Chapter 16 Ivalys
SIXTEEN
IVALYS
The Bone Market spreads through Gravebind’s dead heart like a cancer.
I’ve heard of this place. Everyone in the Inkwell has—whispered warnings about the bazaar where forbidden goods change hands, where debts can be bought and souls can be traded, where the desperate come to make bargains worse than the ones that ruined them.
But hearing about it didn’t prepare me for seeing it.
The stalls are carved from ribcages. Massive ones—creatures that died in some ancient war, their bones repurposed as vendor booths. Femurs serve as tent poles.
The sound is almost worse. Haggling in a dozen languages, the clink of coin-teeth—currency extracted from the dead—and music from somewhere deep in the maze. Strange melodies played on instruments made from bone.
And everywhere, everywhere, people.
The desperate. The criminal. The damned. The crowds press on all sides as I half-carry Rathok through the market’s entrance, hands reaching from shadow, offering goods or seeking payment.
“Keep moving.” Rathok’s voice is a rasp in my ear. He’s heavier than he was a minute ago—slumping more, struggling to keep his feet under him. “Northwest corner. Down the bone stairs. Through the tomb with the red curtain.”
I follow his directions. The market-goers part around us—not from courtesy, but from the look in my eyes. Or maybe from the blood covering us both. Rathok’s blood, mostly. So much of it.
The truth-speaking still echoes through my bones. I feel it—a residue of whatever moved through me in that chapel, whatever let me burn away the Ledger Master’s contracts with nothing but words. My mother’s gift. My inheritance.
I said he wasn’t the Ledger Master’s property. And the magic believed me.
More than believed. It responded. Burned away claims that have bound countless souls. Voided contracts written in the blood of the damned. Because I spoke truth, and truth has power in Gravebind. Even—especially—when everything else is built on lies.
The bone stairs spiral down into the market’s depths. Rathok stumbles on the third step, and I catch him—take more of his weight, feel his arm tighten around my shoulders. His breath is shallow. Ragged. The wounds on his arms are still seeping.
“Almost there.” I don’t know if I’m telling him or myself. “Just a little farther.”
The tomb with the red curtain sits at the bottom of the stairs—a converted burial chamber, velvet drapes over bone walls, shelves displaying merchandise I don’t want to examine too closely. The air here smells of old paper and older magic.
“Madame Viscera.” I call out the name like a prayer. “I need Madame Viscera. Rathok Grimshaw is here.”
Movement in the shadows. A figure emerges from behind the velvet curtains—ancient, impossibly ancient.
“Grimshaw.” She looks past me to where Rathok slumps against a shelf of bottled memories. “You look terrible.”
“Debt-golem.” He forces the words out. “Ledger Master’s direct construct. She burned the contracts off me.”
Those sharp eyes snap to me. Study me. Take in the sigil on my palm, the marks on my arm, the truth-light that probably still lingers around me like smoke.
“Truth-speaker blood.” Her voice is like dry leaves rustling. “Haven’t seen that in fifteen years.”
“You knew my mother.”
“I knew Maren Vane.” She steps closer. Her teeth are filed to points—old fashion, something from before the Ledger Master’s rise. “I have her key.”
My throat constricts. My mother, thinking of me. Planning for me. Even while she was dying.
“A key to what?”
“To the Ledger Master’s weakness.” Madame Viscera’s smile shows all those pointed teeth. “The original contract that gave him power—before he started consuming souls, before he built his empire, before he became the thing he is now.”
“Where is it?”
“The Vault beneath the Ledger Hall. Buried at the bottom of three centuries of claimed debts, voided contracts, broken promises.” She tilts her head, studying me with those ageless eyes. “Your mother found it once. Spoke truth over it but didn’t complete it.”
“I will finish what she started.”
Madame Viscera claps once, the sound sharp in the tomb’s silence.
“The power responds to genuine belief. Your mother spent years learning to find the truth in fraudulent contracts.
You—“ She points at me with one gnarled finger. “You already know what’s true. You just have to learn to speak it loud enough for the magic to hear.”
“How?”
“Practice. Time. Neither of which you have.” She moves to a shelf, rummages through bottles and boxes, pulls out a small vial of something that glows faintly green. “This will help with his wounds. Won’t heal him completely—nothing short of a week’s rest will do that—but it’ll keep him functional.”
I take the vial. “What do you want for it?”
“Nothing.” She waves a hand. “Maren paid for it fifteen years ago. Consider it part of her estate.”
My throat tightens. My mother, planning ahead. Leaving resources for a daughter she knew would one day need them. I hand the vial to Rathok.
“What else did she leave?”
“Information.” Madame Viscera settles into a chair made of compressed contract-paper, her old bones creaking.
“The Ledger Master’s founding contract is in the Vault, yes.
