward the archivist. A faint, pulsing blue light began to glow menacingly beneath his skin, and the cobblestones around his boots started to tremble and crack.

Ordan immediately threw both hands up in surrender. "Put that power away before you accidentally kill someone!"

"Someone always pays the price whenever I use this ability, do they not?" Tavian's voice cracked under the weight of the realization. "That little girl back in Greyhaven. The old woman in the inn. You... and your stolen memories."

The archivist said nothing, his gaze dropping to the dirt.

"That little girl lost her grandfather's recognition," Tavian whispered, his anger giving way to despair. "The old woman forgot her own daughter. And you... How many people have I hurt without even knowing it?"

"More than you can imagine," Ordan answered quietly.

Tavian's hand slowly dropped to his side.

For a terrifying moment, a wave of hatred washed over him. He hated Ordan; he hated the relentless collectors; he hated this impossible city eating away at his life; and above all, he hated the pathetic part of himself that still longed to believe there was a simple, innocent explanation for all of this.

Suddenly, a heavy, resonant bell rang out from somewhere high above them in the greysky.

Ordan lurched forward, snatched the rusted key from Tavian's unresisting grip, and shoved it deep into his coat pocket. "We only have minutes left before they track this resonance," he warned urgently. "If you want actual answers, follow me right now. If you want to stand here arguing until something emerges from the fog to remove your face, stay."

Without waiting for a reply, Ordan turned and hurried toward the dark end of the alley.

Tavian hesitated for only a fraction of a second before following him.

He knew he had no rational reason left to trust Ordan Vey. But looking around at the shifting shadows of the alleys, he realized he had even less reason to trust anything else in this godforsaken city.

Ordan led him rapidly through a dizzying maze of narrow, winding streets, guiding him past shuttered market stalls and decaying houses whose front doors had been nailed firmly shut from the outside.

At last, they stopped before a dilapidated building that appeared to be an ordinary, long-abandoned bakery. Its front windows were heavily boarded up with thick planks of wood, and a faded, peeling sign hung crookedly above the threshold.

Ordan stepped up to the door and knocked three distinct times in a rhythmic pattern.

Nothing happened for a tense moment.

He knocked twice more.

A small, rectangular wooden slot snapped open at eye level in the center of the door.

A pair of sharp, assessing eyes appeared behind the gap. "State your name," a woman's harsh voice demanded.

"Ordan Vey."

"That is merely what they used to call you."

Ordan closed his eyes briefly, letting out a long breath. "Must literally everyone in this miserable city insist on being so insufferably clever?"

"Only those of us who actually wish to stay alive," the voice replied dryly.

Ordan reached into his coat and produced a small, tarnished silver coin, holding it up to the slot.

The eyes watched the coin carefully. "What is your payment?"

"A promise."

The wooden slot slammed shut with a sharp crack.

Tavian stared at him in disbelief. "You just offered her a promise?"

"It happens to be the only currency I have left to spend."

"And what happens if you happen to break it?"

The heavy front door swung slowly inward. "Then," said the tall, formidable woman standing behind it, "I will simply collect his tongue as collateral."

She was tall and lean, with close-cropped grey hair and a jagged scar running down the length of one cheek. A dense collection of small wooden tags hung from a cord around her neck; some bore fading names, while others had been aggressively scratched completely blank.

Her gaze drifted down to Tavian's exposed wrist.

Her expression shifted instantly from suspicion to grim realization. "Get inside, both of you, quickly."

The heavy door slammed shut behind them with a resounding thud.

The woman dragged a massive iron bolt into place across the frame, then pressed her bare palm firmly against a small iron plate embedded in the wall beside the latch. Nine tiny pinpricks of light instantly flickered into life along its edge.

Eight of the lights glowed a steady white.

The ninth burned a pitch black.

She cursed softly under her breath. "How long has he been actively using it?"

"Only once," Ordan replied, stepping into the dim interior.

"Once is more than enough to invite catastrophe."

She turned her piercing gaze directly onto Tavian. "Listen to me very carefully, boy. My name is Sella. I maintain this safehouse for unfortunate souls who have forgotten far too much of themselves to survive out there alone. If you intend to draw breath in this city, there are three absolute rules you must learn and obey."

Tavian folded his arms defensively across his chest. "I do not take orders from strangers."

Before Sella could answer, a loud, heavy scraping sound echoed from the ceiling directly above their heads.

Sella pointed a finger upward. "Rule number one: Never answer a voice that calls out to you from somewhere you cannot physically see."

The scraping sound abruptly stopped.

A familiar, heartbreaking voice floated down softly through the gaps in the old wooden floorboards.

"Tavian? My sweet boy... are you down there?"

It was his mother's voice.

Tavian instinctively took a step toward the base of the staircase.

Sella moved with surprising speed, catching him firmly by the arm. "I said, never answer."

"Especially if it sounds like someone you love," the voice called out again, growing noticeably weaker and more plaintive this time. "Please, Tavian... I am so frightened."

Tavian's throat tightened painfully. He knew intellectually that it could be a cruel trap; he remembered all too well what had happened with the grotesque imitation in the ruins. Yet every instinct wired into his nervous system screamed that his real mother was waiting just a few feet above his head.

Then Ordan spoke, his voice dead flat. "Your mother never once called you 'sweetheart'."

Tavian froze in his tracks.

Ordan kept his eyes fixed firmly on the ceiling boards. "She always called you her 'little storm'. You told me that yourself earlier today."

