Atesa Crimp's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The green cloak let Atesa walk unseen, but it did not solve her bigger problem. She collected debts in favors and secrets, and she wrote each one down. Her ledger and her loose patches rode in her bag everywhere she went. One careless moment and a thief could strip her bare. She needed a room no one knew. A place to log what she held and lock it away. She asked a dock worker where a person bought quiet. He pointed her to a boathouse sunk low into the earth, its upper walls rising like a tired ship. Deals happened there, he said, the kind no one repeated. Inside, a man in a fine red coat counted coins on an overturned crate. He smiled when he saw her. "You want something hidden," he said. "I can tell. And I'll cheat you blind on the price." He blinked, surprised at his own mouth. He smiled wider anyway. "Holt Wren," the dock worker had called him. Atesa had heard the stories. Every lie he told came out as truth. It made him the worst liar in Karridale and, oddly, the most trusted broker. "I need storage," she said. "Private. Guarded." Holt spread his hands. "The lower room here floods twice a year, and I rent it too high." He winced. "But the lock is honest, and no one asks questions." He tapped the crate. "I'd like to rob you. I won't, because I need you coming back." She studied him. His truth was a leash on him, and that leash made him safe. "I don't pay coin," she said. "I trade. A secret for the room." His eyes sharpened. "A good secret is worth more to me than rent. Yes." Atesa gave him one worth the price. A grain merchant watered his sacks. Holt laughed, delighted, and could not pretend otherwise. He handed her a heavy iron key. But a key was not enough. Thieves broke keys. She reached into her bag and drew out a pendant she had taken in payment long ago, a red stone set in gold. She had learned its trick from the debtor who owed it. Press it to a door, speak a name, and the stone warms against your skin the moment that door opens. She pressed it to the lower room's frame and spoke her own name. The stone pulsed once, warm, then cooled. Now she would feel any breach from across the town. Atesa carried her ledger down the damp steps. She logged each debt by candlelight and laid her loose patches flat in a locked chest. For the first time, her record sat somewhere she could leave and return to. She climbed back up, the pendant warm against her chest, the key cold in her pocket. Holt watched her go. "You'll want more rooms soon," he said. "I can feel it." He frowned at himself. It was, as always, the truth.