But getting to the Vault requires going through the throne room.
And the room—“ Her expression shifts. Something almost like pity.
“The throne room is where he keeps his weapons.”
“Weapons?”
“People. Transformed. Like that golem, but worse—because they chose to be what they are.” She leans forward. “Your brother, child. He offered himself to the Ledger Master to save you. Willingly. And the Master accepted.”
The air leaves my lungs.
I knew Gror was being transformed—the marks on my arm told me that much, and Rathok confirmed it. But willingly. My idiot, selfless, stupid brother walked into the Ledger Master’s hands and volunteered to be rewritten. To save me.
“If rumor is correct, he’s the Hall’s guardian.” Madame Viscera’s voice is gentle, which somehow makes it worse. “His will is bound to the Master’s purpose. He won’t recognize you. Won’t remember you. He’ll try to stop you, and he’ll have the power to do it.”
“There’s got to be a way to change him back.”
“Truth-speaking doesn’t work on the willing.” She shakes her head. “Your mother tried—spent years trying to free people who’d chosen to be bound. The magic can only void fraud. It can’t undo genuine agreement, no matter how desperate the circumstances that led to it.”
“But if I destroy the Ledger Master—“
“Then the contracts he holds might void themselves. Might.” Madame Viscera emphasizes the word. “It depends on how they were constructed. Some will release when he falls. Others—the ones built on genuine consent—might hold forever.”
Rathok’s hand closes on my shoulder. Heavy. Steadying.
“One problem at a time.” His voice is rough, but stronger than it was.
The vial’s contents must be working—some color returning to his skin, some steadiness to his stance.
“First we reach the throne room then the Vault. Find the founding contract. You speak truth over it, destroy the Ledger Master’s power at its source. Then we deal with Gror.”
“To reach the Vault, you’ll have to face what your brother has become.
” Madame Viscera stands, moves toward the curtained back of her stall.
“The throne room is his domain now. The Master put him there specifically—because he knows you’ll come.
Because he knows the one thing that might stop a truth-speaker is family. ”
“It won’t stop me.”
“No?” She pauses at the curtain. Looks back over her shoulder. “Your mother said the same thing, child. Right before she overreached—right before the Ledger Master found a way to get close enough to poison her.”
The words hang in the tomb’s stale air.
“There’s a path.” Madame Viscera pushes through the curtain and gestures for us to follow.
“Through the deep catacombs. Below even the Vault. It will take you into the throne room from beneath — avoid most of the defenses. Give you a chance to reach the contract before the Master realizes you’re coming. ”
Behind the curtain, a doorway yawns in the bone wall — stairs spiraling down into absolute blackness. The air that climbs up is ancient. Not merely cold.
Used.
“Down there?” I stare into the void.
Her gaze drops to the darkness.
“The Forsworn Deep.”
The words settle heavily, as though they do not like being spoken.
“Older than Gravebind. Older than law. Where the first oaths were broken before anyone knew how to bind them.”
A tremor passes through the stone beneath my boots.
My throat tightens. “What’s down there?”
“Nothing that sleeps.” Her eyes flick back to mine. “Only what remembers.”
The air shifts, thickening.
Even my night-sight recoils from it — the magic in my blood pulling back like a hand from flame.
“It’s the only place the Ledger Master does not watch,” she continues. “Because even he does not trust what listens below.”
“What listens?”
A soft laugh. “If it answers you, do not answer back.”
She presses a faintly glowing blue vial into my palm. “Light. It will last until dawn.” A glance toward some unseen measure of time. “Less than four hours.”
Four hours to cross the Deep.
Four hours to breach the Ledger Hall.
Four hours to speak truth over a contract that has fed for three centuries.
Four hours to save my brother.
To end the Master.
To survive what remembers the first broken word.
“Thank you.” The words feel inadequate.
“Don’t thank me yet.” Madame Viscera steps back. “Thank me when you survive. If you survive.” Her weathered face softens—just for a moment. “Your mother was the bravest woman I ever knew. She died trying to free this city. Don’t let her death be meaningless.”
I turn to the stairs. To the void below.
Fear curls in my stomach. Cold and tight and very real. I’ve been running on adrenaline and desperation since Gror’s apartment, since the contract burned itself into my palm. But standing here, staring into that absolute blackness, the reality of what I’m about to do crashes over me.
I’m going to face the creature who murdered my mother. Who caged my brother. Who wants to bind my gift to his service and use me to enslave an entire city.
And I have four hours to destroy him or die trying.
Rathok’s hand finds mine. His fingers lace through mine—warm despite his blood loss, steady despite his wounds. The mark glows where our skin meets.
“With me.” Not a question.
I squeeze his hand. “All the way down.”
We descend into the dark.