Kael woke to unfamiliar surroundings and the smell of something medicinal.
For a long, disoriented moment, he couldn't remember where he was or how he'd gotten there. The ceiling above him was stone—grey and vaulted, carved with patterns he didn't recognize. Not his small room in the Witness dormitory. Somewhere else. Somewhere that smelled of herbs and old books and...
The child.
Memory crashed back: the alley, the faceless thing, the contract he'd made without understanding what he was agreeing to. Kael sat up too quickly and immediately regretted it. His head throbbed, and there was a bone-deep exhaustion in his limbs that suggested he'd pushed himself far past normal limits.
"Easy." A hand pressed against his shoulder, guiding him back down. "You've been unconscious for nearly a full day. Your body needs time to recover."
Kael's vision cleared enough to make out Master Vessen sitting in a chair beside the bed—a narrow cot, he now realized, in what appeared to be the House Mourning infirmary. The Witness-Master's hollow eyes studied him with clinical interest.
"The girl," Kael managed. His throat was raw. "Ember. Is she—"
"Safe. Sleeping in the next room. She exhausted herself crying after you collapsed." Vessen's tone was neutral, neither approving nor condemning. "You frightened her quite badly, you know. She thought you'd died."
"I thought I might have, for a moment there." Kael tried to sit up again, more slowly this time. The room tilted but didn't spin. Progress. "What happened to me?"
"That's what I've been trying to determine." Vessen handed him a cup of water—plain, blessedly cool. "Your body shows no physical injuries beyond minor exhaustion. But something changed inside you last night. Something significant."
The warmth.
Kael became aware of it again—that strange presence in his chest, no longer urgent as it had been in the alley, but definitely still there. A low heat, like banked coals waiting to be stirred. And beneath it, fainter, a thread of cold that he might have missed if he hadn't been paying attention.
"I feel... different," he admitted. "There's something—I don't know how to describe it. A sensation I've never experienced before."
"Describe it anyway."
Kael closed his eyes, focusing inward. The warmth pulsed slightly, as though aware of his attention.
"Heat," he said slowly. "In my chest, near my heart. Not painful—comfortable, actually. Like standing near a fire on a cold night. But there's also..." He paused, trying to isolate the other feeling. "Something colder. Deeper. It's not fighting the warmth, exactly. They're just... both there. Existing together."
When he opened his eyes, Vessen was writing in a small notebook, her pen scratching rapidly across the page.
"These sensations," she said without looking up, "did they begin before or after you encountered the creature in the alley?"
"During the walk home, I think. Before I saw the girl. But they got much stronger when I—" Kael hesitated. "When I stood between her and that thing. When I made the contract."
Vessen's pen stopped moving.
"What contract, exactly?"
Kael told her what he could remember—the creature's words about processing, about the child's debt, about his desperate offer to serve as collateral. The details were slightly fuzzy, obscured by the haze of adrenaline and terror that had characterized the encounter. But the essential facts were clear enough.
By the time he finished, Vessen had set down her notebook entirely. Her hollow eyes held an expression he couldn't quite read.
"You bound yourself as guarantee for a debt of undefined scope," she said slowly. "To a creditor designated as 'Absent.'"
"Yes. Is that... bad?"
"'Bad' doesn't begin to cover it." Vessen stood and walked to the small window, her back to him. "Absent is an accounting term in the Ledger. It refers to creditors who no longer exist in the conventional sense—beings who have departed from the physical world but whose debts remain active."
"Beings like what?"
"Like gods, Kael." She turned to face him again. "The only entities ever designated as 'Absent' in the historical records are the divine powers that disappeared during the Reckoning. You've made yourself collateral for a debt owed to a god."
The words should have been terrifying. Some part of Kael knew they were terrifying—that he should be panicking, demanding answers, trying to find a way out of whatever impossible situation he'd stumbled into.
Instead, the warmth in his chest pulsed gently, and he felt... calm. Not peaceful exactly, but steady. As though something inside him was providing reassurance he hadn't asked for.
"The girl," he said. "Ember. She owes this debt?"
"Apparently so. Though I have many more questions than answers at this point." Vessen returned to her chair. "I'm going to spend the next several days in the House archives, researching everything I can find about Absent creditors and the circumstances surrounding their debts. In the meantime, you will rest, recover, and—"
"I want to see her."
"—refrain from making any more cosmic bargains." Vessen's voice was dry. "Yes, you can see her. But Kael, listen to me carefully."
She leaned forward, and for a moment, the hollow emptiness in her eyes seemed to deepen—showing glimpses of the thousand deaths she carried, the weight of accumulated sorrow that had carved those eyes into empty pits.
"Whatever you've bound yourself to, whatever is happening inside you—don't assume you understand it. The sensations you're feeling, the changes in your perception... these things may not be friendly. They may not have your best interests at heart. Until we know more, treat everything—everything—with caution."
