Chapter 22 – The Ledger and the Web
King's Landing pulsed with quiet tension.
The smell of the harbor carried inland — salt, fish, and ink — mingling with the scent of parchment and wax that filled the Tower of Coin. Every word, every whisper, every ink mark seemed heavier these days
Aden Holt moved through it like a man balancing on a blade.
The rumor of the Iron Bank's suspicions had spread far beyond the docks. By now, even the Gold Cloaks whispered of debts too large and ledgers too thin. And though Baelish's smile remained intact, his patience had begun to crack.
"Word from the Iron Bank itself," he said one morning, standing over Aden's desk. "They've sent no letters, no crows, no complaints. Yet half the city now believes they've grown wary of the Crown's Coinmaster. Curious, isn't it?"
Aden bowed his head slightly. "The city believes what it wishes to fear."
Baelish studied him for a long moment — then smiled thinly.
"See to it, then, that fear serves us. But do mind your quill, Holt. A careless stroke can ruin more than parchment.
When he left, Aden's pulse slowed only gradually.
He knows, Aden thought. Or suspects
The Game had changed. The safety of invisibility was gone.
That evening, he summoned two of his discreet informants — clerks he had cultivated with quiet generosity and selective truth.
They met in a counting room beneath the Tower, its only light a single oil lamp.
"The rumor has reached the Small Council," one whispered. "Varys asked questions about new ledgers. He knows something."
The second clerk, younger, shifted uneasily. "And Baelish's aides are watching you, my lord. One of them followed you from the harbor two nights past."
Aden's fingers tightened around his quill. "Then we change our rhythm. No more harbor meetings. No more messages through the winehouses. We use coin brokers and shipping tallies — let whispers move through numbers."
The clerks nodded, relief and fear mixing in their eyes. They trusted him, but they also sensed something he was only beginning to admit:
The web around him was no longer his. It belonged to men who had been playing this Game long before he ever entered it.
When the clerks left, Aden opened his hidden ledger — the true one, bound in dark leather. He began to write.
Every name, every debt, every false whisper he had spread. He mapped them like a battlefield, tracing lines of loyalty and deceit until they filled the page.
Then he saw it — one line out of place.
A shipment marked under a false cipher he hadn't written.
He froze. The seal was perfect, the script identical to his own. But he hadn't written it.
Someone had replicated his hand.
And the destination…
The Red Keep.
Aden's mind raced. Only one person had ever seen enough of his cipher to imitate it — one of the clerks he had just dismissed, or worse… someone inside the Spider's web.
He rose abruptly, snuffing the lamp.
The Tower was quiet, but his steps echoed like accusations.
As he reached his chamber, he found something waiting on his desk — another sealed parchment. The wax was black this time, stamped with the faint impression of a coin and a spider.
His breath caught.
He broke the seal.
"You write well, Clerk.
Too well to stay a shadow.
If you wish to live, come to the vaults at dawn.
Alone."
The signature beneath it was chillingly simple:
— P. B.
Aden's pulse thundered.
Baelish.
For the first time, his mind faltered between two choices — to go, or to run.
Outside, the wind howled through the narrow tower slits, rattling the parchment on his desk like the whisper of a thousand unseen voices.
And as the candle guttered, a shadow moved just beyond the doorway — silent, patient, watching.