Chapter 6
The First National Bank downtown has been around so long it’s become invisible.
It has a granite facade with brass fixtures tarnishing green with age, and revolving doors that probably haven’t been replaced since the seventies.
People walk past it every day without really seeing it—just another piece of the city’s architecture, unremarkable and forgettable.
Perfect camouflage for a doorway to another world.
And I’m about to walk away from it for a year.
I packed a bag this morning. Not much, a few changes of clothes, my ritual knife, a photo of Luna I keep in my wallet. I doubted I’d need much, and if they need me to look a certain way, well, they’ll have to provide.
I left my apartment keys with the building manager and paid six months’ rent in advance from my emergency fund. Finally, I set up the auto-pay for Luna’s tuition, all in preparation.
It didn’t take long to tie up all the loose ends of a life I’m not sure I’ll come back to.
And now I’m here.
Across the street from a bank that’s also a doorway to the House of Gold.
I check my phone one last time. 11:59. Two more minutes to stand here, pretending I have a choice. Pretending I could turn around and walk away and live with the consequences.
But I can’t.
Luna’s face flashes through my mind, laughing over coffee, excited about her classes, safe in her normal world. That’s what this is for. That’s why I’m doing this.
I cross the street.
The revolving door is heavy, old, brass and glass that need cleaning.
It takes effort to push through, and when I step into the bank lobby, the temperature drops at least ten degrees.
Air conditioning, probably. But it feels like more than that.
Feels like crossing a threshold, like the air itself knows I don’t belong here.
The lobby is exactly what you’d expect from a bank this old: marble floors, high ceilings with ornate molding, teller windows with brass bars.
Everything is beige and boring and designed to make you feel small and insignificant.
A few customers are scattered around—a woman filling out a deposit slip, an older man arguing quietly with a teller, a businessman checking his phone while he waits in line.
None of them look at me.
I head toward the back, where a sign points to “Safe Deposit Boxes” with an arrow. My boots click on the marble, too loud in the hushed space. A security guard by the door tracks me with his eyes but doesn’t move. Just watches. Observes.
Does he know what this place really is?
The hallway to the vaults is narrow and poorly lit. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting a sickly yellow light on linoleum floors and beige walls. There are doors on either side, each labeled with a number. Vault one. Vault two. Vault three.
I walk past them, counting. Looking for seven.
The hallway seems longer than it should be. Not impossibly long, not stretching or shifting or doing anything obviously magical. Just...long. Like a hallway in a dream where you keep walking but never quite get where you’re going.
Or maybe that’s just nerves.
Vault seven is at the end of the hall, on the left. The door is solid steel, painted the same institutional beige as everything else. There’s a keypad next to it, blinking red. Locked.
I check my phone. 12:00.
I stand there, staring at the door, and let myself feel everything I’ve been pushing down for the last few days. The fear. The anger. The grief for the life I’m leaving behind, for a grandmother who dumped this on me, for a sister I might not see again for a year.
I let it wash over me, through me, and then I lock it down. Push it into the box where I keep all the things I can’t afford to feel.
I need to be sharp for this. Strong. Unbreakable.
Even if I’m terrified.
12:01.
The keypad blinks green. A soft click echoes in the quiet hallway.
The door swings open on silent hinges.
Beyond it, there’s darkness. Not the normal darkness of an unlit room, but complete, absolute absence of light. Like looking into a void.
I take a breath. Let it out slowly.
Then, I step through.
The transition is immediate and disorienting.
One moment I’m in a narrow bank hallway, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Next, I’m standing in a space that my brain can’t quite process.
It’s not that it’s impossible. It’s that it’s too much.
Gold. Everything is gold.
The floor beneath my boots is gold, not painted, not plated, but solid gold polished to a mirror shine.
I can see my reflection in it, distorted and wavering.
The walls are gold, rising at least thirty feet to a ceiling that’s also gold, inlaid with intricate lines and swirls of a darker, deeper gold.
The light comes from everywhere and nowhere, no visible source, but everything is illuminated with a warm, heavy glow making the air feel thick. Rich. Like breathing in wealth itself.
