The ledger had a smell Derrigan could place without thinking: old glue, cedar shavings, and the faint tang of copper from long‑handled coins. He kept it wrapped in a cloth the color of rainwater and carried it like a private confession, as if the book might mistake him for anyone else if left uncovered. He checked the spine with a fingertip the way other people checked a watch; it steadied him.
His apartment was small and honest—two rooms, a kitchenette that insisted on being practical, a workbench near the window where salvaged rune‑fragments and a battered typewriter shared a drawer. At dusk the city leaned into the glass and the alleys below unrolled their nightly business: cigarette smoke, someone arguing about rent, a boy selling paper stars that never folded quite right. Derrigan moved through it all with the careful economy of someone who wanted to leave as little damage as possible.
The ledger lay open on the table. He wrote on the left side the date, the brief account on the center, and on the right a note of consequence or thanks. The margins were for small things—the color of the sky when he made a promise, the mood of the person he promised to, details that kept vows human instead of useful. It had become his language, a way to translate obligations into something he could hold.
He read the last entry aloud because the ledger liked to be heard, or because listening made the vows feel alive. "Found—two crates of runic salvage; returned to Mr. Kwon. Cat rescued for Mrs. Hye." His voice was soft, almost apologetic. Saying the names made them more real.
There was a noise at the door, a precise tap like someone who had rehearsed politeness. Seo‑yeon stood framed by the hallway light—neat hair, neat coat, an expression that suggested lists could be morally instructive. When she smiled it was efficient, like a stamp laid down on a form.
"You're late with the manifest," she said, dropping a bundle of paper on the table without asking. "Inventory needs to be logged before midnight. The union will ding us otherwise."
Derrigan closed the ledger and felt the small surge of protectiveness that always came when someone spoke of rules as absolutes. "I know," he said. "I'll finish tonight. The ledger is a promise to a person, not a line in a spreadsheet."
Seo‑yeon's mouth twitched. "You never make it easy on yourself."
He opened the ledger at the back where he kept a gray card of emergency entries—things written to be acted upon within an hour. He had an old, private rule: if a life could be saved this evening, write it in bold and go. He kept the rule because it forced him to move when his instincts wanted to weigh costs.
"Someone left a note on the west drain," she said. "It read: To whoever keeps accounts of kindness, please help. No signature."
He felt the ledger pulse under his palm like a heartbeat not his own. He did not like to call it magic aloud; the word felt too tidy. Still, small anomalies had become annoyingly reliable: ink that rearranged itself at dawn, a margin that sometimes held a name before he met the person. He counted those things the way others counted change—small, incremental proof that the world was not entirely indifferent.
He set the emergency card down and retrieved a photograph from the bundle Seo‑yeon had brought: a scrap of a wooden toy with paint flaked away, a faint sigil stamped into its flank. He had seen that toy—half buried under a pallet in the warehouse the week before—and set it aside because it looked like something someone had loved hard enough to break.
"Dock 9," Seo‑yeon said. "Two children left in a cultivator caravan. One with ash on her face. Possible sigil mark."
Derrigan's throat tightened. He had been trying to keep the gates and the city from pressing together in ways that swallowed people whole. The ledger's small insistences felt less like miracles now and more like obligations drawn in ink. "Gather pictures," he said. "I'll go tonight. If they're wards, we bring them here."
Seo‑yeon hesitated. "You won't go alone."
He smiled at her the way he smiled when he wanted to be allowed faith without interference. "I have a name for when I go out at night," he said. "Oliphym."
She said the name like a question and then like a label that fit. "Oliphym," she repeated. "Efficient for reports."
He packed a satchel: rope, a waterproof cloak, a small knife, and the ledger wrapped in its raincloth. He hesitated only once, fingers finding the inside back cover where someone—no, some thing—had once written in an old hand the phrase: When a story answers, listen to where it leads. He did not know who had written it; the ink had not been there the first time he opened the book. He had left the line as a margin note and told himself not to worry.
Outside, the city smelled of iron and frying fat. At the docks the lanterns threw long, careful shadows across crates stenciled with foreign characters. There were traders here who dealt in spices, in relics, in things that looked almost human and then were not. Rumors had begun to skitter through the waterfront these last months—outsider caravans with their own customs, priests who spoke of distant heavens, a merchant family whose ledgers were carved in bone. Derrigan filed those rumors like he filed small debts: note, remember, act if necessary.
Dock 9 had the sense of place left behind—a caravan that still smelled of burnt incense, a banner with a sunmark singed at the edge. He moved quietly because the world taught him early that loud feet left traces. A narrow knot of papers tugged at a post, and when he reached out he found a line written in a practiced hand: If you keep accounts, take care of the children with the ash. No one signed it.
Inside the caravan two small forms huddled on a pallet. One blinked up at him with eyes rimmed in soot; the other lay smaller, thin breath visible in the cold air. Derrigan set the ledger on the pallet between them and opened it to an emergency page. He had only a moment: the ledger's rule was simple and unforgiving—ink a vow, and a vow made true when witnessed.
"What are your names?" he asked the awake child.
The child answered in a language that folded around vowels strangely. The name was not his; it sounded like a promise. He wrote it down carefully, the pen moving with deliberate affection. The ink dried and for a breath he felt, not heard but felt, something like a soft echo at the book's edge. A tiny, private shiver as if a story had touched his hand.
He carried the smaller child out into the night cradled against his chest. Seo‑yeon met him at the doorway, arms crossed and professionally concerned. "You always pick the worst times for heroics."
"Someone asked," he said. "And the ledger answered."
She studied him, then the ledger. "There's a line in the margins there," she said. "It says: Keep the accounts and keep them kind."
He looked down. He had not written those words. They rippled faintly at the edge of the paper like a tide mark. He placed his thumb over the line as if to steady it and felt the small, stubborn warmth of an oath—something to which he would answer rather than report.
That night he made two new entries: one for the children he had found, one for the promise he felt curling into the ledger like smoke. He slept with the raincloth folded at his side and the book within reach, listening for the soft, impossible sound of ink settling into its sentences.
Outside, the city held its breath. Somewhere a storyteller closed a page, and in an unlit room a man who wrote novels no one read muttered a phrase that would later visit Derrigan's dreams: There are books that write back. Derrigan did not yet know those words, but the ledger had begun to make room for them.