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"You owe me for your first death."
Ephraim's voice crackled through the speaker. I held the phone between us so Mara could hear.
"That's a hell of an opening line," I said.
"You want the bookkeeper who tracks the real ledgers in this city, you come to me. You want him alive, you come right now."
Mara leaned in, close enough I could smell gunpowder still clinging to her jacket. "Where?"
"Old coin exchange under Ashford. Third basement. Bring the black ledger or don't bother."
The line went dead.
"Trap," Mara said.
"Obviously."
"You're going anyway."
"Obviously."
She pulled back, eyes sharp. "The collectors know Ephraim's the only one who can read the old city debt records. They grab him, they can trace every account you just cracked open."
"So we get there first."
"With what? Good intentions and your magic book?"
I pushed off the wall. "You got a better play?"
She didn't answer. That was answer enough.
The coin exchange was a twenty-minute walk if you took the street. We took the old service tunnels, the ones that used to run between bank vaults back when Cinderfall thought it could be something better. Mara moved like she knew them, no hesitation at the forks.
"Corporate audit shark," I said. "That's what you called yourself."
"That's what I am."
"Audit sharks don't know smuggler routes."
She glanced back. "I hunt money trails. You think money stays on the surface?"
Fair point.
The tunnel opened into a maintenance shaft. Mara killed her pocket light, held up a fist. I froze.
Voices above. Two, maybe three.
"—said third basement, not second."
"Slate said secure all the floors. You want to tell him we left a gap?"
Footsteps, moving away.
Mara's hand found my wrist in the dark, pulled me forward. Her grip was cold, precise. "They're already here."
"How many?"
"Enough to make this stupid."
We dropped into the second basement through a service hatch. The air tasted like rust and old paper. Rows of filing cabinets lined the walls, half of them tipped over, contents scattered. Someone had been looking for something.
Mara moved to the stairs, checked the corner. Held up three fingers.
I nodded.
She pulled a black cylinder from her jacket, something small and mean-looking. I raised an eyebrow.
"Audit work," she whispered. "Don't ask."
She tossed it underhand. It clinked once, twice.
"What the—"
The flash swallowed the rest. We were moving before the sound finished bouncing.
First guy was on his knees, hands over his face. Mara put him down with the butt of her gun. Second was bringing his weapon up. I got there first, drove my shoulder into his chest, slammed him into the wall. His gun clattered away.
Third was faster. Already moving, already firing.
Mara shoved me sideways. The round punched through the space I'd just been standing. She returned fire, three quick shots, and the third guy dropped.
"You're welcome," she said.
"I had him."
"You had a bullet."
I picked up the dropped gun, checked the mag. Half full. Good enough.
The third basement was darker. Emergency lights cast everything in red. In the center of the room, a man sat tied to a chair, head down. Blood on his shirt, fresh.
Ephraim Slate looked older than I remembered. Grayer. Thinner.
But alive.
"Jace," he said. Didn't look up. "You brought company."
"Mara Quinn. She's—"
"I know who she is." Ephraim raised his head. One eye was swollen shut. "Question is, does she know what you are?"
Mara's gun stayed level. "I know he's got a ledger that shouldn't exist. I know someone wants it bad enough to kill for it."
"And you want to use him to trace the city's debt engine." Ephraim smiled, blood on his teeth. "That's why you kept him alive."
"That's why I'm here," Mara said. "Cut the philosophy. Where's the trap?"
"North wall," Ephraim said. "Pressure trigger. They rigged the whole office. You try to walk me out, it drops."
I moved closer, checked the ropes. Standard zip ties, tight but not impossible. "How long do we have?"
"Depends. How fast can you run?"
Mara was already at the north wall, running her fingers along the seam. "Charges here, here, and here. Old construction. Whoever set this knew the building."
"Can you disarm it?"
She didn't answer right away. That meant no.
"We need another exit," I said.
Ephraim coughed, wet and ugly. "Service shaft behind the east cabinets. Comes up in the alley. But the trigger's tied to my chair. I move, it blows."
"Then we don't move you," Mara said.
She pulled a folder from inside her jacket. Thin, battered, sealed with red tape. She stared at it for a long moment.
"What is that?" I asked.
"Proof," she said. "That I didn't take the money they say I took. That I've been hunting the same people who set you up."
She walked to the north wall, started wedging it between the charges.
"The hell are you doing?"
"Making a door." She looked back at me. "You want him out or not?"
I understood then. The explosion wouldn't collapse the room. It'd blow outward, into the tunnel. We'd have maybe ten seconds before the whole floor came down.
But she'd lose the only thing that could clear her name.
"There's another way," I said.
"There isn't."
"Mara—"
"I didn't ask for your opinion, Vale." Her hands were steady, but her voice wasn't. "You want to know why I'm helping you? Because I'm already buried. This just makes the dirt official."
She pulled a lighter from her pocket.
"When this lights, you get him to that shaft. You don't wait for me. You don't look back."
The ledger was burning in my pocket. Not literally. But I could feel it, hot and insistent, like it was trying to get my attention.
I pulled it out.
New page. Clean, empty.
Then, as Mara flicked the lighter open, ink bled across the paper.
*Mara Quinn.*
*Creditor, not collector.*
*Terms: Unknown.*
*Balance: Pending.*
I stared at it. "Mara, wait—"
She touched the flame to the folder.
The charges blew.
The world went white and loud and wrong. I was moving, grabbing Ephraim's chair, dragging him backward. Mara was beside me, or behind me, or ahead—I couldn't tell. The floor buckled. Concrete dust filled my lungs.
We hit the service shaft. Mara shoved me in first, then Ephraim. She came last, pulling the hatch shut just as the ceiling caved.
We climbed in the dark. Ephraim was cursing, steady and creative. Mara wasn't saying anything.
I still had the ledger in my hand. The page was still open.
*Creditor, not collector.*
That meant she was owed. Not by me.
By the ledger itself.
We surfaced in the alley. Rain was coming down, cold and mean. Ephraim collapsed against the wall, breathing hard. Mara checked the street, gun out, face unreadable.
I opened my mouth to ask her what the hell the ledger meant.
She turned, and her eyes went to the book in my hand.
"What does it say?"
I hesitated.
"Show me, Vale."
I held it up. She read the page, and something shifted in her expression. Not surprise. Recognition.
"You knew," I said.
"I suspected."
"Suspected what?"
She looked at Ephraim, then back at me. "That I'm not just hunting the ledger. I'm in it."
Footsteps, close. Multiple.
Mara grabbed my arm. "We move. Now."
But the ledger was still open, and new words were forming.
*Debt transfer initiated.*
*Claim holder: M. Quinn.*
*New term: Blood price, one name, paid in—*