"No... I didn't," Tavian whispered.

Ordan's face drained of what little color it had left.

For a breathless second, neither man spoke.

Then Sella physically pulled Tavian away from the stairs, her grip unyielding. "Rule number two: Never give your true, full name to anything or anyone that asks for it. Names are literal doors in this place. Some malignant things only require you to open that door once for them to step through."

Tavian glanced down at the collection of blank wooden tags hanging around her neck. "And what is the third rule?"

Sella's expression grew grim and unforgiving. "Never use power that you cannot afford to pay the price for."

Tavian looked down at his marked wrist. "A bit late for that warning."

"Yes," she said softly. "I can plainly see that it is."

She led them through a narrow archway into a cramped, cluttered back room lined from floor to ceiling with wooden shelves filled with glass jars. Each jar contained a tiny, flickering light, and each bore a neat, handwritten label pasted to the glass.

First kiss.Mother's lullaby.The face of a dead brother.

Tavian stopped walking when he came before one particular jar. Inside it, a tiny, glowing light danced, and he could vividly imagine a little girl laughing as she ran through a sunlit field on a warm summer afternoon.

"What are these things?" Tavian asked, horrified.

"Memories," Sella replied evenly. "Some of them are sold here willingly by desperate people. Others are forcefully harvested and taken."

"Can they ever be returned to who they belong to?"

"If the original owner is still alive out there, sometimes it is possible."

"And if they are already dead?"

Sella looked away, her jaw tightening. "Then that captured memory may be the only thing left of their existence."

Tavian thought of the elderly woman back in Greyhaven. He wondered silently if her daughter's lost memory was sitting somewhere on these very shelves, waiting for someone to recognize it.

Then, his eyes caught sight of a jar positioned at the very far end of the top shelf.

It was noticeably larger than the others, and its lid was heavily sealed with thick, black wax.

A single handwritten word was scrawled on the label:

MARA.

Tavian lunged forward toward the shelf.

Sella moved instantly, stepping directly into his path with her arms crossed. "Do not touch that jar."

"That is my mother's memory!"

"You do not know that for certain."

"Her name is literally written on the label!"

"And your own name is carved into the foundation of a city that has no right to exist," Sella snapped back. "Are you really planning to trust every scrap of handwriting you happen to find in this nightmare?"

Tavian stared at her, breathing heavily as panic and hope warred within him. "Then where did you even get it?"

Sella did not answer immediately.

Ordan stepped closer, peering at the sealed container. "That is impossible."

"Why would that be impossible?" Tavian demanded.

"Because the Treasury does not store ordinary, everyday memories in sealed jars," Ordan said grimly. "It stores evidence of crimes."

Sella closed her eyes, her shoulders slumping. For the first time since they had met, she looked profoundly tired rather than threatening.

"Your mother came to this very shelter many years ago," Sella confessed quietly. "She begged me to hide something away for safekeeping. I agreed to help her, because at the time, I truly believed I was helping a mother save her child."

Tavian's stomach knotted tightly. "What child are you talking about?"

Sella opened her eyes, looking directly into his face. "You."

Before anyone could speak, a massive, deafening pounding shook the heavy front door of the safehouse.

"By direct order of the Treasury," a cold, amplified voice announced from the street outside, "open this shelter immediately for routine inspection."

Sella went entirely rigid.

Ordan drew his short blade from his belt with a sharp hiss of metal.

Tavian whipped around toward the front of the building.

Through the thick wood of the door came the screech of metal scraping against metal, followed immediately by a voice that made every drop of blood in Tavian's veins run ice cold.

Hadrik Voss.

"We know the boy is hiding inside," the collector called out smoothly, the brass rings on his uniform chiming softly. "Surrender him to us now, and the rest of you will be permitted to keep whatever wretched memories you have left."

Sella scrambled across the room, grabbed a heavy iron reinforcement bar from the floor, and wedged it beneath the door handle at an angle.

"That might hold them back for perhaps a minute," she said grimly.

"And what happens after that minute expires?" Tavian asked.

"We die."

She reached up, snatched the black-wax jar labeled MARA from the shelf, and thrust it directly into Tavian's hands.

"Take this with you," she instructed urgently. "If you truly want to know the absolute truth about your mother, break this seal—but do not do it here."

The pounding at the front door grew exponentially louder, the wooden frame splintering around the hinges.

Tavian clutched the heavy glass jar tightly against his chest. "Why are you risking everything to help me?"

Sella looked at him with an expression of deep, sorrowful understanding that he could not begin to fathom.

"Because I made a sacred promise to your mother long ago," she whispered. "And because I was standing right there in the chamber when they took the first eight children."

Tavian stared at her, stunned. "What children?"

Sella's mouth trembled slightly. "Eight children were brought into the Treasury chamber. Eight true names were forcibly erased from the world. Eight massive debts were paid in full."

The iron reinforcement bar began to bend under the brute force outside.

"And you," Sella whispered, "were the ninth."

With a thunderous crash, the front door exploded inward into a cloud of splinters and dust.

A porcelain-masked collector stepped smoothly through the wreckage, its brass rings chiming softly in the gloom as it raised one pale, unblemished hand.

Behind Tavian, in his grip, the glass jar marked MARA suddenly began to fracture, a spiderweb of cracks spreading across the surface.

And from deep within the fracturing glass, a child's terrified voice whispered out into the room:

"Don't let them make me forget you again..."