The Echo Broker rose from its crouch, dripping nets swaying like funeral veils. The mouths stitched across its swollen head opened wider, teeth grinding against thread, voices spilling in a torrent that made the boards beneath my boots shiver. My father's voice whispered shame. Aurelius' voice promised disappointment. And my own voice—the one I had lost—rang out strong and clear, mocking me with every syllable.
"Varrow, Varrow, Varrow," it chorused, every mouth speaking in perfect rhythm. "You are debt. You are envy. You are fraud."
The Ledger scalded my chest, pages snapping open with fury:
Debtor Confirmed: Echo Broker.
Phenomenon: Leases voices, sells silence.
Directive: Collect.
Seraphine's iron arm flared bright, steam venting from its joints. She leveled it at the creature, jaw set. "Tell me what to strike, Varrow. The Ledger won't speak to me."
I staggered forward, candle-mark flickering faintly, throat bleeding raw silence. The options inked themselves across the Ledger's page:
Option One: Burn Candle—Scorch the voices, sever the threads. Cost: Two marrow beats.
Option Two: Confess—Offer your fractured voice as payment. Cost: Identity collapse risk.
Option Three: Spine of Iron—Force the Broker into corporeal collapse. Cost: Severe marrow fracture.
The mouths laughed. My laughter, Aurelius' laughter, my father's all blended together into something grotesque. It swelled and echoed until I could hardly hear myself think. Threads of blue light lashed from the Broker's body, tethering to the huts around us. Windows shuddered as citizens inside gasped soundlessly, their voices pulled into the Broker's sack of mouths.
Seraphine swore. "It's bleeding the quarter dry!" She raised her arm and smashed a nearby tether, iron fist breaking it in a burst of sparks. The voice it had stolen wailed free, but only for a heartbeat before another thread coiled out to seize it again.
The Ledger trembled in my hands. My candle-mark seared as though begging me to spend more of myself. I looked at Seraphine, her eyes demanding I decide. Always I had to decide. Always I had to pay.
I pressed the candle-mark against the Ledger's page. Fire erupted, spilling white light into the ruin. The Echo Broker shrieked—not with one mouth, but with all of them. Dozens of voices screamed, words scattering into the fog like shards of glass.
Two marrow beats tore from my body. My knees buckled, bones creaking like broken timber. Pain carved through my chest, hollowing me deeper. But the fire lashed the Broker's sack-head, burning threads until mouths burst open in smoke and ink.
Seraphine seized the moment. Her iron arm roared, pistons screaming, and she slammed her fist into the Broker's chest. The thing staggered back into the ruin's collapsed beams. Nets tore, reeds scattered, fish bones cracked beneath its bulk.
The Ledger inked furiously:
Balance Pending. Debtor weakened. Final strike required.
The Broker's surviving mouths chanted louder, my stolen voice ringing sharpest. "Varrow, Varrow, you are nothing. You are mask without saint, candle without flame."
I felt my resolve flicker. The voice was too true, too strong, as though it had stolen the part of me that still believed I mattered. My chest hollowed. My vision dimmed. But Seraphine's grip seized my shoulder, her scarred human hand anchoring me.
"Listen to me," she snapped. "That's not you. That's debt talking. Not truth. Debt."
The Ledger pulsed in agreement, a final line scrawling across its page:
Directive: Collect. Finalize account.
I staggered forward, each step agony, marrow screaming in protest. The candle-mark flared once more, brighter than it should have, brighter than it had any right to be. I slammed the Ledger against the Broker's chest.
The stitched mouths wailed. Voices ripped free in a torrent, flooding the ruin. Shouts, sobs, prayers, songs—all stolen, all returned in a storm of sound. The Broker convulsed, its sack-head splitting, ink spraying in jets. Seraphine's iron fist crushed the last tether, and the Echo Broker collapsed into a heap of nets and bone, its voices bleeding away into the fog.
Silence followed. Not hungry silence. Not leased silence. Real silence. The kind that belonged to the city.
The Ledger wrote its judgment:
Debtor Severed: Echo Broker.
Voices Returned: 64.
Cost: Two marrow beats. Integrity further diminished.
I sagged, nearly falling, but Seraphine caught me again. Her iron arm hissed, but her human hand gripped firm. She stared into the fog where the Broker had been, eyes grim. "How many more?" she asked softly.
The Ledger whispered against my ribs, faint ink already scrawling:
Debtors: Unending.
I shut the book, my throat aching, my marrow burning. "Too many," I rasped.
We stood together amid the ruin, fog curling around us. Somewhere distant, a bell tolled, carrying through the canals like a judge's gavel. The Playhouse had burned. The Listener had shattered. The Broker had collapsed. And still the city whispered, waiting for its next debtor to take the stage.
—End of Chapter 24—