A mistake.
“I’m sure it is.” Kazen’s voice was smooth and unhitched despite his age. He’d never disclosed the number to Sandis, but she guessed him to be in his midsixties. He loomed above the banker—above her, and above nearly everyone, save the broad-shouldered Skeet in the back. The mobsmen were not so different from the grafters, save that they didn’t delve into the occult to fight their battles. They didn’t make humans like Sandis into heathenish weapons. In general, they stayed clear of the grafters. But Kazen had recently done business with the Skeets, and money made for easy alliances . . . as did common enemies, which these bankers appeared to be.
Still, the Skeets kept to themselves as Kazen challenged the bankers. Few knew the rituals necessary to dip into the ethereal plane, and even fewer had the courage to try. If the bloodwork wasn’t right, a numen could go wild and attack its summoner. If the police discovered any involvement in the occult, the summoner and his vessel would go straight to Gerech Prison, which was, perhaps, the one place in Kolingrad more frightening than Kazen’s lair. It was also heresy—not that Kazen cared for religion.
Sandis did. Or had. But that didn’t matter anymore.
The brim of Kazen’s hat cast a shadow across his long face. A shadow that concealed the glimmer of his eyes—a glimmer that, if read properly, would reveal his intentions before his words did. Sandis had become fluent in the language of Kazen’s eyes. He was unaware of that fact, or so she hoped. She had few advantages when it came to her master. She liked to think the language of the glimmer was one of them.
“My request to see the ledgers should not be of any particular consequence,” Kazen insisted.
Did the banker hear the threat in his words? They raised gooseflesh on Sandis’s arms. A simple request, but nothing Kazen ever did or said was simple. In all the years she’d spent with him, Sandis had never once heard the man raise his voice, barter, or plead. He’d never needed to. Every person in this room—in this city—was a game piece, and he was a champion player.
The banker nodded and turned back to his two associates. They whispered something under their breath—one of the three Skeets leaned in to listen. Kazen stood erect save for the slight tilt of his head. Both of his large, spidery hands clasped the silver top of his cane. He did not look at her.
For the most part, Sandis kept her face forward. Kazen did not like his vessels participating in his business, and so she never did, even with her expressions. But her eyes dipped as the banker brought out a locked box and set it on the sterile table before him, fidgeting with the key until he had it open.
“I don’t think they are necessary.” The banker glanced at the mobsmen.
Kazen took the first ledger, looked it over, and set it aside. He picked up the second, read the cover, and flipped it open. A ledger with last month’s expense reports, judging by the date. Sandis made sure to avert her eyes once she’d read it. Vessels weren’t allowed to read. Kazen believed she couldn’t. Another small advantage she had, and one she would not give up.
“Your shortcomings affect my business with them. They are quite necessary.” Kazen flipped through another page, and another. One of the Skeets met her eyes, but he quickly looked away.
Alliances aside, he had every right to fear her, though she could do no harm without Kazen. She rarely remembered what he used her for. That was another secret she kept from her master. A vessel was never supposed to remember what happened when she was possessed.
Ireth. The name sounded so loudly in her mind that for a terrifying second, she thought she had spoken it. But the proceedings continued on as normal, with her as a forgotten amenity. Carefully, she glanced around the room, trying to read faces, trying to ignore the smells of sweat, kerosene, and fear that these dark, solid walls seemed to amplify. There were two safes in the farthest corner of the room. No windows. All the lamps but two had been moved to hang over the table where Kazen flipped through pages with painstaking care.
One of the bankers, a younger, thinner man, looked ready to faint. His face was white, his eyes rimmed purple. Sandis didn’t linger on him long—she didn’t want to make him feel worse by setting her attention on him.
A stretch of corkboard pinned with various papers and notes lined the wall to her left. More ledgers, binders, and papers sat stacked on the cabinets beneath it. Her gaze moved slowly over the lettering—she could read, but she’d never had a classroom in which to practice. It took a moment to piece things together.
Donations, that’s what it said. And next to it, Gold Exchange.
Kazen muttered something, but as Sandis moved her gaze back to the bankers, her eyes caught a word that she read instantaneously—a word she knew well, for it was her own last name: Gwenwig.
Her breath caught, and as soon as it did, she forced herself to look forward until it returned to an ordinary pattern.
“That is how banks work, Kazen.” This time the third banker spoke—not the wet-lipped one or the overly pale one, but the oldest one. Wrinkles crimped his forehead into a tangle of lines. “There is always borrowing and lending.”
Sandis glanced back at the ledger and found the name once more. Gwenwig. It was not a beautiful name, and it was not a common one. She knew only three other people with that name, and they were all dead.
“Oh, but, Mr. Bahn,” Kazen said, the silkiness of his voice making Sandis shudder, “I have a special deal with your corporation. That is not how my funds work.”
Gwenwig. She dared to tilt her head a little more to read the full entry: Talbur Gwenwig. A male name. Not her father’s or brother’s. She’d never heard it before.
Breathe, Sandis. She swallowed and willed her heart to steady. Kazen noticed everything, even when it seemed he did not. She moved her eyes forward again, but upon seeing the terror on the three bankers’ faces, she let her gaze fall to the floor.
Gwenwig. Gwenwig. Gwenwig.
Could she have family somewhere in Dresberg?
Did she have family?
Her mouth went dry. The discussion in the room dribbled to a buzz in her ears. Her parents had died when she and Anon were still young. Her brother had perished shortly before Kazen bought her. She had no one left. No one but the grafters, and Ireth.
But . . . Gwenwig. Could her salvation be sitting a few feet to her left?
Kazen’s cold hand landed on her shoulder, his long fingers curling around it. Sandis lifted her eyes but did not meet his. What had she missed? Something terrible, if her master was paying her attention. He only did so in public for one reason.
The three bankers watched her with stark fear. Two of the three Skeets left the room.
“Kazen,” the oldest banker said too loudly, perhaps trying to push authority into his voice. “This is unnecessary!”
“I don’t believe so.” Kazen turned Sandis toward him, away from the ledger she desperately wanted to read. If she turned back, he would know, so she looked at the floor and closed her eyes, waiting, her blood running faster in anticipation of the summoning. Kazen hesitated for a brief moment—was he looking over her shoulder?—but then his palm pressed into her hair, and she forced herself not to cringe. He must be eager to act; he usually made her undress first, so as not to waste clothing.
It never got easier. No matter how many times Kazen summoned a numen into her, it never got easier. Neither did the fear it instilled into Kazen’s victims, nor the pure, unrelenting pain possession wreaked upon her body.
Her stomach tensed, but she opened her mind, welcoming Ireth. Acceptance made the transition more bearable.
Ireth didn’t mean to hurt her.