Noxia Shade's Arc

Chapter 14 of 15

The door past the keeper's shelf did not lead to an assignment room. It led down stone steps into a grand underground hall lined with arches and dim chandeliers. The keeper was waiting at the bottom, arms folded. "Your debt is due now," he said. "Not next week. Tonight." At the center of the hall stood a massive thorned plant, its many eyeless heads hung with tokens. Noxia saw her own — a small blue gem shaped like a dragon's eye — pinched between two yellow petals. The keeper tapped a thorn. "Refuse, and the plant eats it. You walk out as no one." She had no coin worth the debt. So she gave him what she had. She sat, unlaced one boot, and set it on the stone between them. The smell rose fast. A guard near the wall folded at the knees. The keeper's eyes watered, but he did not fall. He understood. "A favor owed in kind," he rasped. "One target of my choosing, no questions." Noxia nodded once and pulled the boot back on. The keeper plucked her blue gem from the thorns and pressed it into her palm, warm and whole. Her token stayed on the board. But now a second name owned a piece of her hand, and the spymaster's trust felt one step further away.