His scream carried down the foggy canal like a blade dragged across stone—long, jagged, piercing. It wasn't the sound of pain alone. It was the tearing of identity, a cry both human and inhuman, layered voices shrieking from one throat. Seraphine and I stopped in our tracks, even the Ledger pulsing hard against my ribs, as if recoiling from the sound.
When the scream broke, the silence that followed was worse. The boy stood at the bank, mug shattered at his feet, water dripping from his lips. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated until they swallowed the irises. And his face—his face was not his own anymore. A stranger's visage had settled over his skin like a mask of flesh, pale and unfamiliar, lips twitching as though fighting to shape words.
The citizens around him gasped, then fell to their knees. Some wept, others reached toward him. They thought it a miracle. They thought a saint had chosen him. But the Ledger flared open, hissing ink:
Debtor Identified: Vessel of Stolen Face.
Nature: Bound by consumed reflection. Body hollow, soul displaced.
Directive: Sever before contagion spreads.
The boy raised his head. The stranger's face twisted, lips parting. The voice that emerged was not a child's, but deep, broken, multiple voices overlapped. "Empty… empty… empty…" The crowd echoed it, voices trembling, as if the word had been stitched into their tongues.
Seraphine tensed, her iron arm rising. "Say it, Varrow. Tell me to strike."
I staggered forward, marrow throbbing, my throat bleeding silence. The Ledger inked new options:
Options:
Burn Candle: Purge the vessel. Cost: Three marrow beats.Confess: Speak whose life you would steal if you could. Cost: Identity collapse.Spine of Iron: Force vessel's marrow to rupture. Cost: Severe fracture.
Every path shredded me. But if I hesitated, the boy would not be alone. I saw cups lifted, mugs raised, more citizens lowering their faces to the canal. Desperation had turned to frenzy. They wanted masks. They wanted anything but themselves.
Seraphine moved before I could choose. She drove her iron fist into the boards beside the boy, wood splintering. "Look at him!" she roared at the crowd. "That is no saint! That is theft in flesh!"
The boy turned toward her, his borrowed face twitching into a grotesque smile. His eyes gleamed like glass filled with stagnant water. He stepped closer, lips stretching until the skin around them cracked. And when he spoke again, the voice was mine.
"Varrow," it rasped. "Give me balance."
My marrow froze. Hearing my voice from that warped face hollowed me deeper than any toll. The Ledger seared my palm, demanding cost. I pressed my candle-mark against its page. White fire spilled forth, searing the boy's flesh. The stranger's face blistered, cracked, and peeled away, falling into the canal as a sheet of ash. For a heartbeat, I saw the boy's true face beneath—eyes wide, lips trembling. Then the ash sealed back over him, stronger, darker, etched with threads of ink.
The Ledger screamed in script:
Balance Partial. Vessel resisting purge.
Seraphine lunged, her iron arm clamping around the boy's chest. He shrieked with my voice, Aurelius' voice, the Broker's whispers all layered. Steam poured from her arm as pistons strained, but she held him, forcing him still. "Finish it, Varrow!" she shouted. "Or this spreads through the whole city!"
The Ledger's options blurred before my eyes. My marrow was ash, my throat splintered, but there was no choice. I forced one final rasp, confession tearing itself from me: "I would steal Aurelius' life back if I could."
The boy screamed as the face dissolved, the false skin sloughing away in curls of smoke. His body went limp in Seraphine's grip. She lowered him gently to the ground. He was breathing—ragged, weak—but his own face stared back now. Tears streaked his cheeks.
The Ledger inked its judgment:
Debtor Severed: Vessel of Stolen Face.
Balance: Achieved.
Cost: One confession. Integrity collapse approaches.
I sagged against the canal's railing, black bile dripping from my lips. Seraphine laid the boy on the boards, brushing damp hair from his forehead with her scarred hand. "He lives," she muttered. "For now."
The citizens whispered among themselves, their awe twisted by fear. Some still stared at the water, longing. Others fled into the fog, clutching cracked cups as though they might drink again when no one watched. None thanked us. None ever did.
The Ledger whispered faintly, ink bleeding into the margin:
Curtain rises. Faces unending.
I shut the book, trembling. The boy stirred, whispering in his own voice at last: "Who… who am I?"
I had no answer.
—End of Chapter 33—