The collectors were waiting outside the temple doors with their hands out.
The taller one held a collection receipt between two fingers. The shorter one watched Neris. Dask stood behind me, silent and sweating through his collar. I had brought him here to satisfy the temple’s audit. His collectors had followed him to collect what they thought was theirs.
“First claim matured today,” the tall one said. “We take our share before the new owner starts counting.”
He did not look at me when he said it. He was measuring how much he could take before I became an inconvenience.
Neris had the loan-release slip clenched in one hand. She glanced from the receipt to Dask. Pell remained inside the doorway, close enough to hear everything and far enough away to call it a private dispute.
“What share?” I asked.
“Three crowns from the first payment,” the collector said. “Dask agreed.”
Dask’s mouth tightened. He had warned me the collectors would demand their share. He had not explained how much, or whether their agreement was real. A useful omission, if I had let it stand. I would not.
“Show me the commission.”
The shorter collector laughed once. The taller one lowered the receipt. “You have the account schedule. We have the collection agreement.”
“Then show it.”
He glanced toward Dask before answering. That was a small mistake, but it told me who still held the center of their arrangement.
Dask looked at me. His anger had settled into the wary calculation of a man considering which part of himself he could afford to lose.
“Tell them,” I said, “that you no longer authorize them to collect.”
The taller collector shifted his weight. “He can’t revoke a settled commission.”
“Is that what your paper says?” I asked.
The collector did not answer. Pell stepped down one stair.
“Registered collection authority is revocable by the account holder,” he said. “A private commission may create a separate claim. It does not grant access to the temple schedule.”
That was the line I needed. The collectors could sue Dask for their promised share, if they had proof. They could not take a crown from a registered debtor in the name of an account they no longer controlled.
I turned to Dask. “Revoke their authority. In full. Then acknowledge that the thirty-one claims are under my control.”
His jaw worked. “You’ve got the schedule.”
Next
Can Reyn reach the original claim and establish a profitable claim on its debtor before the Soul Balance consumes the debtor’s soul tomorrow?
“I have the schedule. You have the voice they’ll obey.”
The taller collector folded the receipt. “We don’t take orders from a sick boy.”
“You take orders from Dask,” I said. “He is here.”
The collector’s eyes went to Neris again. He could make a point by taking her release slip, or by making her believe I had put her back in danger. Either would cost him less than a direct fight with me.
I gave Dask’s soul a short, exact pull.
His knees struck the stone. A raw sound escaped him, too brief to be a scream and too ugly to pass for a cough. The collectors stopped moving. Neris’s fingers crushed the temple paper until the fold split.
I released the pressure before Dask’s body could do lasting damage. His breath rasped. He stayed on his knees, one hand braced on the step.
“Revoke the commission,” I said.
Dask looked up at the collectors. He had spent years teaching them that his word could put food in their hands or leave them hungry. Now his gaze carried a different calculation.
“I revoke it,” he said. “All authority to collect under my name ends now. The claims belong to Reyn under the consolidation.”
The tall collector’s face changed first. Not fear, exactly. He had spent too long earning money from fear to mistake it for respect. He looked at Dask’s shaking hand, then at me, and finally at Pell, whose attention had sharpened.
“Put it on the record,” I said.
Pell took out his ledger. “Dask, state your name and the scope of the revocation.”
Dask obeyed. Pell wrote it down and pressed his seal beside the entry. The collectors watched the ink dry. Their old commission had been private; their access to the thirty-one registered claims had been Dask’s permission. That permission was gone.
Neris stared at me. Her eyes had returned to Dask’s bent shoulders. “Why does he do what you tell him?”
“Because refusal has a cost,” I said.
She looked down at the torn fold in her release slip. “What cost?”
I left the answer where it was. The collectors were listening, and information became more expensive when it had an audience.
The tall one introduced himself as Merrit. The shorter was Senn. They had handled collections for Dask for two years and knew the block, the debtors, and which doors opened to a knock. They also knew their income had just vanished.
Merrit held out the receipt again. “We brought in the first payment. Four crowns. Dask promised us three.”
“Dask promised it from his proceeds,” I said. “His proceeds are now under my control. The account receives four crowns first. I decide what follows.”
“That leaves us nothing.”
“For the moment.”
I took the receipt and read it. The debtor had paid four crowns against a matured claim of six. The amount was clear. The collector’s promised share was not part of the registered claim, and Pell confirmed it with a glance at the schedule.
“You can leave,” I said. “Or you can work for the account under a new commission. Every payment comes to me. You receive one crown from each four collected, after the claim enters the ledger. No taking from debtors outside the listed claims. No touching Neris. No private enforcement in my name.”
Merrit’s mouth flattened. “You want us to carry the risk for a quarter.”
“I want you to carry the work. The risk is what you earn against.”
Senn looked at Dask. “And if he tells us to ignore you?”
“Dask no longer has authority over the claims.”
Merrit examined the sealed revocation. Then he looked at the coins in my hand, the only part of the arrangement that could not be argued into existence. “We need an advance.”
Of course they did. People who lived by collecting money rarely kept enough to survive being denied it.
I counted out two crowns. Fourteen remained from the loan, before medicine and food took their portion. “This is an advance against your first commissions. You owe the account until it’s repaid.”
Merrit hesitated, then took the coins. Senn watched his hand close around them. Neither man thanked me. Gratitude would have been an expense they could not deduct.
Pell recorded the new commission on a separate sheet, with the account number, payment order, and limits stated plainly. Merrit signed first. Senn followed. Their signatures made them agents with a right to earn, not owners with a right to seize.
“Bring in the next payment by evening,” I said. “If the debtor cannot pay, bring me the original claim and the reason.”
Merrit slid the receipt across the temple step. “There’s a reason.”
He had kept one paper tucked behind the payment record. He handed it to me now. It bore the Temple’s stamp and a notice of default assessment. The debtor on the matured claim had failed to meet a separate loan obligation. The Soul Balance had scheduled the assessment for tomorrow morning.
Neris read the notice over my arm. “They’ll take the person’s soul?”
“If the account defaults,” Pell said, “the Balance will settle it under the registered terms.” His voice remained neat and professional. “The claim may become difficult to collect afterward.”
Difficult. A polished word for a soul torn apart and rendered into Holy Marrow.
Merrit tapped the notice. “We thought you should know before you counted the payment as recovered.”
He was testing my appetite now. Good. It meant he had stopped testing whether I could be ignored.
“Show me the original claim,” I said.
Merrit glanced at Senn. “It’s at the debtor’s rooms. We can take you there.”
“Before the Balance opens tomorrow.”
I folded the notice and put it inside my coat. Four crowns had entered my account. Two had gone back out to buy the hands that could reach the next debtor. Dask knelt on the temple steps behind me, and the collectors waited for my direction.
Neris stood very still with her release slip. The years were hers again. She had finally learned that a freed asset could still belong to the person who knew how to use it.