Kael nodded, though part of him wanted to argue. The warmth didn't feel hostile. It felt protective, almost caring. But Vessen had witnessed over three thousand deaths. She had seen more of the world's darkness than anyone Kael knew.
If she said to be careful, he would be careful.
"I understand," he said.
"Good." Vessen stood. "Rest for another hour. Then you can see the girl. And Kael?"
"Yes?"
"Try to avoid telling anyone else about what happened. Until I understand what we're dealing with, the fewer people who know, the better."
She left without waiting for a response.
Kael lay back on the cot, staring at the stone ceiling. The warmth pulsed gently in his chest, steady as a second heartbeat.
What are you? he thought, not really expecting an answer.
The warmth pulsed again. Slightly stronger this time—as though it had heard him, even if it couldn't respond.
Or wouldn't.
An hour later, a junior Witness came to escort Kael to Ember's room.
The girl was awake when he arrived, sitting cross-legged on a bed identical to the one he'd been occupying. Someone had found her clean clothes—a simple grey dress that was slightly too large, making her look even smaller than she actually was. Her hair had been washed and brushed, though it still hung in tangles around her face.
She looked up as he entered, and something in her expression shifted—relief, maybe, or something close to it.
"You're alive," she said.
"I am." Kael settled into the chair beside her bed, moving slowly. His body still felt fragile, like a cup that had been cracked and poorly mended. "How are you feeling?"
"Tired. Confused." She pulled her knees to her chest, making herself small. "The old woman—the one with the empty eyes—she said I have to stay here. That it's not safe for me outside."
"Master Vessen. She's trying to help."
"That's what adults always say." Ember's voice was flat, carrying a cynicism that seemed wrong in someone so young. "They're trying to help. They want what's best. And then they leave, or they die, or they just... stop caring."
Kael didn't know what to say to that. He remembered, distantly, feeling something similar when he was young—that sense that adults operated by rules he didn't understand, promising things they couldn't deliver.
"I'm not going to leave," he said finally. "Or stop caring."
"You can't know that."
"No. But I can choose it." He met her eyes. "I made a promise last night, Ember. To that thing in the alley, and to you. I'm going to keep it."
She studied him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then, slowly, some of the tension in her shoulders eased.
"The thing in the alley," she said quietly. "What was it?"
Kael hesitated. Vessen had told him to be careful about what he revealed. But Ember had been there. She had seen the creature, heard its words. She deserved at least partial truth.
"Master Vessen called it a Processor. Some kind of... collector, I suppose. It enforces debts."
"And I have a debt."
"Yes."
"To who?" Her voice was barely a whisper. "I don't remember owing anyone anything. I don't remember anything."
This was the difficult part. Kael considered his words carefully.
"The creature said your creditor is listed as 'Absent.' That's a designation for..." He paused. How much should he tell her? How much could a child handle? "For powerful beings. Very old, very powerful beings who are no longer around but whose records remain."
Ember absorbed this in silence. Her face revealed nothing.
"Is that why it wanted to kill me?" she asked finally. "Because I owe money to someone who's gone?"
"Not money. Something else—I don't know what exactly. And it wasn't trying to kill you, not... not in the simple sense." Kael struggled to explain what he himself barely understood. "It said it wanted to 'process' you. That your debt needed to be 'resolved.' But when I offered to be your guarantee—to take responsibility if you can't pay—it accepted that instead."
"So now if I fail, you pay instead."
"Something like that."
Ember was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was very small.
"Why would you do that? For someone you don't know?"
Kael had been asking himself the same question since he'd woken up. He still didn't have a good answer.
"I don't know," he admitted. "It felt like the right thing to do. Something inside me was... pushing me toward you. Telling me you were important."
"The warmth?"
Kael froze. "What?"
"You keep touching your chest." Ember nodded toward his hand, which had unconsciously drifted to rest over his sternum. "And when you talk about what happened, your face changes. Like you're listening to something I can't hear."
She was observant. Dangerously observant for a child with no memories.
"I'm not sure what it is," Kael said carefully. "Something changed in me last night. I feel... different. But I don't understand it yet."
Ember nodded slowly, as though this made perfect sense.
"I feel something too," she said. "Since I woke up without memories. A heaviness, here." She pressed a hand to her own chest. "Like there's something enormous sitting on me, but I can't see what it is."
Kael felt the warmth in his chest pulse—stronger than before, almost urgent. As though it was responding to her words, or to the thing she described carrying.
"Maybe we can figure it out together," he said.
For the first time since he'd met her, Ember smiled. It was small and hesitant, barely more than a flicker—but it transformed her face, making her look like an actual child instead of a small, burdened adult.
"Okay," she said. "Together."