The Hall of Record stood on the far side of Red Hollow, beyond the muddy yard and the chicken runs and a fenced patch of winter cabbage. It was the only stone building in the village.

  That alone made it ominous.

  Everything else in Red Hollow had the temporary, weather-beaten look of human life fighting nature and taxes at the same time. The Hall looked permanent. Worse than permanent.

  Judgmental.

  It had no windows at ground level, only narrow slits higher up, and a square bell tower without a bell. White mortar filled the seams between black stones. The bronze sun-symbol of the Tithe hung over the entrance, polished bright enough to catch even the weak morning light.

  Dennis climbed the steps with two men at his back and one at his side.

  His wrists were tied again.

  This time the rope had been wrapped carefully above the mark.

  That told him more than any explanation could have.

  Inside, the air was cold and smelled of wax, dust, and old paper. Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, filled with ledgers large enough to serve as paving stones. Inkpots sat on narrow desks. Chains hung from some of the books, not to keep them from being stolen—Dennis suspected few in the village would dare—but to mark that they belonged to something beyond ordinary ownership.

  The Collector walked ahead of him with serene efficiency.

  “Welcome,” he said, not sounding welcoming at all, “to the memory of lawful men.”

  Dennis said nothing.

  At the center of the chamber stood a waist-high pedestal of dark wood. On it rested a single massive book bound in pale leather with iron corners.

  Unlike the other ledgers, this one was open.

  Its pages were thick, almost like parchment. No dust lay on them.

  The sight of it made the hair on Dennis’s arms rise.

  The Collector noticed.

  “Ah,” he said softly. “You feel it.”

  Dennis stared at the book. “What is it?”

  “The Ledger of Names.”

  A man in scribe’s robes emerged from a side room, blinking as though pulled from deep concentration. He was elderly, spare as a twig, and wore three magnifying lenses hinged into a brass frame over one eye.

  When he saw Dennis, he stopped walking.

  The Collector spread a hand. “A curiosity for the record.”

  The scribe’s gaze moved from Dennis’s face to his clothes, then lower, pausing at the concealed wrist. His expression soured. “Nameless?”

  “Perhaps,” said the Collector. “Perhaps merely fraudulent. We will know soon enough.”

  The scribe came nearer with obvious reluctance. “Name?”

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  “Dennis.”

  The old man looked annoyed. “Given and sworn.”

  “That is my name.”

  The scribe made a clicking sound in his throat. “An offense already.”

  The Collector nodded toward the pedestal. “Place his hand on the page.”

  One of the guards untied Dennis’s right hand and shoved him forward.

  Dennis planted his feet.

  “What does it do?”

  The Collector smiled mildly. “If you are what you claim, little. If you are under false sign, masked oath, grave-theft, or unclean bargain, considerably more.”

  That was not reassuring.

  Dennis looked around the chamber. Three guards. The Collector. The old scribe. A single door behind him and no obvious weapon within reach unless he planned to beat trained men unconscious with office furniture.

  He set his palm on the page.

  The parchment was warm.

  Not room-temperature warm.

  Skin warm.

  The old scribe dipped a pen into black ink and poised it above a blank line. “Speak full name before record.”

  Dennis swallowed. “Dennis Fajardo.”

  The pen scratched.

  Nothing happened.

  The scribe frowned.

  “Again.”

  “Dennis Fajardo.”

  The ink line on the page wavered.

  The room’s air tightened.

  Dennis felt it first in his ears, a pressure like descending too fast in an airplane. Then in the book under his hand, where warmth became heat.

  The scribe stepped back. “Collector—”

  “Continue.”

  The old man licked suddenly dry lips. “State house and oath.”

  Dennis stared at him. “I don’t have—”

  “State house and oath!”

  “I don’t have one!”

  The page beneath his hand flared white.

  The guards cursed.

  Dennis jerked back instinctively, but the book held him. Not physically; there were no chains. Yet his palm would not lift. Light ran across the page in branching lines, racing through invisible text and bursting from the edges in sharp gold threads.

  The Collector’s calm finally cracked. “What are you?”

  Dennis would have loved to know.

  The old scribe began muttering in a rapid panic, flipping through a ribbon of memorized phrases. He slammed one hand down on the ledger’s corner and shouted a word that sounded like a command.

  The light changed.

  Not weaker.

  Stranger.

  It drew inward, concentrating beneath Dennis’s trapped hand until it formed the same shape that had burned beneath his skin on the road: a lantern frame, narrow and bright.

  The mark on his left wrist answered.

  Pain lanced through his arm.

  Dennis cried out.

  The page blackened around his hand.

  Ink boiled.

  The scribe stumbled back hard enough to knock over a stool.

  One of the guards crossed himself in that same two-fingered gesture. Another backed toward the door.

  Then, with a sound like a sigh forced through a furnace, the Ledger burned a single line across its own page.

  Not random fire.

  Words.

  Glowing gold at first, then darkening to black.

  The scribe stared.

  So did the Collector.

  Dennis twisted, finally wrenching his hand free.

  The room smelled suddenly of storm rain and ash.

  “What does it say?” he demanded.

  No one answered.

  The old scribe’s face had gone grey.

  The Collector stepped closer to the page, all elegance gone. He read the line once. Then again. Then looked up at Dennis as if the world had shifted half an inch to the left and taken sanity with it.

  “What?” Dennis said.

  The Collector spoke without taking his eyes off him.

  “It says,” he whispered, “Unwritten.”

  Silence dropped over the chamber.

  The word meant nothing to Dennis.

  To everyone else, it meant far too much.

  The scribe backed away until he hit a shelf. “Impossible.”

  The Collector did not move.

  His mind was racing now; Dennis could see it. Not panic. Calculation. Reassessment. Danger.

  Then the bronze sun-symbol at the man’s throat began to glow.

  Not warmly.

  Warningly.

  The Collector’s head snapped toward the main door.

  Boots pounded outside.

  A voice shouted from the hall in a language Dennis could not understand—but its urgency needed no translation.

  The Collector’s expression hardened into decision.

  “Chain the doors,” he ordered. “No one leaves. No one enters. Send for the Prelate at once.”

  His gaze returned to Dennis.

  And for the first time, Dennis saw not contempt in it.

  Not even curiosity.

  Fear.

  Real fear.

  The kind powerful men felt only when they discovered the thing in front of them did not fit inside any box they controlled.

  The Collector took one slow step back from the pedestal.

  “By order of the Bright Tithe,” he said, voice now sharp with official force, “you are seized as an Unwritten and held for judgment under highest seal.”

  Outside, something heavy slammed against the Hall’s outer door.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Then Marta’s voice roared through the stone corridor like an approaching storm.

  “Open this door, you ledger-loving grave rats, before I remove it with your heads still attached!”