The saloon emptied without hurry, like water draining through cracked boards.Silas stayed seated.The voice still hung in the air — Dad — not echoing, just lingering, as if the word had found a body to live in and was trying it on for size.
The dealer looked away. The barkeep pretended to wipe the same glass over and over. Outside, boots thudded against boards, the clink of coin and chip returning the town to its small noises. Rustwater's heartbeat, low and steady.
The tin square sat where he'd left it, faint light pulsing under its surface. It wanted something. So did he. Neither of them remembered what.
He reached for it, then stopped.A shadow crossed the doorway.
"Don't touch it," said the man who stepped inside.
He wasn't dressed like the others.Dark coat, sand-scoured at the edges. Thin frame, too still. A copper thread ran through one sleeve, pulsing like a vein. When he moved, the light followed.The room knew him — even the air shifted.
"Broker," someone murmured.
"Thought you'd left Rustwater," Silas said, voice rough as gravel."I did," the Broker replied. "But business has a way of remembering the men who forget their debts."
He moved closer, eyes sharp but not unkind."You heard her, didn't you?"
Silas didn't answer.
The Broker sat opposite him. Between them, the table's surface was scorched in circles, the kind made by heat coils or bad memories.
"She said Dad," the Broker went on. "That's not a common echo."
Silas's hands folded tight. "Wasn't mine."
"Everything's someone's," the Broker said. "Question is — who paid for you to hear it?"
He reached inside his coat and drew out a ledger the size of a Bible, its spine half leather, half copper filament. When he opened it, the pages breathed light — tiny squares of shifting data embedded between handwritten lines. Each name flickered, time-stamped, some crossed out like gravestones.
He turned a few pages. Then stopped."There."The word was a nail hammered quietly.
Silas leaned forward. His name — carved neat, careful. But the dates were wrong. One entry carried the mark 14 years ahead.
"That ledger's off," Silas said.
"It's never off."The Broker turned the book toward him. "You purchased a fragment labeled The Daughter's Voice. Scheduled delivery long after you should be dust."
Silas felt something under his ribs — a tightness not yet grief, but walking toward it.
"I didn't buy that," he said.
The Broker shut the book. "Then you're not the one making the trades. Maybe it's the man who remembers being you."
Silas stood. The deck of cards in his pocket rattled."I came here for answers, not riddles."
The Broker smiled, small and patient."Answers are for men who still believe in truth. You want direction. That, I can sell."
He picked up the tin square with tongs, turning it in the light. The pulse steadied, then dimmed — listening.
"This one's dangerous," he said. "Old Archive work. The kind that stored bloodlines, not files. They say every Archive keeper had one — to bind memory to inheritance."
He set it down gently, as if it might bite."When the towers fell, some thought destroying them would free us. Others sold the pieces. You're holding both kinds of sin."
Silas rubbed his thumb against the table's grain. "What happens if I play it again?"
The Broker's eyes softened, and for a moment, pity cracked through the caution."You'll remember what you tried to forget. And then you'll wish you hadn't."
He closed the ledger."You want my advice? Walk away. The Archive burns those who look back too long."
Silas picked up the square. Its warmth bled into his palm, alive again."I don't walk away easy," he said.
The Broker nodded, almost approving. "Then leave something behind, so we know you were real."
Silas took out the deck. Drew one card blind. Laid it on the table.
The Queen of Hearts.Her face was gone — burned clean off, leaving only the suit.
He turned without another word and stepped into the sunlight.
Outside, Rustwater hummed with broken machinery and rumor. The square in his hand pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat remembering its owner.Behind him, the Broker turned over the card. A faint vibration shivered through his fingertips.
It wasn't ink. It was data.
He smiled without humor."The past always leaves its mark," he said quietly, as the hum faded to nothing.