The temperature is different too. Not cold like the bank lobby, but warm. Almost uncomfortably so. Like too many bodies in too small a space, except there’s no one here but me.
And the smell.
Metal. That’s the predominant note, the sharp, mineral scent of gold and brass and copper. But underneath it, there’s something else. Something organic. Incense, maybe. Or smoke. Or the faint, unsettling scent of something burning very far away.
I take a step forward, and my boot echoes in the vast space. The sound carries, bounces off walls and comes back to me distorted.
I’m in a hallway. I think. It’s wide, maybe fifteen feet across, with doors on either side.
Lots of doors. More doors than should fit in a space this size.
They’re all identical: tall, gold, with no handles or knobs or any visible way to open them.
Just smooth metal surfaces that reflect my image back at me a hundred times over.
Behind me, the door I came through has vanished. Just another gold wall, seamless and unbroken.
No way back. No escape.
The hallway stretches ahead of me, straight at first, then curving slightly to the right. I can’t see the end. Can’t see anything except more gold walls, more identical doors, more reflections of myself looking small and out of place in all this wealth.
Obviously, it’s designed to be disorienting. All the doors look the same. The hallway curves just enough that you lose track of where you came from. The gold reflects everything, distorts everything, makes it impossible to get your bearings.
A maze. That’s what this is. A beautiful, oppressive maze designed to keep you trapped.
Or to make you so turned around that you’re grateful when someone comes to guide you.
I stand there for a moment, trying to orient myself.
Trying to figure out if there’s a pattern to the doors, a way to navigate this space.
But every door is identical. Every stretch of hallway looks the same.
And the reflections, my face looking back at me from a hundred golden surfaces, makes it impossible to focus.
“Lost already?”
The voice comes from behind me. I spin, hand going instinctively to my belt where my knife is,
It’s not Auric, whom I expect to greet me, or at least taunt me, after our last encounter.
The woman standing in the hallway is small, maybe five feet tall, with skin the color of birch and eyes that are completely black.
Not dark brown, but black. Like looking into a starless sky.
Her hair is white, pulled back in a severe bun, and she’s wearing what looks like a servant’s uniform from a hundred years ago, long black dress, white apron, sensible shoes.
She’s not human. I can tell immediately. There’s something about the way she stands, the way she doesn’t quite cast a shadow despite the omnipresent light, the way her eyes reflect nothing.
“I’m here for Croesus,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “I was told to report at noon.”
“You’re on time.” Her voice is flat, emotionless. Like she’s reciting lines she’s said a thousand times before. “Follow me.”
She turns and walks down the hallway without checking to see if I’m following. I hesitate for just a second, every instinct screaming that following strange supernatural beings deeper into a maze is a bad idea, then go after her.
What choice do I have?
She moves quickly despite her small stature, her shoes making no sound on the golden floor.
I follow, my boots echoing with every step.
The hallway curves, branches, curves again.
We pass dozens of identical doors. I try to keep track of the turns, to build a mental map, but it’s useless.
Left, right, left, straight for a while, right again, within two minutes I’m completely disoriented.
Exactly as designed.
“How big is this place?” I ask more to break the oppressive silence than because I expect an answer.
“The house is as large as it needs to be,” the woman says without looking back.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer you’ll get.”
We walk in silence after that.
The woman doesn’t pause, acknowledges nothing. Just keeps walking. Is this what I will become?
My legs start to ache by the time we finally stop. We’re standing in front of another door, identical to all the others except for one detail: this one has a handle. Gold, ornate, shaped like a serpent eating its own tail.
“Lord Croesus is expecting you,” the woman says. “Enter when you’re ready. Do not make him wait long.”
She walks away before I can ask any questions, disappearing around a corner and leaving me alone in the golden hallway.
I stare at the door. At the serpent handle, at my reflection in the polished gold surface. I look pale. Scared. Small.
I straighten my shoulders. Lift my chin. Force my expression into something that might pass for confidence even though my heart is trying to beat out of my chest.
I reach for the handle. The gold is warm under my palm, almost alive. It feels like touching skin rather than metal.
I turn it, and the door swings open silently.
Beyond it is a room.
And in that room, waiting for me, is the Angel of Greed.